When You Live With a Guy…What?
By Christa Terry
When I start to feel sad that Martha Stewart’s Blueprint mag got scrapped, I need only recall passages such as the one that follows to feel better.
You know your peach paisley duvet has to go. But so does the Heineken bar mirror he’s snoozed beneath since college. To build a unisex bed where nobody feels short-sheeted, start with hues that aren’t too masculine (dark, opaque browns and grays) or feminine (light, powdery pinks and blues). Here, yellow sheets, a teal blanket, an ash-gray duvet, and soft-brown shams create a bright, cheery combo that won’t make him feel marooned on planet Venus. And while you’ll be avoiding all things frilly, you can still have fun with textures, like quilted canvas, fuzzy wool, and menswear-inspired stripes and checks.
The planet Venus? Well I was going to fill my bedroom with an opaque layer of highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid, but I guess I won’t.
Now I don’t know about you, but my husband has never given me the slightest reason to think that he cares at all what our bedroom looks like. I’m not saying that no men care, but a quick poll of my guy friends has shown me that there is a distinct lack of decor preferences on the XY side of the spectrum. Ladies, care to weigh in? Or maybe the gents should comment to tell me how wrong I am and that the average guy totally gives a toot about the color of his bed linens!
October 29th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Mr. Twistie cares. In fact, when I was looking at some purple sheets with gold flowers stamped on them and the matching fuschia curtains and dust ruffle, not to mention the bedspread in stripes of purple, orange, fuschia, and indigo all with the gold flower stamps, he got even more excited about them than I did. He got even more excited when he realized the slightly mottled purple of the sheets pulled together the purple trim I’d had painted in the room and the different shade of purple carpet we’d had put in. They’d looked fine together before, but once we added the sheets, it all looked amazing.
A couple friends of mine pulled me aside and asked how Mr. Twistie was dealing with those fuschia curtains. It felt great to be able to tell them that he’s the one who was more into the curtains of the two of us.
Did I mention that he’s the one who noticed first how the gold flower stamps pulled together his mother’s Japanese chest of drawers with the brass flower fittings and my parents’ bedroom furniture with the heavily carved scrolls with the flowers in the centers?
He’s also the one who wants to do period accurate in our living room one day. Our house was built in 1889.
I love this man.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:37 am
I’ve yet to date a man who doesn’t decorate with the Bed in a Bag his mom gave him. Sometimes with matching shower curtain.
October 29th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
The Boy doesn’t really seem to care as long as he doesn’t have to think about it.
Case in point, our bedroom carpet and trim is still the same gawdawful ashy gray Disney Princess purple it was when we moved in a year ago (I think the trim might *actually* be the Behr paint colour Princess Purple).
He eyes me warily when I bring up things like lime green towels or aqua sheets, but I notice he doesn’t have much of a problem using them. 🙂
I suppose it probably helps that though I am wild about colour I’m not so big on frilly.
October 29th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Mine cares! He wants the dark, masculine colors, and he thinks that all of the “in between” stuff is ugly for one reason or another. We’re going to use a big navy blue and black woven blanket from Guatemala for our bedspread, because he just despises most modern design.
October 29th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
After my boyfriend and I had been dating for a few weeks he bought brand-new linens, top to bottom. What he’d been sleeping on was apparently not fit for public viewing! So, no, I don’t think most men really care.
October 30th, 2008 at 1:01 am
My dad doesn’t care. Mom painted their bedroom lavender and bought a lavender and white quilt with lacy accents, and he sleeps under it without comment or complaint. Mom tries to consult him sometimes, but he refuses to help.
My husband does care a bit, but he tends agree with my taste in decor. We do have pink sheets, which he has never commented on, and sheets with lace trim, which he likes. The bedroom color scheme is a bit masculine I suppose, but I decorated it a year before we married and wasn’t thinking about his tastes at the time; I just happen to like gray-blue and chocolate brown. Thankfully he likes it too.
October 30th, 2008 at 3:07 am
I would ask Chef Boy how he feels, but I’m laughing so hard at “I was going to fill my bedroom with an opaque layer of highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid, but I guess I won’t” that I can’t just now.
October 30th, 2008 at 6:40 am
My husband doesn’t care about decorating decisions 90% of the time. Which puts me in something of a bind the 10% of the time when I ask his opinion (and I do try to always ask, because he lives here too) and he not only doesn’t agree with me, but expresses a preference for something I’m not wild about. Like the clock in the dining room that reminds me of the ones we had in elementary school. But since I’ve had my unfettered way for 90% of the house, I feel like I should let him have his way the 10% of the time he does care.
October 30th, 2008 at 11:40 am
The Stonecutter definitely has a preference. He’s mostly easy-going, unless something is just over-the-top girly (or unless it involves wallpaper — he’s very anti-wallpaper). But sometimes he’ll surprise me, like when he found a very ornate, Baroque-style cinnamon-toned bedding ensemble. And loved it. I’m still reeling from that one.
For the most part, though, he’s pretty laissez-faire about the whole thing.
November 3rd, 2008 at 1:48 am
The Young Man is more into linens than I am. He makes excellent choices. Green, bright yellow, dark & powder blue, white & black, ethnic stripes & weaves, fuchsia silk from India, he keeps bringing more of these lovely bits back from trips. We are a bit short of curtains, since I’m still (trying) learning to sew, so its a challenge to harmonize either green or yellow curtains with all these other colors. Sometimes the colors are a bit of a riot, but its always clean and sweet smelling.
The Young Man tells me that his obsession with having lots of clean linen began in college when the room mates constantly gravitated to his bed because it was the cleanest, most laundered real estate available.
November 4th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
The acupuncturist doesn’t care, as long as the sheets are soft and not scratchy. He doesn’t like “scratchy.” Even better if they’re very soft and smooth. But not “that shirt-y material” (jersey) because the flat sheet gets all tangled in his legs and isn’t comfortable. So, 300+ thread count only. he knows the difference. Would notice if they were pink, but would assume I know what I’m doing so it must be nice.
November 10th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
My husband lets me make a lot of the decisions about decorating, though he generally rejects anything too girly. (I.e., too pink, too flowery, too precious.) He did consent to having the bedroom painted peach, to my surprise.
Now, when it comes to home organization, he’s the king, and I just watch! He recently re-organized the kitchen and bathroom cabinets.
December 1st, 2008 at 7:12 pm
I have to admit that my eyebrows raised a bit on that one. I reckon anybody sharing my bedroom is actually hoping to explore planet Venus, rather than object to it!
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:19 pm
As a guy myselk, last time I checked, I’m inclined to agree with this. We might say we don’t care, but we sometimes do.
March 7th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
The whole premise seems a little insulting and a little outdated. I like to think that wer can all like whatever we like, regardless of gender.Sure, thre are some things more guys like and some things more women like, but there’s plenty of overlap there.
February 9th, 2010 at 12:55 pm
Only a very brave husband would question his wife’s taste in decoration.
Fortunately for her, my wife has a brave husband.
She tells me that my “Ken the Artiste” persona is a major pain.
But she lives in a very cool house because of it.