Beating (Blue) Hearts

I briefly mentioned in my last post that my dear sweetie told me that he'd let me decorate our nest however I wanted. To me, that says he REALLY trusts me.  Once upon a time, I had every plate, cup, mug, creamer, sugar bowl, teapot, serving platter, placemat, butter keeper, etc... with this design:

COUNTRY BLUE HEARTS

For the love of all glazed glassware, what was I thinking?!? Well, I've thought long and hard about my choice of everyday dinnerware.  I'm going to stick with this reasoning: I was in my late teens/early 20's. Sponge painting was a craze then - and it looks as though someone sponged this mass produced, yet handcrafted-looking beauty's border.  Then they practiced sponging all kinds of shapes in the middle in no particular pattern.  And if that's not excuse enough, I was also a college student on a college budget and that big yellow smiley at Walmart had just rolled back the right price for me - cheap!

I say all that to say this - my husband KNEW I had hand-picked that pattern when it came time to decorate.  He realized that somewhere deep inside of me was a repressed country girl who loved inexpensive, bad wallpaper patterned dinnerware and still he let me pick out all things for our nest.

I do love that man of mine.  So to avoid making his heart blue, I tried to be considerate.  When choosing a style for the house, I made a list of his style preferences to compare with mine.

HIS                   MINE

modern                contemporary w/flares of traditional

cold, hard lines       cozy and comfortable

minimalist             personalized

cool colors            warm colors

modern retro details   craftsman details

solids/tone-on-tones   art deco patterns

geometric asymmetry    symmetry

new-ness              old school character

After looking at just a few things on the list, I was really quite discouraged. Paula Abdul was SO right when she said opposites attract.  I wasn't quite sure what kind of compromise could be made so that we both felt comfortable with the decor in our home, but I was certain I would find a way to make it work.  So instead of focusing on the differences, I decided to concentrate on style ideas we both liked.

OURS

functional and durable

clean lines, right angles

crisp and fresh

natural elements (woods and metals)

<----- neutral color palette

few eclectic pieces

minimal pastels

minimal floral patterns

artsy element w/o gaudy ornateness

glass elements

natural light

I love this color palette because it embraces all colors from nature. Additionally, it has the stark color extremes black, white, red, and grays that he loves.

I dug some pictures up on the internet to share with him. I chose pictures with elements I liked (mainly craftsman, mission, and prairie interiors), and then asked him what he thought. As easy-going as he is,  he's good at telling me what he likes and doesn't like.

With this in mind, I set out to find a piece to build our living room around.  (Keep in mind - at this time we still had the ORANGE walls I thought might rust-y up but instead stayed eye-poppin' great-ball-of-fire colored!).  As unexpected as it was - when I found it, I knew. Was it lamps or lighting?  Was it accent pieces?  Nope, it was an area rug.  This rug:

Not exactly the lightly-colored, fluffy shag I had envisioned. But this rug has clean lines and right angles.  It has minimal patterns with simple ornateness.  It has color, but is still neutral - all while matching the awful beige tile and coordinating with the orange walls.  Check out those corners, baby! 

The dictionary says a compromise, when used as a verb, is to arrive at a settlement by making concessions, often reducing the quality, value, or degree of something.  In this case, I disagree.  By compromising, I found the combination of different things yielded something better for us, but that individually neither he nor I would have ever chosen on our own.  

Don't you wish it worked like this all the time? Of course, there are some things that one just cannot compromise on in life.  But, I want to learn to be more open to compromises that are synergistic - where the result of the sum is greater than the individual parts.  It often surprises me - the goodness that accompanies the compromises that result in a win-win situation.  How do I change my thinking? American author Greg Anderson said, "The Law of Win/Win says, 'Let's not do it your way or my way; let's do it the best way.'" 

Now, I can't even remember what concessions I felt like I was making then.  And he's just glad the rug doesn't look like this: