With people spending more time than ever at home amidst the pandemic, many Americans are making design changes to their home interiors including numerous couples who live together.
The interior design experts at Modsy surveyed 1,000 cohabitating couples in the U.S. to better understand how they make design decisions in their home, where and when conflicts arise, and more. They found that:
- Picking a design is a democratic process, mostly. 45% of American couples partake in “even decision making” with their significant other in terms of interior design.
- An overwhelming 62% of couples say that the living room is the part of the house they care about most and are willing to throw down the gauntlet over.
- The biggest source of conflict when disagreeing on interior design is budget, at 24%. The second biggest source of conflict (with 18%) was furniture purchases.
- Of those couples that disagree on furniture purchases, couches were the most argument-inducing item (26%).
For the full results, be sure to check out the complete Relationship Interior Design Index and survey results. In addition, couples in relationships can take Modsy’s Style Quiz together as the first step towards creating a space they’ll both love.
Last but not least, here are a handful of few tips from Mody’s design experts to help couples combine interior styles peacefully are outlined below.
- Plan to Purge Equally. Each party is likely coming into this decision with a piece of furniture or two already, meaning there will most likely be duplicates. Go piece-by-piece to decide which furniture piece is in the best condition, or to choose which knick-knacks are meaningful to both of you.
- Align on Your Shared Vision. Talk about the big stuff, and the smaller stuff will fall into place. What does your partner value in a home? What are their must-haves and your hard-nos?
- The Right Color Palette Can Bring Everything Together. Any two, three or nine styles can work together if you have one consistent color palette. If you can agree on that one essential component of your home design, everything becomes so much easier.