When a spouse gets a craving for a little more “stuff”
As a minimalist (and a city person), I’ve really enjoyed the last four years since we traded in our 4-bedroom house in Georgia for a sleek 1-bedroom in Manhattan. Perhaps to (over-?!)compensate for years of living in historic, traditional homes, I went super-essential when furnishing our New York apartment. I stuck to the basics, plus a few, statement art pieces and a bold blue accent wall.
But my being an organizing coach doesn’t make me immune to the need for compromise in my own household. My husband embraced - or at least accepted - my need for a simpler look during these four years, but in recent months, he’s expressed a desire for a little more warmth in our home. So, as I often council my clients to do with differing preferences in organizing and decorating styles, I listened carefully and non-judgmentally to the ideas Daniel had for changes to our place. I mulled these suggestions for several weeks, although my internal knee-jerk reaction was to scream, “no, you’ll ruin it!” I returned to him calmer, with a list of places where I felt I could compromise…and a few others where I didn’t.
We settled on what I hope will be a happy medium for us both:
While we nixed the idea of adding an extra chair because I feel strongly that our living room is not large enough to comfortably accommodate one, I agreed to the introduction of another plant, for which I selected a shelving unit. I have to say, I love the added greenery and the shelving unit.
I also suggested we place a pattern on the big, white wall in the living room, knowing that this would make the whole space feel more integrated and, therefore, cozier. We rent our place so I considered removable wallpaper but, for the large wall we needed to cover, that looked very expensive very quickly. So, I found a beautiful stencil in a pattern I thought would be relatively easy to apply, and we’re both thrilled with the result. You’ll notice, per the below photo, that my compromising my clean, white wall meant that Daniel did most of the actual stencil work. (I assisted).
New shelving unit, old white wall.
He asked for it, haha!
Quick tip: Always coordinate your decor with your cat.
My favorite addition are the pendant light shades over our kitchen island. They’re inexpensive ($14.99 each from IKEA) and easy (they slide right over our existing pendant lights). They’re quite subtle but they add a lot of dimension to the room.
Love these lamp shades. Cat should NOT be on the counter.
Compromise is a necessary part of sharing a household. Compassionate communication is key to successful compromise.