Five Tips for Building a Home When Your Partner Is Your Opposite

Different strokes for different folks

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When it comes to matters of personal taste, Michael and I couldn’t be more contrary. He’s all sleek lines and primary colors (he’s functionally color blind, so really just red), and his wallet is made out of hard plastic. I, on the other hand, have a rainbow tattoo, dream in leopard print, and always end up with “eclectic” as my result when I take one of those online style quizzes. I prefer trendy; he likes classic. I favor form; he worships at the altar of function. Suffice to say, registering for our wedding was an exercise in compromise. And the past seven or so years of living together have been something of a prolonged experiment in figuring out how to meet in the middle. But if marriage is work, I always think of this as the fun kind of work.

But that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been a steep learning curve along the way (ask me about the time we had four couches in our living room because one of us went hog wild with the Craigslist free section). So today we’ve partnered with Cuisinart to celebrate the launch of their new Buona Tazza Single Serve Espresso and Coffee Machine (which lets you brew both coffee and illy espresso with the touch of a button) with my best tips for building a home with your opposite.

Because remember what I said about the couches above? Well, accumulating multiples of stuff has sort of been the defacto coping method for our differences. But you can only live inside a furniture and appliance emporium for so long, and this year we’ve been making a conscious effort at lightening the load. The embarrassing truth is that Michael and I have no fewer than three different coffee systems going in our house at any given time, which we use on a regular basis to accommodate our preferences (because coffee is our love language, but our taste buds are also totally different, and dammit if we aren’t going to have our cake and eat it too). So when we got a chance to try out the Buona Tazza, I was interested, since it is effectively two machines in one: a coffee machine and a high quality espresso machine. So while Michael still makes coffee for us every Saturday morning, now instead of brewing a huge pot (of which we drink maybe one third), he is able to make himself a single cup of coffee, while I can have an Americano, and more importantly, we can have the rest of our counter space back. (Plus, we get to give away a Buona Tazza Single Serve Espresso and Coffee Machine to one lucky APW reader at the end of the post, so high fives all round!)

We’re counting this new machine as a win on the using-technology-to-solve-our-problems front, which is one of the cornerstones of how we make our Felix and Oscar odd couple situation work. But that’s the easy one. Here’s the rest of how we work it out:

1. Sometimes it’s option C. When Michael and I first moved in together, the disparity in our tastes was painfully obvious. I mean… my college dorm room had accent pillows. Pink ones. In the shape of roses. Meanwhile, Michael’s first apartment barely had a couch (it was a single-person futon, actually). It was pretty obvious that we weren’t going to find a lot of middle ground between my leopard print and his monochromatic minimalist everything. But it turns out we didn’t need to. Over the years, we’ve developed a sort of “Option C” aesthetic that’s neither his nor mine, but definitively ours (turns out we both like industrial furniture and skulls. Who knew?) And I’ve been surprised to find that discovering Option C is often way more rewarding for both of us than if we were to get our way. Because the more we develop this Option C aesthetic, the more we feel like we’re building something together that belongs uniquely to us.

2. Not everything needs to be a compromise. While Option C is sort of our holy grail, we don’t always compromise just for the sake of compromising. (Because that’s exhausting.) If one of us has really strong feelings about an area of the house, or is the primary user of that space, they get free rein. For example, since I work from home, the office area is all mine to do with what I want (it’s very Maddie and covered in gold). Meanwhile, Michael has enforced a pretty strict anti-glitter policy in our house that I do my best to respect. (There’s a small corner of my office where I keep a secret stash, but we won’t talk about that.) In short: we pick our battles, and we try not to steamroll each other.

3. If it does double duty, do it. It’s not just about aesthetics with us. Michael and I find ourselves on opposites sides of the fence on just about everything. I’m sweet; he’s savory. He’s hot; I’m cold. We have different hobbies and interests. I could go on. So if there’s ever a gadget or service that can make us both happy at the same time, we snatch it up quick. (See: above coffee solution.) Because for us, not having to compromise on the small everyday stuff leaves a whole lot more emotional space for the big household decisions. Next up: one of those dual temperature mattress pads, so that we can stop alternating between freezing and sweating to death when we sleep.

4. You don’t have to solve it right now. A few months ago, Michael built a beautiful hand-crafted custom coffee table for us. But as soon as it was done being constructed, we hit a standoff on how to finish it. I wanted to distress it to look old, Michael wanted to paint it to make it look new. Every week, one of us would come up with a new idea for the other to reject. Rather than pressuring each other into a decision, we’ve been getting comfortable with the fact that it’s going to take a while for us to have a finished coffee table. And that’s OK. We want it to be a part of our lives for long time, so better to find an option we both love than rush into a decision for the sake of making one. (The coffee table is still unfinished, by the way. But thanks to a nosy neighbor and a blowtorch, we’ve at least got a plan!) It’s gotten a lot easier to figure out works for us and what doesn’t along the way (maybe don’t paint your living room bright turquoise unless you know what you’re doing?) but we’re still not even there. I mean, if we’ve learned anything it’s that “there” is an evolving process. Our home is a reflection of how our relationship has evolved, and it will probably never feel just right. But that’s half the fun, right?

5. Work with what you’ve got. It’s a lot easier to figure out a combined vision for your home when you can buy new stuff that matches said vision. But Michael and I were broke young things when we moved in together. Not only did our aesthetics not match up, but our tastes also weren’t exactly an accurate reflection of our budget and experience. (You know what Pinterest does to expectations and weddings? Well, that was us and home decor.) I remember feeling really frustrated that our combination of Craigslist free stuff mixed in with our registry items and a not totally melded collection of the things we brought to our first apartment together didn’t look like all those homes we coveted on Apartment Therapy. But you can’t get blood from a stone. It’s taken seven years and a lot of saving up for trips to Ikea to get all those things coordinated in a way that feels like what we first pictured when we moved in together.

How have you and your partner set up your home? What’s your best advice for compromising when you have different tastes?

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This post was sponsored by the new Cuisinart Buona Tazza Single Serve Espresso and Coffee Machine, the perfect option for partners who disagree on what makes for good java. The Cuisinart Buona Tazza EM-400 lets you make single-serve espresso drinks or hot coffee with the touch of a button and is compatible with the fully recyclable illy iperEspresso capsule system. Or if you opt for the 600-series, you can make lattes and cappuccinos at home without needing a degree in barista-ing. Thanks Cuisinart for making the APW mission possible! 

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