How to move in with your boyfriend or girlfriend and keep the relationship happy.
Blending two separate households into one comes with some important questions: Who's going to cook? Who's going to do the laundry? And the biggest question of all: Whose furniture is going where? So is a fight over his dirty socks and your Great Aunt Maud's credenzas inevitable? Not necessarily. There are many strategies that you can use to make your new home together more harmonious.
Working It Out in the Kitchen
Chores can be a major issue with couples. Sandra Beckwith, relationship author, believes that gender rolls should be totally avoided when divvying up chores. "For example," says Beckwith, "if the husband gets home from work earlier than the wife, he can be the one to start dinner, even though his father never went near the stove. Similarly, if the wife enjoys yard work, she should be able to do it."
Newlywed Carrie Snider of Yakima, Washington agrees. "My husband hates taking out the trash and I don't mind, so I try to do it more often. He loves the cat so he takes care of cleaning out the litter box. We both don't enjoy doing dishes, so we take turns."
How to Coordinate Your Furniture
It's inevitable. As soon as you start moving your furniture together, someone is bound to complain. How can you compromise and still have a house that you can both feel at home in?
Dianne M. Daniels, interior design author, offers these tips:
1. First, determine what items from each person's furniture collection are non-negotiable. The chair you can't live without, the armoire that holds your favorite clothes, the bedside table that was given to you by your grandmother, etc. The idea is to find the one or two items that you definitely want to keep for sentimental or practical reasons. Take measurements to make sure these items will fit into your new abode - especially through the doors!
2. Next, determine what common themes run through both of your collections. Are you both interested in modern, sculptural items, or cushy, soft, touchable things? Do you both like exposed wood, or is complete upholstering the common ground? If you can agree on hard-to-change features like construction of furniture, the color and fabric can be altered more easily.
3. Third, determine what common color themes may run through both collections. Dark, light, earth tones, or vibrant colors? What pleases both of your eyes, or at least doesn't offend? Finding common ground on color is essential to creating a blended collection. Remember that accent colors could be picked up from two different pieces of furniture to help tie the collections together, as can different shadings or hues of existing colors.
4. Finally, make rough sketches of each room and try out furniture placement on a room-by-room basis. Give each person an area of their own where they make all the decisions about furnishings (a private 'haven', so to speak), and then make joint decisions on the big, public spaces like the living room, dining room and other entertaining areas. Find friends or a favorite charity to take the items that don't fit in any of your new 'us' spaces, and enjoy combining your collections to create a truly blended environment.
