Design for a Couple Without Taking Sides

Imagine a designer named Vashti Lisle who is redoing the primary bedroom in the Aldines’ townhouse. It is the one room in the house that belongs to both of them. Mrs. Aldine wants it pale and soft, with linen curtains and a canopy over the bed. Mr. Aldine wants it dark. “I just want to sleep,” he says, and he does not want a canopy.

Vashti has an installation that afternoon. Mrs. Aldine called her, and Mrs. Aldine’s idea is close to how Vashti would do the room anyway. “I think the canopy would be beautiful in here,” Vashti says. “It suits the height of the ceiling.” Mr. Aldine shrugs. “You two decide,” he says.

The room is finished in May, and it is lovely. It also faces east. By June, Mr. Aldine wakes at five every morning, when the sun comes through the linen. He starts sleeping in the guest room on weeknights. In the autumn, the Aldines redo his study. Mr. Aldine chooses the designer for it himself, and he does not choose Vashti.

Suppose instead that Vashti asks Mr. Aldine what he dislikes. “Is it the shape of the canopy, the fabric, or something else?” Mr. Aldine thinks about it. “It’s the light,” he says. “This room gets the sun at five in the morning, and every pale curtain we’ve had lets it in.” The canopy itself he can live with.

So Vashti keeps the pale walls and the linen canopy for Mrs. Aldine. Behind the linen curtains, she adds a second set, lined to keep out the light, on a track of its own. Then she gives each of them a part of the room to decide. Mrs. Aldine chooses the fabric for the canopy and the bed. Mr. Aldine chooses the reading chair by the window and the lamp beside it.

Vashti presents the plan to both of them together. “In the day, the room is pale and soft, the way you described it, Mrs. Aldine,” she says. “At night, the second curtains close, and it stays dark until you open them.” Mr. Aldine asks whether he can close them from the bed, and Vashti says that he can. The Aldines approve the plan that afternoon. Once the room is finished, Mr. Aldine sleeps until seven. In the autumn, he calls Vashti about his study.

Vashti’s taste was the same both times. What changed was whether she took a side. In the first version, she backed Mrs. Aldine, whose idea was close to her own, and Mr. Aldine’s reason never came out. In the second, she asked what his objection was about. It was the morning light, which the design could fix without taking the canopy from Mrs. Aldine.

So when a couple disagree about a room, take neither side. Here is why a shared room needs both partners’ reasons, and what three designers found.

A shared room belongs to two people with a say in it

Here is the course’s view of a room a couple share. The bedroom, the living room, and the kitchen belong to both partners, and both will live in them for years. One partner usually calls you and does most of the talking. Even so, the one who can quietly say no may say little in the meeting.

When you back one partner’s idea, the other partner often does not argue with you. They go along, as Mr. Aldine did with “You two decide.” Then they live with the room. A partner who lost spends every evening in a room that does not fit them. So they move to the guest room, or they choose the next designer themselves.

Taking neither side does not mean giving each partner half the room, such as one pale wall and one dark one. Two wishes for the same room cannot both win. Two reasons often can both be met, the way the second curtains met Mr. Aldine’s need for a dark room. That is the course’s suggestion, and here is the reason. A wish names a finished room, so only one can win. A reason names a problem, and a design can solve more than one problem at once.

A Baton Rouge designer promises couples that she will save their marriage

Arianne Bellizaire is a designer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In 2020, she told Business of Home’s 50 States Project how she wrote her website for one person, her ideal client. It promises “Save time,” “Save money,” and “Save your marriage.”

She described what that client is going through. The couple are building a house, the contractor keeps asking her questions, and she is running out of time. In Bellizaire’s words, “her husband is aggravated, and they’re arguing.” She said, “My ideal client is married, and I spend a lot of time being a marriage counselor.” Her work is “listening to: ‘She said she wanted,’ and ‘But you said you wanted,’ and helping them meet in the middle.”

The promise is what brings her clients. “Every time someone calls me, they say, ‘I called you because your website says “Save your marriage,” and I said, “This is my girl.”’”

She also said what changes at the design presentation. Her answer to a wife who says that her husband “doesn’t get it” is to bring him to the presentation. Once he sees the design, she said, “Suddenly it’s not just in their head and your head, it’s something we’re all looking at and the direction is clear.”

Bellizaire’s point is that each partner starts with a room in their own head, and the two rooms do not match. One design in front of both of them gives the couple the same room to talk about.

A New York designer found out why a husband disliked a green dining room

Ryann Swan Hackett is a designer in New York. In 2024, Business of Home asked her and 13 other designers what they do when a couple disagree. “What I focus on first is ensuring that each party feels heard,” she said.

Her example was a dining room her firm presented “bathed in the most gorgeous green hue.” The wife loved it, and the husband did not. Before anything changed, her firm tried to find out what he disliked. “We spent time to really understand if it was the furniture forms he did not like, or the wallcovering print, or something else,” she said.

The answer came from the wife. She remembered that her husband is color-blind and cannot see green. “So the poor guy was seeing a gray room,” Hackett said. “No wonder he found it so lackluster!”

Nobody could have guessed that reason, and siding with the wife would have buried it. Hackett’s question named the parts of the room one by one, so the husband could point at what bothered him.

She also gives each partner a part of the work to decide. “Oftentimes, we also try to give each partner their own niche of ownership,” she said. Her firm often goes shopping with one partner for pieces like door hardware and plumbing fixtures. “I think giving people a specific area of control allows them to feel less overwhelmed and more in the driver’s seat.”

An Atlanta designer kept both partners as clients by not picking sides

Nina Nash is a designer at Mathews Furniture + Design in Atlanta. In 2019, she told Business of Home about a couple her business partner had worked with for about 20 years. The firm had done their whole house in Atlanta. It had just redone their dining room and their primary bedroom when the marriage ended.

When a marriage ends, Nash said, the firm typically gets a call from both partners at once. For this couple, it did both homes. “It can be hard, but it’s best to keep it professional and not pick sides,” she said.

After the divorce, each of them got something the marriage had held back. The wife used to say that her husband “won’t let her spend a lot.” Now, Nash said, she “calls all the shots,” and the firm made her a glamorous “Champagne room” in his old study. Her former husband wanted a sleek bachelor apartment in a high-rise penthouse. He “got to have a say in what is in his own home for the first time in 20 years,” Nash said.

Nash also described a habit with married couples that works against this lesson. “There’s usually somebody out of the two that has a stronger opinion,” she said. “If I already agree with what they’re saying, I’ll probably endorse that idea a little bit more.”

Measured against this lesson, keep her rule from the divorce and drop the habit. Her own story shows why. By her account, the husband had no say in his own home for 20 years, and her firm had designed that home. The partner with the weaker opinion may be the one who has given way for years. A designer who backs the stronger opinion puts that into the rooms, where the other partner lives with it.

Why sending the couple home to decide goes wrong

Imagine a designer named Rowena Brede who is redoing the Seacombes’ living room. Mr. Seacombe wants the television over the fireplace, for watching the game on Sundays. Mrs. Seacombe wants her grandmother’s painting over the fireplace, and no television in the room at all.

Rowena has a site visit at three, and she knows not to take sides. “Why don’t you two talk it over,” she says, “and let me know which way you’d like to go?” At home, the Seacombes argue about it twice, and then they stop bringing it up. Six weeks later, Mrs. Seacombe writes that they will leave the living room for now.

Rowena was right not to take a side. Her mistake was leaving the disagreement for the couple to settle at home, where she could not help. Neither partner could give way without losing to the other. So they put the room off.

The version that works keeps the question in the room. Rowena asks each of them what the room is for. Mr. Seacombe watches the game there with his two sons on Sundays. Mrs. Seacombe has friends over for drinks on Fridays, and she wants the painting where everyone can see it.

So Rowena’s plan puts the painting over the fireplace. The television goes in a cabinet on the side wall, facing the deep sofa, behind doors that close. Mr. Seacombe chooses the sofa, and Mrs. Seacombe chooses the lamps and the rug. The Seacombes approve the plan at the next meeting.

Taking neither side is not letting down the partner who called you

The partner who called you is often the one you talk to every week. Taking neither side can feel disloyal to that partner, as if you owed them the win.

Bellizaire’s callers tell her what they want, and it is not a win. They call because her website says “Save your marriage.” A partner who wanted to win the argument would not call for that. Nash kept both partners as clients through their divorce by not picking sides. So the partner who called you is best served by a room that both of them want to live in.

How to design one room for a couple who want different things

1. For a shared room, plan the first walk-through and the presentation with both partners there. If one partner cannot come, bring that partner in another way, such as a short call.
2. Ask each partner what they do in the room, and when. Write each partner’s answers under their own name. For example, a designer redoing a family room can ask each of them, “What are you doing in here on a Sunday afternoon?”
3. When one partner dislikes part of a design, ask what part, as Hackett does. Name the parts one by one, before anyone defends the design. For example, a designer presenting a library can ask, “Is it the color of the shelves, the pattern on the chairs, or something else?”
4. Do not say which partner is right, even when one partner’s idea is the one you like. Design one room that answers both partners’ reasons. For example, a designer whose couple disagree about a kitchen island might hear that one wants the children seated there. The other wants a clear counter for cooking. So the island gets stools on one side and a long, clear counter on the other.
5. Give each partner a part of the room to decide, as Hackett does. Choose a part that matters to that partner, from what they told you about their day. For example, a designer doing a dining room might let the partner who hosts dinners choose the chairs and the table linens. The partner who collects art might choose the lights over the paintings.
6. Present one design to both partners together. Say what it does for each of them, in their own words. Then give your opinion with its reason. For example, a designer can say, “Mark, your reading corner gets the morning light you wanted. Ellen, your desk faces away from the window for your calls. I’d do it this way, because each of you gets what you asked for.”
7. If the couple still disagree about one piece, show two choices you would be glad to do. Then say which you would choose, with your reason in their words. For example, a designer can say, “I’d choose the walnut table, because you said the children do their homework there every night. If the dinner parties matter more, it’s the marble.”

Next: You will see how to work with everyone else around a house, from the architect to the house manager.