I feel your pain. Had a husband with very conservative, safe tastes in furniture. A lot of his style came from his mother - ornate, dull and old-ladyish. So that was his view for the formal rooms, which he insisted we have, and then high-tech gadgets elsewhere.

I took him to the best furniture store in town and hooked us up with a male decorator/salesman and began working with him. I pulled the guy aside and my only instruction to him was that nothing in the room was to match. My ideas filtered through this guy suddenly became acceptable.

The only experience I have with opposite style was when shopping for our last living room sofa. The other two sofa's we bought we a breeze since hubby let me pretty much pick them out. That was pre-country decor. I was trying not to go too overboard in hopes he'd like it more. He didn't. I was about to give up when one day on the way home from work he took the long way and stopped at the furniture store and found "the perfect sofa". So I anxiously waiting to see what he'd found. To my amazement it was the "perfect country sofa" in the most "perfect color and fabric" (checked). It had oak trim so the store had oak table set up with it and hubby wanted to buy them all. I wanted knotty pine similar to our dining set. Hubby and the salesman, who happened to be my boss years before a local department store, thought it would be odd to mix woods, but were kind enough to carry the pieces of my desire from the other side of the store to set them with "my" sofa set. They agreed, we bought them all, using my old bosses employee family discount {{!gwi}}, and lived happily ever after.

My husband is a strict traditionalist. I gravitate toward "surfaces" (no knick knacks, no fake foliage/flowers, clean lines). We desperately need to replace a kitchen table, but I dread having to do a fake French country or English pub look, which is what he likes. So I delay delay delay because I don't want to be stuck with furniture (we only buy high quality so it will 'last forever'--his words) that I don't really like. Wish I had the answer :)

Dh doesn't know what he likes until he sees it which is frustrating.
For the most part I know he wants it completely functional, beautiful, traditional and in his words "classy looking".
I can do that look easily so and have contained my lust for vintage chipped furniture and floral quilts to a guest bedroom.
Sometimes I do things he doesn't like but he'll get over it.
Just the other day, I asked him if the new necklace I had on was too dressy for the outfit. He said, oh, it's fine, at least it's small. I hate those big hoop earrings women wear."
Well, this was a surprise to me! I had been thinking about getting some big hoops, guess I won't. And the necklace wasn't exactly small nor was that the response I was looking for, as size wasn't the issue.
I never know what he's thinking about anything!

You mean like he loves stained wood--no matter how yucky the finish--and I love painted wood?

Sigh. I'll let you know when we work it out.

lol

We've been married nearly 33 years so we must have done something right. Mostly he leaves the decorating to me because I care. He wants comfortable and unfussy. He prefers wood finishes to look like wood. Mostly I've done what I could to mix both our desires together. Usually, if he can see where I'm going with a look, he agrees with me. It's that time between me showing and him seeing that is uncomfortable. In the past few years, he has really gotten on board with most projects.

I will confess...sometimes I just do whatever I 'see' anyway, knowing first of all, he loves me and wants me to be happy. Second, that I have an interesting and creative design taste that he enjoys when it comes together.

Still...he is balking at painting an old oak veneer buffet I want to cottage-up. He is probably going to turn gray over some of the other painting projects I have in mind.

LOL

It takes handling each other with care and great love. I love him more than I want to paint the buffet, so....

What I have learned is that I cannot convey accurately with words to my dh my ideas for decorating. When I try to describe things to him, he doesn't think he will like it.

What DOES work is to find pictures, wander though antique shops or furniture stores together, and going to Parade Homes. We have been able to find choices that we both are happy with that way.

On the "Do you have a conservatory" thread I wrote that I had a three season room that I hadn't decorated. The real reason I haven't is because I see it with white walls and wicker with green and pink flowery cushions, lots of plants, breezy gauzy white curtains. Hub can't wait to paint it all sand color and give it a desert theme with woven woods, which I detest. So I delay, delay, delay.

The rest of the house we agree on.

Uh, totally! My DH was not raised with art, furnishings or any type of decorations--they were very poor immigrants and didn't have the money to match, decorate or make things look nice. They were worried about eating!

I came from a family that loves art, decorating, and entertaining. It's a wide bridge for us to cross when we talked about remodeling....he is entirely functional. He could live in a shoebox if it was cheap and functional. I would skip breakfast food to buy a piece of art :)

We've each taken a few steps toward eachother's aesthetic or lack thereof! I have become much more practical and he has tolerated our new couch.

Admittedly he has had to come further than I. He regularly is outvoted, overrun and teased for his taste and pure practicality by my family, his friends and co-workers. So he has grudgingly agreed to let me decorate our home with more than a mattress on the floor (I am serious, this is what he would have!). Not only that, but with three kids and the fact that he is a professional in charge of a company makes it almost unacceptable to live that way, LOL!

I couldnt be in a long term relationship whose tastes in certain things were not compatible with mine. It doesn't matter if we don't care about some of the same things, but if we both cared a Lot about something and it was incompatible, that would be a problem.

I have been in long term relationships with people who are ambivalent about clothes or design or whatever, and that hasn't been a problem..if they just don't care, and they don't bug me *about caring...no big deal. However, I *did go on a date with someone that had furniture and art that was *so horrible I thought it was a form of ironic hipsterism. Then I figured out the plastic slipcovers (yep), etc. was not a social commentary of sorts and I knew that relationship was doomed.

Luckily I am permanently attached to my design doppelganger so I am very content.

Any time we differ (we're usually on the same page tho) I'll ask, "How much do you *really* care about this?" And more often than not his response is something along the lines of, "Not enough to have spent this much time discussing it."

Oh Megsy, that is such a guy comment! LOL I love it. I can just hear his tone too. Too funny. Ya gotten love-em though doncha?

Oh you mean when he wants to hang a red, white and blue woven tapestry of a bearded guy on a Harley (who bears a strong resemblance to his father) and his bikini topped biker chick staring off into the sunset opposite your bed in the master bedroom? And you kind of want to have lovely lavender walls with white chenille bedspreads and billowy white sheers on the windows?

Lets just say I won that one.

Other decorating issues have been decided by room. We have a formal living room that is MY room, the family room is HIS (but I decorated it for him) but mainly we have similar tastes. Thank goodness, because his mother has major schizophrenic decorating style (she gave DH that tapestry, for example), and his father was a hoarder who just piled up junk. His entire family is pretty much either like his mother or his dad. Yeeegads.

I have ideas. He says no.

I execute ideas, with the caveat that we can move things back, repaint, return it, whatever. He says he isn't sure.

Two weeks later he says he likes it.

We've been doing it this way for 13 years. And counting...

While I do ask my spouse about color, sofas, how do you like this comforter, etc., it's agreed that the house is my province, and 'man things' are his. He respects my judgment, almost always complements the finished product no matter how unsure he may be of the process, and generally, makes me feel that I do a great job in the house.......whether it be cooking, decorating, laundry, gardening, or whatever. He's a constant support.

Red

There are some things he totally just doesn't like so we compromise with those things.

He can't always picture things until they're done. He's finally learning to just let me be.

For example, I didn't mention I was painting the bathroom vanity until it was primed and he asked what I was doing. :) He likes it (I knew he would) but there was a time when he would've went on how it was, "fine how it was. Why are you always changing things?" Etc. and so forth.

If it were up to him there'd be animal mounts all over the house and ....it would look hodge podgey. Luckily, he also likes what I like for the most part. We made a deal that when we finished the basement he could have his man room and do whatever he wanted with it. A year ago he told me he wanted hunter green or black walls, colored carpet.... etc. I shuttered and hung my head in sadness. He started asking my opinion a few weeks ago and now he wants neutral tile, tan walls, white ceiling. :)

He doesn't like a lot of stuff being out or on the walls. I think because he grew up in a house like that. Lately, I'll go to hang a picture and he'll comment about not wanting it to look junky. Soo.. I'm about at my limit with wall things in the main areas of my home.

My DH does not care how things look, and he doesn't usually have a preference or an opinion when I ask for one. There are pros and cons to this, for me.

He also just doesn't understand my categories, and I don't understand his, either. Years ago went to a colleague's home for a function and came home raving about their house. He said it was really nice and he thought I would really like it. A few weeks later we were invited there for dinner and I couldn't wait to see what DH considered a nice house. At last, I thought, I would have a clue into his taste, after all these years...

We arrived and it was a typical little ranch house, chock full of lighthouses. There were lighthouse statues...
and lighthouse figurines...
and lighthouse plates on the wall...
and lighthouse pillows on the couch...
and lighthouse lamps...
and a lighthouse waterfall...
and a lighthouse clock...

literally every horizontal surface was filled with lighthouses. Now, I've got nothing against lighthouses, but I am really not a knick-knack person, and I like to see a lot of clear horizontal surfaces, both on the floor and on tables, shelves, whatever. So that house was like the un-Leafiest house ever. And he thought I would like it!

I never got to the bottom of what it was he thought I'd like, but I think it was just that to him it looked "decorated"--you couldn't have 1,000 lighthouses just by accident, after all.

Since then, I wouldn't trust his opinion if he had one, so I guess it's just as well that he doesn't!

OMG! I LOVE lighthouses, but there's nary a one in my house, LOL! Love that he found it "nice".....I always find it interesting when my DH says he saw something he liked. Usually it meant that he found a cool garage door opener, not anything related to decorating.

Quite simply...compromise. :)
Say we are buying a new chair- I will pick the fabric and he will pick the style, or vice versa. That way we both get to leave happy.
It's worked for 30 years thus far~

Happy wife, happy life.

It's that simple!

No longer married but......

"if mamma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy" ;o)

OMG Leafy, you had me ROFLMAO! A house like the "Lighthouse house" would have me running for the door . . . what a nightmare!

Rjinga, I feel for you! I think that Red's and Loribee's suggestions of compromise might be the answer for you.

When I met DH, we both had our own places and established careers for a number of years. His apartment (he was finishing up his internship at the time) was a very elegant Contemporary style with rosewood and glass and done in cream, brown and navy.
Mine, on the other hand, was done in a Cottage style.

We married and moved here to New Mexico and we butted heads a lot those first few years trying to furnish our first home together. Being a physician, he's used to giving orders and advising people all day long at work, and could easily do it here as well . . . if I let him. And believe me, he tried hard and often! But, I'm nobody's doormat and with my design background, he eventually learned to compromise ;^D
His furniture was in better shape than mine and that's what we initially ended moving here with us, but I quickly started adding my own touches. I hate to admit this, but our old things started to just disappear as they needed to be replaced and my choices, now more Southwestern, replaced them. We did and do still always shop together for big ticket items, like sofas, side chairs and even some art, but nowadays, if we need a new lamp, piece of art, coffee or end table, etc. etc, I just buy it and he (most of the time) accepts my decisions (LOL!).
Lynn

When dh and I got married, we were older (37 and 31 respectively) We had a big yard sale and sold almost all his furniture :-) every cast off from his extensive family over the years.
Neither of us had been married and we had both spent our extra money on fun single stuff: traveling, going out to eat, the theater, boating, etc.

This is hysterical! My husband is a hoarder. We have confined his "style" to the little room attached to the garage, and I pretty much am responsible for all the decorating, or lack of it, in the house itself. He does have good ideas occasionally, but they're few and far between.

DH and I married (second time for both of us) at 51 and 64 years old. He insisted that we live in his house. When we met, his house looked like a hotel. A couch and two chairs in the LR, a table and chairs in the DR, a couch and two chairs in the den and a MONGO TV....you get the picture......
My furnishings were traditional, but mostly all handcrafted. Fortunately, I had to have the LR as a workable music room, so the couch and two chairs had to go to accomodate pianos and various other instruments, cabinets full of books, etc.. The mongo tv, two chairs and couch remain in the den...along with his gun over the mantle :^( and a few other "his" things. The DR was a war zone for a month or two when I ousted the plastic veneer table and chairs and replaced them with solid wood homemade. He did manage to survive though, and our 13th anniversary is right around the corner :^). He "thinks" he would like to go back to the motel atmosphere, but I'd bet that he would soon be looking around for all of the good stuff he has become used to!

Just like the pugs, there is something to be said for 100s of lighthouses. Just a couple might even be tacky, under 15 not so good....a hundred: fabulous.

Our two areas of conflict are color and art.

I prefer bold colors, he's a "tints and hints" person.

I have a a lot of art - paintings, etchings, baskets, etc! I mean I could easily cover many walls with it if I hung it all. His mum was of the "one picture per room, hung too high" school and he baby-ducked on it.

So I have lots of art on pastel walls as a compromise.

Fortunately we both like wood and solidly scaled "rustic sleek" furniture (World Market stuff) although I'm more eclectic. I'm sure he looks at my carved oak 1890s desk and shudders.

Oh, no, Palimpsest, it was nothing like the pugs. I LOVED the pugs!

Great story Lynn!