Interior Design

[trebor123]

My wife and I have been married for soon 8 years and a couple of years ago we moved to a new house with our 2 kids. We have a busy life and it has taken us time to settle properly in. The house is old and we are now doing it up bit by bit.
Recently my wife has started a new job and here she has a colleague who apparently has taken some courses in interior decorating. According to my wife he “knows it all”. My wife is currently looking to re arrange most things in our house based on input from her colleague. I have voiced some concerns as some of the things they are coming up with are quite poor in my opinion.
However, when voicing my opinion I am being accused of being negative and that I have no idea of interior decorating. My situation is that I have a view on how the home which I am also a part of is arranged and looks like. Of course I am willing to compromise and accept other tastes and solutions – its not my way or no way. But I do have an opinion on how my home looks like. Further, I have always imagined that it would be my wife and I that would do this together – our project. Now I have been told I know nothing about interior decorating and I should leave it to her and her colleague who is supposedly an expert. The other night he was over as he dropped my wife from work and the two of them started a room by room tour mostly ignoring my presence all together. I did not try to take part as it was clearly felt that it was not wanted.
I must admit that to me the use of an interior decorator should not really be strictly necessary if you as a couple can make your home look – well homely, practical, cosy, nice place to be, good for the kids, etc.
But now it seems that the important thing is what it looks like to others, that the expert knows better, and that I should just accept that without getting involved or have an opinion. How dare you have a taste or view kind of thing. An example – shift the sofa around leaving most of the sofa at an angle to the wall mounted TV making viewing less practical for everyone….
I must admit I am loosing motivaton to the whole house thing – its as if my views are not valued and not important. I actually feel lousy about this and quite frustrated. Is it unreasonable of me wanting to have a view on how my home looks?

I'm really interested in my house. I love house interiors .I don't follow any trends, if I like something, I like it. If I don't, I don't. I believe I have quite a good eye and my house "feels" exactly how I want it. ...calm, cosy, welcoming and my little sanctuary. Does my husband have much input? On some bigger decisions, yes of course. On decorative items? No not really, not that he really cares. He likes a jaunt round the house shops, ums and arhs in the right places knowing we'll go for coffee later whilst we're out!

You seem to want to be interested in your house, so I believe you should be. I laugh that my husband has little interest in our house, but he certainly wouldn't put up with not being able to see the tv, or anything impractical lol. My husband let's me crack on with our house because he knows it makes me happy....I'm a little fussy 😏 and he knows how I feel if my house isn't how I want it.

How you approach this, I'm not sure. I cant work out if your wife has a massive interior design passion and she's just being swept away by someone with a common passion....or she lacks confidence in her house and choices and is being swept away by someone who thinks they have it all. My house is an acquired taste I'd say, it's not for everyone. Even my husband has questioned what I'm doing at times and he's learnt just to trust me. But that's between us, not a third party involved with an opinion here.

I think you're just going to have to tell your wife the truth. Give her a bit of a 💩 sandwich as its known in the teaching trade if you think it's gonna cause a big row that you don't want. Tell her it's lovely that she's met someone who shares her house passion and of course there's all day at work to sit and lust over house things. Tell her that this is your house, tell her you were excited to do it together. Tell her it was your project together. Sum it up by saying that whilst ideas are good, of course bring the ideas up, it's got go be the two of yoi rather than three. Of course if you're not worried about the fall out say exactly how you feel, I think you're entitled to 🤷‍♀️

If you weren’t the slightest bit interested in decor, that’d be fine to let them get on with it but it’s not fair at all that they ignore your views and you’re not allowed to say you don’t like something. Are the funds coming out of joint money?

Can you engage dw about this one evening? Talk about the plans, tell her that you want input too, it's your house.

Do you have any concerns about the colleague? He seems to be spending a lot of time with your wife and has her ear.

I assume he isn't a professional interior designer? Could you ask for examples of his previous projects as they just might not be to your taste. If he hasn't done any projects then you can perfectly legitimately tell your wife he's full of it, you don't want an amateur practicing on your house and you want to do this as a couple.