It took moving into our new home to realize this, but it’s true: it turns out my concept of “marrying tastes” extends beyond just food. It also applies to taste in home decor.

I’ll explain, but before I do, I need to let you know something upfront: there’s no recipe in this post.

I know, I know, what’s wrong with me? Where’s the low-sugar-yet-satisfying recipes?! If I’ve let you down, I’m sorry, but the reality is that all I’ve been making for two months is spinach-based salads. Fo’ real–the two of us go through an ENTIRE BAG OF COSTCO SPINACH each week.

And, unless you tell me otherwise, I didn’t think any normal human beings would be interested in the spinach variations I make on a weekly basis. We literally grill 6 chicken breasts every Sunday, chop ’em up, and that (plus the spinach, of course) becomes our meals (lunches AND dinners) for the week:

• Sunday: Caprese Chicken Spinach Salad
• Monday: Apple Feta Chicken Spinach Salad
• Tuesday: Strawberry Goat Cheese Chicken Spinach Salad
• Wednesday: Chicken Cobb Spinach Salad
• Thursday: Spinach & Goat Cheese Omelets
• Friday & Saturday: Usually a date night…where Tom proceeds to typically make up for the carbohydrates he missed out on from the previous week in one sitting. Bless him.

I know what you’re thinking: Tom’s a saint. He eats salads every day with a smile on his face…even though we both know he’d rather be eating pasta, potatoes, and pizza. And let me just say–I totally agree. He is a saint.

Also, if I’m being honest, I think the only reason he puts up with it is since I’m deficient in like everything. If you’ve ever spent the day with me you’ve seen my pill case. Yes, pill case–the one with the arthritis-friendly push buttons and broken out by days of the week. You’ve seen them I’m sure…at your grandma’s house.

So while Tom may get sick of spinach (and let’s be honest, I do too), I think he puts up with it since it’s so full of additional vitamins (on top of the bazillion I take a day) that are good for my anemia, leukopenia, low b12, and other various deficiencies. Add that fun to the fact that my blood sugar is all wackadoodle and it’s pretty much official: I’ve got some bad blood…just not the kind Taylor Swift sings about.

Anywho–that’s enough about our spinach intake for one blog post. So lo siento about the lack of recipe…let’s get to the part about the other way we’ve been marrying tastes lately.

As we quickly deciphered within days of moving in, it turns out Tom and I have different design aesthetics that no amount of Fixer Upper re-runs were able to prepare us for.

Basically, here’s how I’d break down our respective design POVs:

• Tom: A home is a place to display your things; matching isn’t overly important
• Alaina: A home is a place to organize your things; cohesion is insanely important

So why is this important? Well here’s some examples:

• An extra drawer in the kitchen:
  • Tom sees a junk drawer
  • I see precious space that I can use in the future and abhor the idea of there being such a thing as a place for “junk” in my house
• Built-in shelves:
  • Tom sees it as a perfect opportunity to show off his whale collection and sets them up there immediately
  • I see a bookshelf for our future kiddos and freak out that there’s whales on display in my house
• Multi-colored walls:
  • Tom barely notices it
  • I feel like I live in a loony bin until I can paint all the walls the same soothing greige color

I admit this makes me out to be a crazy person, but I think you get my point. Our new version of our marrying tastes challenge became how we can mesh my desire to put everything away with Tom’s desire to show off the things he’s proud of.

So…where’s the compromise?

Here’s our answer (at least so far):

• Neutrals + one color
  • Knowing I love neutrals but Tom wants our house to actually look lived in (not just beige and blah), we decided we would do the entire house in neutrals plus Tom’s favorite color: green. Luckily for me, green is a super easy color to pull off using plants!

• Baskets, baskets, baskets
  • While I didn’t go so far as a making Tom go all Marie Kondo and decide whether or not each of his possessions bring him joy, I did help him do a good spring cleaning before we moved (for example, do you need multiple drawstring backpacks when you’re almost 30? no. you do not). My promise? If it moved with us, we’d find a place for it. Enter: baskets galore. We’ve got them in the office, the entryway, and the living room to ensure everything has a place and nothing is just sitting out. I get a house that’s clutter-free and Tom gets to have his stuff easily accessible in each room.

• Do everything together
  • I wholeheartedly understand (and appreciate) that it is MUCH easier to some things on our own for efficiency’s sake when trying to decorate our home. That said, I have purposefully ensured that we decide together on everything we paint, hang, or purchase to ensure it’s something we both love. For one, it’s an activity we can do together (who wants to paint by themselves anyways?!) and Tom’s love language is quality time–a major win-win. But more importantly, it ensures that our home feels like our home–we both are equally invested in how our home looks and feels.

So while we may not have a solution for every little thing, I will say that doing the above three things has helped with our transition into a home and meshing our two styles and beliefs of what a home should be like. It’s avoided disagreements and either one of us feeling like decorating our home is a burden for one of us to shoulder and has instead become an insanely gratifying project that we get to partner together on.

So while we’re no Chip and Joanna and may be on-track to set a record for number of trips taken to Home Depot in one day, the steps we’ve taken to make our house feel like a home have really brought us closer together in our marriage.

Because let’s get real: when it’s 11PM and you run out of painter’s tape again, you need a shoulder to cry on. When you bite off more than you can chew in deciding to rip off the wainscoting, you need someone to give you a little bit of grace. And when it takes your literally twelve hours to install a closet organizer, you need someone to jointly curse the person who constructed such poor quality materials.

At the end of the day, you simply just need one person who knows you best and loves you unconditionally: your spouse

So while I still think I’m going to focus on marrying our food tastes instead of our tastes in home decor, I hope you enjoyed a sneak peak into our home. We’re proud of what we’re building together and I can’t wait to share more of it with you as we go along.

Oh, and if you’re wondering where Tom’s whale collection ended up? Don’t worry, it’s safe and sound: preserved in a see-through plastic bin that’s easily accessible to help decorate a nursery one day…and not a day sooner 🙂

Here’s to making many more culinary and more compromises…all in the name of love.

xoxo,

alaina