I recently wrote an article for the current issue of Antique Shops and Designers – a décor magazine which is produced here in Houston. This was the fourth issue I had contributed to, and this time I chose to tackle a subject I am asked about a lot: How do I get my husband to let me decorate the way I want to? Now, understand that I used the word “husband” because this is the most typical scenario, but this situation can apply to any couple. It may be the wife who doesn’t care to decorate, or it could be a same-sex couple, or even roommates with differing decorating opinions. The age of the `couple can widely vary. When my daughter went to college last year, she was interested in decorating her dorm room, while her roommate wasn’t at all, and I suspect that young sisters sharing a room can also experience this.
Parts of this article are tongue in cheek and parts are more serious. When you live with someone who lets you decorate the way you want, it’s hard to imagine how much anguish can occur when your partner is opposed to your ideas and talent. I can’t tell you how many emails I get from people who talk about this problem. This article details ways one might try to get a spouse to understand just what they are going through, when they aren’t allowed to decorate.
To read the article, go HERE. To read all the past issues of the magazine, go HERE.
For the article, I used these two pictures of my family room to illustrate the difference between having a ceiling fan – which my husband insisted we have for years and years AND…
How the same room looks now with a lantern instead of the dreaded ceiling fan. To keep Ben cool, I have a small standing fan in the corner just for him, which he uses about 25 percent of the time. He used to run the ceiling fan 24/7.
This reader sent in a picture of her orange brick fireplace that her husband refused for years and years to let her repaint.
And after, under pressure from their daughter, her husband relented and she painted her fireplace white – to go with her all white décor.
To read this story of this fireplace – All In the White Family - go HERE.
Convincing Your Husband To Decorate Your Way
One question I get asked over and over again, as both an interior designer and as a blogger, is what to do about husbands (or partners) who refuse to let you decorate your house the way you want to? What happens if one partner has exquisite taste, while the other has, well, less than wonderful taste? How does a wife tell her husband to leave the decorating to her? Men and women have such different ideas about decorating and let’s just admit that most husbands’ design preferences are clichéd. For instance, what is it about wood paneling that men love so much? I can’t count the number of times I’ve gotten an email from a distraught wife telling me her husband refuses to let her paint over their 60s style faux wood “paneling.” For some unknown reason, men think it is sacrilege to paint over anything made out of brown wood, despite how many veneers of plywood make up this purported “wood.” Why?
And don’t even think about asking for hubby’s permission to repaint Grandma’s tacky dining room suite that she probably bought for $100 at Sears, 90 years ago. It wasn’t worth much then and it still isn’t. And why do husbands go crazy for leather furniture? Does anyone truly understand why they are so attracted to poufy leather sofas, the pouffier the better? While big leather sectionals are nirvana to the male species, nothing is more heavenly than a leather recliner or one upholstered in some heavy nondescript fabric that’s impervious to nuclear blasts.
When furnishing their home offices, remember that husbands prefer Oriental rugs that are predominantly red and blue. A soft muted Oushak just isn’t their cup of tea. They also prefer brass and lots of it. Most husbands have never heard of polished nickel, except for the change in their pockets. They have a certain weakness for framed prints of birds or dogs, preferably prints of dogs with dead birds hanging out of their mouths. They certainly don’t care for modern art. Men like to display any award or diploma they ever received and the walls of the offices are filled with them. Books, with their dusty jackets intact, must be books that have been read. No fancy, French language antique books are allowed.
And to be sure, most husbands have quite definite preferences in paint colors: the jewel tones popular in the 80s are still their favorites: hunter green, navy blue, and burgundy are all acceptable. Ivory, never white, is the only exception. Good luck to the wife who wants to paint her bedroom a soft, coral pink. Divorces have been started over pastel boudoirs. The fabulous designer Charlotte Moss says master bedrooms should be the woman’s refuge. After all, it’s the woman’s domain and she invites the man into her bedroom. Sure, Charlotte. Maybe that’s how it is in your house, but most husbands think of the master bedroom as their personal playroom.
So, what do you do if you want a pink bedroom and a living room filled with white slipcovered furniture and scratchy seagrass rugs, but your husband refuses to budge from his man cave mentality? What do you do if you don’t want ceiling fans in every room, but he insists they keep the electrical bills lower? What if you want the brown paneling painted a soft, muted gray, but he stands firm against it? While all this may sound silly and trivial, when you are the suffering wife, it is really serious business. How can you convince your husband to let you decorate your house the way you want to?
When my husband and I were going through infertility treatments, we were required to go to counseling before we were eligible for the In vitro Program. So there we sat, two scared newlyweds, just wanting a baby more than anything. Well, I should clarify; there we sat, where I wanted a baby more than anything. My husband was just going through this process to shut me up. Of course he wanted a baby, but it wasn’t life or death to him. It was to me. Our one session with this unknown therapist has stuck with me all these years later – 21 to be exact. The therapist asked Ben a simple question: what did you play with when you were a child? Quickly and without thinking, he answered “cops and robbers, football, and soldiers.” And you, Joni, what did you play? My answer came just as easily “Mommy and house.” The therapist smugly nodded. You see, Ben, she said, Joni has spent her entire life playing at being a mommy, waiting to have her own house and her own baby, while you played soldiers. I was stunned at how succinctly she summed up the difference between men and women and how quickly Ben grasped that this bout with infertility was not just some little “problem” to me. It was devastating and hurtful and went against all my natural instincts as a woman.
Twenty years later, with a beautiful daughter now at college, I think of that therapist’s words and realize that what she said also applies to decorating. To a husband, his home is somewhere he is comfortable, somewhere to relax after a hard day at work. It certainly isn’t something he has planned for after studying countless décor magazines or watching endless programs on HGTV. To the wife, though, she has been waiting since childhood to have her own house, decorated in her vision, a place to entertain and a cozy nest to keep her family close. It is everything to her. It is the center of her existence.
When I get emails from blog readers asking me how can they get their husband to “let” them paint their brown paneling or the dining room table, I always repeat what that therapist told me all those years ago. My advice is simple. Ask your husband out to dinner. Tell him you want to discuss something important with him. Make sure he has a nice sized drink at dinner. Start out with a question. Ask him what our therapist asked: “what games did you play when you were little?” Tell him what you played. Make sure you tell him how much you respect him and what he does for the family. Explain that you want the same respect. Tell him that you have studied magazines and décor for years and know exactly how you want your house to look like. Ask him to understand that it is your lifelong dream to have that beautiful house. Ask him if he can say the same? Ask him to trust your taste. Above all, don’t raise your voice and don’t argue. State your cause in a mature, reasonable tone. This isn’t a fight, you are merely opening up his eyes to who you really are and what you really want.
Most likely your husband will see how serious you are and will be willing to give up his jewel toned walls, ceiling fans, and leather sectional. If not, compromise and offer to create a room especially for him, but on the condition that you get to design the rest of the house. Follow Charlotte Moss’ advice and tell him you are inviting him into your bedroom. Who knows? It might spice things up a little. In truth, your husband has probably never even realized how important the way your house looks is to you. He most likely has never given it a thought. Now that you have opened up and been truthful, hopefully he will step aside and let you paint those paneled walls a beautiful soft gray. Remember, you’ve been playing mommy and house since you were toddling. He was playing cops and robbers. Surely, you deserve a room full of white slipcovers and scratchy seagrass. Good luck!
Well, that is my idea! Do you have a better one? I would love to hear your tactics on how you handle your husband when he pokes his nose in the decorating !!! Leave a comment so others can get some ideas! As always, thanks a million for all your comments.
To read the article in the current Antique Shops and Designers, go HERE. To read all the past issues of the magazine, go HERE.
Convincing Your Husband To Decorate Your Way
READERS KITCHENS SERIES: #2
Summer roses at Slim Paley’s beach house.
I was thrilled when one of my favorite bloggers, Slim Paley, sent in pictures of a kitchen redo for the Readers Kitchen series. In case you don’t read her blog, HERE, I suggest you try it out – she leads a glamorous life with her husband and children and her blog is filled with the most gorgeous photographs she takes herself. My favorite pictures are when she shows us a glimpse of her house and garden. She lives near Santa Barbara, but is fortunate enough to also have a nearby beach house and a vacation house in Sun Valley! Each has a completely different look and each is fabulous. Here is how “Slim Paley” describes herself on her blog:
I’m a mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend and ‘work in progress’ striving to Live in the Moment (any minute now
)
I’m also a self taught designer, collage enthusiast and arranger of flowers
blessed to live in Santa Barbara,CA.
I adore books, old book shops and libraries, gardens, food, fashion, photography, art,
architecture, music and virtually anything and everything design related.
Travel, especially far flung and a little adventurous is also a great passion of mine.
Did I mention shoes and handbags?
and martinis?
So, first let’s take a look at the kitchen redo Slim Paley, aka, Carolyn Espley-Miller sent in and then I’ll show some of my favorites of her photographs, taken from her blog. Enjoy!!!
BEFORE: This kitchen is in a trendy section of Vancouver called Kit’s Beach. Slim and her sister redid the apartment and then sold it and then did another one and sold that one too!
As you can see, the apartment had awful golden parquet flooring while the kitchen had a white floor. Instead of replacing the entire floor that was found throughout the one bedroom apartment – Slim matched the wood floor in the kitchen and then restained it all dark brown. I really don’t like these cabinets, and I suppose Slim didn’t either – as she gutted the entire kitchen.
Tearing it all out. The wall between the living area and the kitchen was removed halfway to open up the entire space.
Ah! A nice clean slate to work from. Here the new wood floor has been installed in the kitchen – just waiting for its new stain.
After: Here you can see how open it all is with the wall removed between the kitchen and living area. Behind the newly added banquette is chalkboard paint and a mirror. Such a huge difference!
Instead of closed upper cabinets, Slim added open shelving and a mirror, again to open up the space. The black painted cabinets seem more dressy than an all white kitchen. Plus all the black – the cabinets, the chalkboard and the mirror frames relate and become an important design element. The extra hefty door molding makes it seem more important. Everything is, of course, new.
One last view. I happen to love small kitchens – as long as you have a huge pantry too! I think it is so much easier to move around in a smaller space than one where all the appliances are spread out, far away from each other. But, don’t listen to me, I’m a terrible cook and tend to stay far away from any kitchen!!!
Now, here’s a look at some of my favorite photographs taken by Slim Paley for her blog.
She wrote a beautiful story about porches – showing her own in Santa Barbara.
Her gardens are incredible – the pictures she takes of her flowers are swoon worthy.
A view of her porch at her Sun Valley house.
And the view from that porch. Wow. So gorgeous.
I love this picture from her Santa Barbara house with her English linen curtains. Slim loves the British Colonial look ala Out of Africa and it really shows in this vignette.
Her turn of the century Santa Barbara house came with this freezer. Amazing.
I love this picture she took out in her garden.
Last September, House Beautiful showcased her beach house. Many blogs showed the pictures – but few put it together that the house belonged to a fellow blogger.
I love her beach dining room with its laid back furniture.
I actually just showed this picture in my coffee table story. I love this room. She designed her house around the antique Fortuny pillows she found.
But it was her slipcovered car that really made me soooo jealous! I want to do this sooo badly!!! Do you slip the back seats too or just the front seats???
Barn doors become the headboard in this bedroom.
And this bedroom is all about stripes.
Slim Paley took this picture of her beach house’s entry.
And this picture of her dining table at the beach this summer is so soothing.
Finally, a huge thank you to Slim Paley for sending in this kitchen redo for the Readers Kitchens series. Be sure to visit her blog HERE to see all her gorgeous photographs.
There’s still plenty of time to send in your own pictures of your kitchen and/or house!
