By Elena Acoba
Special to the Arizona Daily Star
Combining households is more common nowadays. Not only do young singles live as couples, but so do retired widows and widowers.
Aging parents join adult children, young adult children return to their parents, and single parents combine to create new families.
All of these units likely have furniture and home accessories that they want to keep.
The secret to blending these separate possessions into one comfortable, workable home style has nothing to do with interior design concepts, RuthAnn Melzer says.
It has to do with respect.
"We grow our houses piece by piece by piece," says Melzer, a design and decorating consultant. "That's why our houses become so unique and interesting and nurturing to us. It's all part of our past."
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"People are going to have some things that are of great comfort to them," says interior redesigner Carolyn Bowman. "You'll need to integrate them."
In her own example, Bowman's second husband "comes from a long cowboy family," she says, "so we have a room that's the cowboy room."
Respecting each other's wishes means compromising and showing flexibility about what stays and goes.
Bowman offers ideas on how to weed out possessions:
● Agree to a theme that both parties can live with.
● Measure each room to see which pieces will fit.
● Take into account the architecture of the house to establish a decorating style.
Melzer uses stickers to help people decide what to keep. Each person in a couple, for instance, gets a set of "good" stickers in one color and "bad" stickers in another. Then they put the stickers on the furniture and accessories.
If an item has two "good" stickers, it's a keeper because it's important to both parties. Two "bad" stickers mean sell it or give it away.
A piece with a "good" and a "bad" sticker requires negotiation.
What's left can now be blended into one coordinated style. Melzer and Bowman offer these suggestions:
● Redefine. Use furniture in different ways. Melzer suggests, for example, that the chest that once sat in the hall can separate two chairs in the bedroom. The former dinette table will now add work space in the home office.
● Coordinate. Pull the look together with pillows, pictures, rugs or other accessories that have the same or complementary colors as the upholstered furniture.
● Mix and match. Create an eclectic style by grouping unmatched but complementary pieces such as chairs and tables from two dining sets.
● Reupholster. Change couch and chair fabrics for better coordination without losing the familiar comfort.
● De-emphasize. Use a slipcover or pillows to hide the ugly but comfy chair, Bowman suggests. Put out-of-place pieces in unobtrusive places.
● Rotate. If there's not enough space to set out prized but different collections in separate rooms, change them out during different times of the year, Bowman says.
● Contact freelance writer Elena Acoba at eacoba@azstarnet.com.
» Resources
RuthAnn Melzer, 544-9485 or 241-6092
Room Tailor, Carolyn Bowman, 400-0113