Comments on: Co-Habitation Design

By: tundrah

tundrah — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:31:37 +0000

I am looking forward to reading more of these posts this week. I bought a home with my boyfriend almost two years ago, and some of our most knock-down-drag-out fights have been over design choices in our home. Why, i have no idea–he’s not a designer and i bleed it, yet he doesn’t want me to have the final say… ugh. He kills me,
I cant wait to hear about how others have dealt with it…

By: Katelyn

Katelyn — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 20:25:41 +0000

Oh! Interesting! I’ll be sure to check out your other entries as they come along. I love the pictures of your home, it looks very comfortable and inviting.

By: Caroline

Caroline — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:49:37 +0000

This is a fascinating topic. Thanks for taking it on. I’m moving in with my fiancé at some point this year and to be honest, I’m scared. I really look forward to reading your posts this week (and maybe forwarding them to my fiancé). I think you and Peter should be admired for your willingness to compromise and your teamwork in coming up with solutions that work for both of you. You’re a marriage counselor’s worst nightmare :).

Your dog looks happy, too.

Caroline

By: Carrie S.

Carrie S. — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:23:07 +0000

Oh! Also wanted to add that Pro-ject makes a lovely line of minimal, beautiful turntables – we have the cherry red one in our house, and it would look gorgeous on top of a Danish credenza!

By: Carrie S.

Carrie S. — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:09:52 +0000

“Wall of Sound” is EXACTLY how I refer to the record collection in our house. While it is something amazing and wonderful to behold, it does require wrangling, for aesthetics AND logistical purposes. We’re currently exploring our options for vinyl storage (the ubiquitous Expedit might be the way to go) as our collection has expanded exponentially since my hubs took a job at a music distributor. Heh.

Commenter Dan is correct; a collection of this size is an important feature of the home, and I think Elka and Peter have done a fantastic job of integrating it into their daily life – From the photos, this doesn’t look minimized (or worse, trivialized!) at all…simply more effectively organized.

That being said, the nerdy collector in me is very, very concerned about the proximity of the vinyl to that large (gorgeous!) window…sunlight will cause fading and deterioration in an astonishingly short period of time. Most likely you’ve already considered this and have a lovely window shade of some kind… ;)

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:36:03 +0000

As the chief architect of the discredited Wall of Sound, I must say that Elka has been most sympathetic and sensitive to keeping it more or less intact, but moving around and “stealthing” its constituent parts to reduce massing issues. I do miss having the CD’s literally “at hand,” but cohabitation involves compromises,. The credenza, even I must admit, is a lovely piece and an improvement on the plastic footstool.

By: Allison

Allison — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:05:41 +0000

Every guy DOES have a wall of sound — or at least some collection of music to be hidden. Since I’ve moved in with the B.F., we’ve had to consolidate his “manly” possessions. We threw out the entertainment stand stocked with a sound system, CDs and a play station 2. We added a nice contemporary piece from World Market that we agreed on. The sound system is in the closet and the CDs transferred to rack that’s in the corner in the dining room. Just throw the CD cases out. They are all empty.

Luckily for us, we really aren’t combining past pieces and are buying all new stuff, which is a whole new task in itself.