I'd go with his choice, because even if it wasn't 'my' style, I'd rather feel like he's taking an interest and equally invested in our home together. Plus, if I'm being completely honest, I think his taste is probably better than mine. ;) He rarely has an opinion on anything house-related, so when he puts his foot down, I go along with it: and on each occasion, it's been exactly the right decision. Example: I wanted the whole house painted out in ecru and antique white because it looks awesome with oak floors and I'm kind of a minimalist. Hubby insisted on painting the lounge room in yellow. YELLOW. I thought he'd lost his mind... but I went with it, because I get my way 99.9% of the time, so why quibble about the 0.1%? He insisted that 'in Winter, you'll be glad we have this warm, cozy colour'. And you know what? Every Winter, I love that room. It's an odd duck compared to the rest of the house, but damned if it doesn't actually work surprisingly well. It'd definitely be too much to take as a house-wide theme - but contained as it is, it's pretty great.

yes Wuff it was extremely upsetting. I used to go to my car after every visit & cry & cry! My little guy is the apple of my eye & just the most fun lovable thing that even people who don't like dogs warm to. He's so used to being with people & having people fuss over him.Not the girls at quarantine though! You could see in his eyes he couldn't understand what he'd done wrong to be locked up & shunned & he used to howl & cry whenenver I got up to leave. The last week he was there he stopped eating. My 2 cats were rescues. My Maine Coon, Mr Bubba Coon was dumped at San Diego County Animal Shelter because he was the runt of the litter & deemed to be not big enough to be saleable. It was the height of the GFC. I brought him back to Sydney with me. My other guy, Spooky Cat is black & he & his sister were dumped at a vet in Five Dock here in Sydney aged 4 weeks. He stayed locked up in a cage at the shelter until he was 16 weeks old as black cats & tortys are the hardest cats to find a home for. When i took him home he just sat on the couch for a week because the concept of being free to walk about wherever he wanted was so foreign to him. He is the sweetest, loveliest little guy with beautiful yellow green eyes.

I hired a storage space (c 2,5 cubic m) when we were putting our house on the market. I needed to make the house look better, and I also needed to start the packing process. Because it was 20 km away, I thought long and hard about everything that went into that space, as compared to what I could donate, sell or trash. Amazing how much stuff is around, but not important at all. Let's just say that I got rid of more than I stored. And since we moved into our new house, I've eliminated another few car boot loads. My motto: if it isn't important enough to be in your house, in use or on display, it sure isn't important enough to spend money storing it.

It's many years since we've had an eat-in kitchen, but my current renovation incorporates an eating area in the kitchen because, frankly, I'm tired of the extra work to carry things to and from the dining room and the extra cleaning created by always using the dining room even for casual meals for just two of us. We have had bar stools at the kitchen island, and the grandkids use them, but my husband hates them and refuses to eat at bar height or even at a lowered 'ledge'; on the side of the island. So my kitchen reno will include a table on one end of the island, at regular table height and large enough to seat 5 if necessary. There is a large sliding door to the veranda close to where that table will be positioned, so it should be a pleasant place for casual meals and I expect we'll eat most meals there. I'm so confident of that, I'm converting the dining room to more living space and putting our big timber dining table in the alfresco area, which will be semi-enclosed, with open parts security fly-screened. The dining area we use when we have guests will be super-casual, with a BBQ in one corner and swim spa in the other. I just don't see a purpose for formal dining anymore, especially living in a sub-tropical climate.