Making house decisions with more than one person is HARD!

Lately it would seem that thinking about the house, and all of the things I want to do to it are taking over my life. Aaron and I have started a list, and we keep adding to it. One problem, however, is that we disagree on a lot of things. Take these examples:

1. I like our kitchen very much. It could use some color, new countertops and appliances eventually (although the new dishwasher arrives tomorrow and I can’t wait to not have to wash everything by hand finally, except Aaron is installing it, and so that finally might start a while from now. I’ll let you know how it all goes.), and maybe a new floor, but he wants to rip everything out and start over. He doesn’t like the color of the cabinets (oak) but I think they’re fine. Plus they match all of the wood work throughout the house. We have a lot of oak. He doesn’t like the layout, but I think it’s great, and if he touches the large expanse of counter space between the kitchen and eating area I’ll kick his rear. He wants a complete do-over, but I just want some updates.

2. Admittedly, our master bathroom needs some updates. There’s a crack (non-leaking) in the sink, I hate the counter tops, and the shower stall was not made for tall people (the previous owners were both shorter than me – I’m 5’9” and Aaron’s about 6’2”). I like his idea of doing floor to ceiling tile for the shower and I’ve already picked out a new door for the stall. However, he wants to rip out the walk-in closet that’s eating up a good portion of space that could be used for a Jacuzzi tub, and then put in a new closet in the master that would obviously eat up some of the space in the master bedroom. I don’t need a Jacuzzi tub, and if I did, I’d replace the tub in the hall bath. I like the large master bedroom, and would be happier if we could just redo the organization system in the closet (the one that is there takes up too much space and makes it hard to maneuver around in the closet).

And that’s not even coming close to touching on paint colors, furniture, and where to put the damn TV in the family room. Then there’s the disagreements about when certain updates should occur. We need to buy a lawnmower, like, yesterday. We have no garage door opener, and Aaron has decided that we’ll just replace the door and install an opener at the same time, and we won’t be able to afford that all until the spring when we get our $8000 first-time homebuyer credit. We can afford an opener now, and I don’t want to go all winter having to get out and manually open the door. I’m lazy and hate to be cold if I can avoid it, and I embrace those facts.

It’s all fairly frustrating, but I know we’ll make it through and maybe he has some great ideas and I’ll love how everything turns out. But I want things my way too, you know? I guess we’ll need to learn another important lesson in cooperation and (crap, what’s the word when you both have to give up something you really want in order to make both people happy?) compromise!