Convincing the Spouse

Sometimes the hardest part of a project is convincing my husband John that my fabulous idea really will turn out amazingly beautiful.  It's not that he doesn't trust my abilities to do something amazingly beautiful - he is the most supportive husband I could have ever asked for. No, I think it's more of a, "but we've owned this table/chair/dresser/desk for five years and it does it's job and it is just fine as it is."  While John may be thinking that the end table/bookshelf/lamp has been loved and appreciated for five years, I'm thinking that I did not like the paint color/lamp shade/knobs before we even brought it home. 

With such differing goals for our furniture and other home goods, you can see where I have a need to paint and sew and rearrange while John tends to just live with things.  This is the reason why I must put so much time, effort, and energy into convincing him that our side tables must be painted or that our gallery wall is just too small-scale.  I'm curious if anyone else has a spouse that likes to live with things as they are while you have a desire to make that tv console perfect.

I've learned that John needs lots of visual aids while I plead my case.  Remember those horrible end tables in our living room? He was adamantly against the idea of painting them and couldn't understand why I hated the tables so much.  I tried reasoning, begging, and bribing...and once I broke him down and we had painted them, he was in love with them.  He even went so far as to say, "Next time I need to just go with whatever you want to do - you know best." Does he remember saying that? No. I really should carry around a tape recorder.

One of our dressers

I've been talking about my desire to paint our television console for a few months and he's been ignoring me.  I've also shared with him many times about my desire to paint our bedroom furniture to help make our mix matched dressers and bedside tables fit together better. He's also poo pooed that idea. I know that I could probably beg until he consents - like I did with the living room tables - or do the project and ask for forgiveness once he sees me already painting, but I'd much rather have him excited about the project and believe that what we're doing will make our home 100 times more beautiful and comfortable.

Enter pictures. I've been collecting photos for the past month of inspiration colors and furniture that I plan on laying out nicely in front of John.  My plan is to help him visualize how a simple paint job could turn our bedroom from shouting hand me downs and thrift store to grown up and soothing cocoon.  I don't want to overwhelm John with too many options or pictures so I need your help. I'm trying to decide between painting our furniture white or gray.  The vision I have for our master bedroom is grays with pops of white and green.  We're renting right now and have white walls, but when we buy a house in the next year or two I want to paint the walls a pale gray...hence the indecision.  What do YOU think?

I'm loving this moody dark color for our bedroom furniture. I worry, though, if it would be too much with two bedside tables and two tall dressers...what do you think?

Here is a picture of white against pale gray...I love it and I know it will help John visualize the potential of our bedroom.

A softer, lighter gray bedside table. I think it may blend into our future light gray walls, though...I can picture all of our furniture painted this color, though.

I love this color with the pop of white in the knobs.

So, please vote for the color you think we should paint our furniture - white, dark gray, or light gray.