G*Nice: Raising the curtain on home decor

As much as I consider myself to be an easy-going, genuinely good guy, I am also man enough to know that I can be particularly irritating! I think I am the most annoying to those who have to deal with me regarding ‘household decisions'. As much as I fully understand the importance of compromise in a relationship, there are some areas where I find it hard to bend.

I hate ornaments and decorative clutter and that is because I grew up in a house that was full of dust-gathering knick-knacks which, to me, were totally pointless. I don't like patterns and prefer blocks of colour and have been accused of wanting to maintain too much of a bachelor-pad-like environment.

This is all background to my explaining my main bones of contention. The biggest elephant in the room (or not in the room if I can get my way!) is the dining table. I don't tend to have people round the house for formal sit-down dinners as I guess it's just not my thing. I don't seem to have a lot of home time as it is, between work and playing football, so when I do have two days in my crib, I don't want the pressure of putting the work into a dining event.

This means that the table would just stand there being a big empty slab. More than that, it would take up space that I really love having around me just as space! It soothes my mind somehow to be able to sit on my big leather sofa and just stare into an expanse of floor space.

The other sticking point is curtains and cushions. My beloved other half always wants to accessorise the apartment with throws and pillows and when she asks for my opinion, I quickly respond that I have no opinion and fully empower her to do her thing and just take care of it. This would seem so simple if it wasn't for the conditions that I hastily impose at the death of the conversation. The conditions include no patterns or pictures of flowers.

Then there is the issue of curtains. I really have no thoughts on curtains, all I need them for is to provide a bit of privacy from the outside looking in, so I'm quite happy to have plain white drapes that just hang there, and once they are hanging I kinda forget about them.

We have been in negotiations for the past six months about getting new curtains that, of course, I don't care about, apart from the rule of no patterns! However, unlike cushions, there are so many permutations with curtains that my usual "don't care" didn't quite cover it.I realised that I don't like the curtains that are gathered at either end with the wall-mounted ties to give the "stage-curtain" effect.

Suffice to say, there's no sign of a resolution at present.

Chintz-ingly yours