7 Tips on Avoiding Arguments with Your Uncle about the Colors you picked out for your Living Room

Here are 7 Tips on Avoiding Arguments with Your Uncle about the Colors you picked out for your Living Room:

• For many of us moving into our first apartment can be an exciting time. It’s one of the few times in your life when you get to make all the decisions about how your space looks, instead of having to work around someone else’s ideas. Instead of living with Dad’s plaid couch those clashes with the carpet, you now have the freedom to repaint that hideous green wall a nice taupe or maybe even off-white. Perhaps you want to install hardwood flooring instead of the dingy shag carpeting. These are all decisions you get to make on your own without having to consider anyone else’s opinions or tastes. The kitchen and bathroom can be remodeled and you can finally get that leather sectional even if your mom says it will show every drop of the drink spilled on it.
• But before you go to the nearest furniture store and buy all new stuff for your living room, bedroom, and den there is one person who should be consulted: your Uncle Gerry. Yes, I said your uncle and not your girlfriend or boyfriend, wife or husband. Not because women don’t have opinions but because they’re usually more practical about how things will actually look in the long run. No woman wants to live with a bachelor pad for eternity just because she didn’t want to hurt her boyfriend’s feelings by saying it looked like a college dorm. No, we’ll keep that to ourselves and hope he doesn’t pick up on our subtle hints.

• So here’s what you should do if your girlfriend or boyfriend isn’t as helpful as Uncle Gerry: ask his opinion but make sure they understand that this is your place and it will be decorated the way you want it. It will look like an advertisement for IKEA, but if that’s what makes you happy then go for it.
• Unfortunately, this plan of attack does not always work when talking with your uncle about the colors you chose for your living room, office or whatever other space is in question. Your Uncle Gerry has been around the block a few more times than you have and knows what colors are in style. He has probably decorated most of the rooms in his house and knows best how to make them look good, clean and fresh. But here’s the rub: your place is not his place. Your apartment is not like other apartments because it only has to make sense for you. It shouldn’t look like every other place on the block because you’ll get bore of it in a month. And move on to something else without warning. leaving your uncle with a lot of tedious work to do when he comes over for dinner. He would prefer to be able to walk into your apartment and not see anything that reminds him of “that time you redecorated and I had to help you bring everything back in because it looked like crap.”

• I can’t tell you how many times my Uncle Gerry has said those exact words. The implication is that I shouldn’t have listened to what he thought about an apartment full of gold, orange, red or yellow couches with patterned wallpaper. I should have listened to his good advice about how only some things look good with hardwood flooring of living room and not others. Of course, he had done it all before so I should have trusted his opinion better than my own.
• But here’s the problem: even though your Uncle Gerry has seen more apartment redecorating than you have, his taste might not be any better than yours. And if you really want to pick your own stuff you should probably do it without worrying about whether or not it will look good with the couch that Uncle Gerry picked out when he moved into his first apartment.
• Your opinions and tastes are just as valid as anyone else is even if they don’t have decades of experience with apartments, couches, and paint swatches. You don’t have to listen to anyone’s opinions but your own because they can be just as valid even if they’ve never had their own place. Just remember the golden rule: this is your place so decorate it as you want it, not like how anybody else would want it.

Conclusion:

The blinds lead the far-sighted for living room.

When people ask me if I can see anything it mostly assumes that I’m completely blind. Even though this is far from the truth. I can see some light and color but it’s blurry and distorted, so much so that I don’t find it particularly useful for anything. There’s a reason I use a cane and not my eyes: to find my way around obstacles and navigate the world as it is because my sight isn’t good enough.