Gypsy Soul Confessions: My house isn’t decorated

I know, that’s a real first-world problem, right? Boo hoo, I haven’t hung enough pictures or cluttered my shelves with collectibles.

I mention it because I’m writing a blog about cool/edgy/boho style and in my own house, very few rooms are in a state I’d call “finished”.

Furnished, But Not Finished

Yes, there’s furniture in them. Most of it is what I inherited when M. and I got married. His house had fairly new furniture that he’d actually spent money on, and mine was more of the thrift-store variety. So… we mostly kept the good stuff.

Builder Finishes

We started building our house in suburbia soon after we got married seven years ago. If you’ve ever done this you know that it involves many meetings with the builder to choose all the details like flooring, paint colors, tile, and countertops.

My husband’s taste is on the traditional side and mine might be described as “bohemian dumpster-dive remix”. Suffice it to say it wasn’t always easy for us to get on the same page (or the same paint-chip!) But we soldiered through and survived the process.

Good Bones

I will take a moment to say I understand and appreciate the beauty of classic shapes and finishes. Trends come and go, but there are some things that never really go out of style. So I was okay with choosing pretty, neutral finishes that we could love for many years. Our granite countertops and wood and slate floors are classic. Cosmetic finishes can reflect trends or personal style and change with the times.

I told myself that I’d be agreeable to reflect my husband’s traditional taste in the permanent finishes in our home, then when it came time to furnish and decorate we’d break out of that box a little more.

Beyond the Basics

I’m a painter by profession (on temporary break as a stay-home mom) so we didn’t pay extra to have the builder paint any additional colors in different rooms. The whole place was painted the same shade of oatmeal, top to bottom. (Note on being too easy-going: Gray was not one of our choices, so I went with the grayest beige they offered. I should have picked the color I really wanted, not just what they offered to me. Our living room is so high I will never be able to repaint it myself so I am stuck with oatmeal for the foreseeable future!)

In some of the other rooms, though, I jumped in and painted them myself. I painted the master suite a pale muted green, my office/library warm gray, an upstairs “art studio” room white, and our dining room brownish-black (sounds like mascara, doesn’t it?) Then the house started to feel more personalized.

Hitting Speed Bumps

After that, things slowed down a bit. I found that my husband wanted us to decide together how our house was going to look. For some reason, I had this idea that virtually all men are happy to let their wives do the decorating, leaving the husbands free to watch televised sporting events. Imagine my surprise when M. actually wanted to have some input!

It’s been trickier than I expected to share the decision-making in this arena, because we’re both opinionated and our tastes are pretty far apart on the decor spectrum. There’s common ground, but the place where our tastes overlap can be a rather thin strip.

When I convinced him that black walls and striped velvet chairs would look awesome with the classic silver dining room chandelier that he loved, that was good. But when he also accepted the idea of hanging his aunt and uncles 60’s mod portraits in baroque gold frames, that felt like a real win to me.

Trust, but Verify

I’m finally figuring out that it’s not that he doesn’t like the things I put together… it’s that he’s afraid he won’t like them. He’s not ready to hand over the decorating reins to a person who, admittedly, uses a wood table she found on the side of the road for her desk.

So my challenge is to present my ideas to him the way an interior designer would. And then, if there’s something he doesn’t like, to respond the way an interior designer would (looking for alternative solutions) instead of the way a wife would (getting pissed and telling him he’s wrong.)

One of my goals in writing this blog is to get inspired and motivated, then move forward with decorating our house. (Well, I guess that’s three goals, isn’t it?) It will require some negotiating, which isn’t my strong suit, but I’m up for it! And in the end I hope we’ll find that narrow strip on the design spectrum where we can both live happily (ever after…)