If you're part of a couple, decorating can be about building a home environment you are both pleased with. Fortunately this is often easy as attraction is imbued with shared loves and admiration - you like the same things or you admire and adore the person and so what they like reminds you of your adoration, even if it isn't something you personally enjoy. But as you're both doing it, the decoration and features become about both of you. So for me, my own space is about those bits of me it would be unfair to impose on shared space - the obsessions, the fanboy stuff, the spreadeagled hobbies. In the house we might choose my photos that reflect our love of our current environment, while in my space the subject matter might be what I call my "boring photos" (the one's people want to ask "Why the hell did you take that?"). Likewise in my space I can spread the gear-obsession with photography over all available surfaces. And my books... I need bookcases for my eclectic tastes, leaving the more generic and shared-useful books in the shared spaces. But mostly, my space needs to have space for the person I share my life with. Yes, the area is filled with self-interest, but I need a space where my partner can come in, maybe with a laptop or a book or an iPad if they want to entertain themselves, and themselves relax, maybe two chairs & a coffee table, maybe a clear spot next to me on a long desk, maybe their own carved-out bit of space where they can just be, but all somewhere they want to be. Because, yes, I want to be alone, yes, as a reclusive, introverted person I sometimes need "clear air", but I would never want any space I occupy to have such low "WAF" (ugh, ~vomits~) that it would isolate me from the actual or potential presence of the one person sufficiently and deeply empathetic with me that they'd give me this "man space" within "our space". And I'd sure as hell do the same back.

That's hard. Doing a total renovation, every room is being done to my complete satisfaction naturally, so I'm loving every one of them and being in them.

If you see "Where to invade next" (Michael Moore's new movie) it is a fascinating insight into some scandi (and Icelandic and a few suprises!) culture. Makes me realise our lemming like behaviour to follow 'merica is very misguided!

good health and enthusiasm can achieve whatever we need and i feel that small habits like leaving pegs on the line and having a rod for hanging fresh washing in the laundry are both great time savers and help me feel more organised