The most common thing we see come up with our residential clients is opposing tastes or style preferences. The wife will love a classic, traditional vibe, while the husband is drawn to clean, mid-century lines. Their house is a dueling collection of pieces from both their styles, that doesn’t real vibe together. That’s where we at Laurel Design Collective, come in.
First we need to know each of your style preferences!
It’s not impossible to merge two opposing styles, in fact, there’s a fun challenge to the process. The most important thing to accept, however, is that you want to merge your styles. It will mean making some concessions to your partner and understanding the overall look will be more eclectic. It will mean compromising!
At Laurel Design Collective, we always start our design process with what we call Style Analysis or Concept Development. It’s one of our favorite parts of the process and it’s fun for our client’s too. We start by setting up the review. We’re gonna show our clients 30 or so images, none of which are designed by us, none of which we have any attachment to. We want their natural, gut reactions. The good, the bad, the meh, the disagreements with each other. All of this is super helpful for us to understand our client’s style preferences and needs.
This feedback is crucial, so we talk through how to provide constructive feedback, right at the start. We need more than, “yes, love that! or “nope.” We need the why behind your response. That means feedback like this: “I don’t like this cabinetry. It’s too dark and reminds me of my grandmother’s traditional, dark kitchen that no one ever had any fun in.” Or maybe it’s this: “I love the built-in bookcases here! I hadn’t thought of that for our home, but I really love to read and it would be nice to have somewhere to put more books.” Sometimes feedback is more personal, sometimes it’s more external. Either way is fine, as long as we have the why behind the reaction.
Yes, we can merge your style with your partner’s!
Often even if two people have opposing style preferences, we will start to notice certain things they both like. Sometimes this will be a metal finish or a living room layout. Sometimes it will be more specific like how a certain modern table blends with more traditional pieces in a room. This is how we start to build that common ground.
We want our client’s to LOVE their spaces. We work hard to find pieces they will both enjoy. Our style analysis meeting leaves us with a wide breadth of information we can then apply as we design their home and select furniture. In the end we’re able to create something they both love.
So you want to do this yourself?
How can you and your partner apply this to your home, even if you’re not working with us at Laurel Design Collective? You start by each pulling 30 images you love and then go through them one by one with each other. Look for things that overlap: wood tones, certain pieces, colors, vibes, metal finishes, etc. And then look at things that are unique to one person’s images, that the other person also likes. Finally, pull out the things each of you dislikes. Write all of this down as you go. You’ll end up with notes like this:
LIKES:
- A loves dark woods in B’s photos
- Both like Saarinen table
- We want built-in bench at kitchen
- Both want upper cabinets that go to ceiling
- B likes example A showed of inset slab front cabinetry
- Countertops that are dark are interesting
- Brass and polished nickel
- Bold, big light fixtures – yes!
- Black accents throughout
- Smaller, more subtle hardware
DISLIKES:
- B does not like more ornate cabinetry style
- B hates orange accents
- Main Bedrooms without doors to bathroom
- Bedrooms where access to closet it through bathroom
- Chunky kitchen islands
- Patterned sofas
And from there, you can build a design that both of you like! It will take time and patience, but it’s so worth it to create a space you both enjoy that is a combination of both of your style preferences and both of your personalities!