Pam and Fred are a married couple who completely remodeled their house in Carmel, California while living in it. They faced a dizzying array of choices and decisions that most of us would rather avoid. Those decisions were not just about door knobs, tiles,contractors and sheet rock but about also about how to communicate in the face of constant disagreement and opinions. Sound familiar? Here's a series on how they modeled a way to build a strong relationship. 

                                       Remodelers’ Relationship Tip: Age decisions like fine wine.

Pam:  One good thing about remodeling a house by ourselves was that we weren’t forced into making quick decisions. If we had worked with a contractor, he might have announced on a Friday that he planned to install all the doors the next week and that we had to let him know what style hinges and door handles we wanted by Monday. Fred and I didn’t have that kind of pressure, so when we couldn’t come to an immediate agreement about whether we should have doors with six panels or four panels, we could put off making that decision indefinitely.

Aging decisions makes good sense. We found that putting off decisions gave us time to let each other’s differing ideas slowly sink in. If you have to make up your mind too quickly, the process can become a battle to see who can win. That always means the other loses. We didn’t want winners and losers during our house remodel. Neither of us wanted to go to bed feeling like a loser. So our decisions had to benefit both parties in some way. That usually takes a little time.

Often if we put off a decision, say, for the doors, we had time to understand why the other wanted six paneled doors instead of four paneled doors. Fred wanted six panels because that was what he had in a previous house. I wanted four panels because they looked less formal. It didn’t take Fred too long to agree with me, once he understood my thinking. When he understood that I really wanted him to create hand-hewn doors, he became much more enthusiastic about installing four paneled doors. That’s how the door panel issue became a win-win.

Fred:    Anyone who has ever remodeled a house will say one of the hardest aspects of the process is making joint decisions on door handles or soap dishes or whatever. One reason it is so difficult is that there can be endless numbers of choices.

We had decided to look at Home Depot for our new kitchen cabinets. The salesman explained there were 3 different manufacturers, 23 different styles, 5 types of wood, 16 different finishes. This added up to 5520 possibilities. How can anyone deal with that quickly? I certainly couldn’t deal with all of those choices in the first go-around. Instead, we headed for the paint department to buy some sand paper for the dining room table I was preparing to paint. No big decisions needed to be made that day.

Pam and I definitely put off the kitchen cabinet question, but slowly, each time we went to Home Depot, we narrowed the possibilities. Finally, we had reduced the field to 5 choices and the day of reckoning was upon us. “I think I like the maple with the honey ginger glaze,” reported Pam that day.

“Ok,“ I said. “It sounds like my favorite barbecue sauce.” I was delighted we had come to a decision. We had started with a hopeless impasse and, with time, we had found something we could happily agree on.

Pam and Fred Gilberd are calling for stories from readers who created unique ways to stay happily married during a house remodel. Please email them through their Web site: www.underthecarmelvalleysun.com. They wish to encourage others to follow their dreams and build great relationships.