A recent story in the Record Searchlight’s Home & Garden section resulted in a major conversation at our breakfast table that morning.


The story’s title was, “His vs. Hers: What to do when couples and their furniture collide.”

Bruce and I could relate. Where was that article when we needed it? Before we married?

I’ll get to that point in a second, but first let me return to our breakfast table. It’s one of those heavy, round, oak numbers with a pedestal base. Although you can find knockoffs in any furniture store, ours is the real McCoy. My mother bought it in the 60s — back before antiques were expensive and trendy.

As kids, my sisters and I adored that table, especially for the secret compartment on its underside: a tiny platform perfect for stashing overcooked, canned vegetables when our mother wasn’t looking. (She had some great qualities. Cooking wasn’t among them.)

I’ve had the table since I was 19, so it’s been with me through a variety of life stages: first marriage, three babies, a divorce, second marriage, many deaths and celebrations.

That table hosted all my kids’ birthday parties and art projects. It was the foundation for my children’s homework sessions. It was there that I joined them when I returned to college 20 years after my peers graduated.

Through it all, the table’s finish took a beating. Funny thing was, the worse it looked, the less fussily I treated it. To this day, despite my sentimental feelings for that table, I think nothing of setting hot pans and cookie sheets on it. Likewise, I scarcely bat an eye when my son uses it as a work surface strewn with glue guns, razor knives and soldering irons.

I’d never given the table’s condition much thought. Until Bruce Greenberg. My guy’s a gifted woodworker, which partly explains why one of the first comments he made when visiting my house for the first time was about my mother’s dining room table. With a low whistle he said, “Wow. That table needs work.”

Of course, I didn’t know Bruce as well as I do now, so I wasn’t equipped to decode that statement. For example, in the same way I’ve since learned that whenever Bruce says, “That’s an interesting choice,” he really means, “That’s a stupid idea,” — I now realize Bruce’s observation about my table needing work could be accurately translated: “That table’s a real piece of crap.”

Luckily, Bruce was wise enough to keep that opinion to himself. At least until after our honeymoon. That was also just about when we began speaking openly to each other about some of our other furniture, like my pair of rustic wooden garden benches I’ve always kept indoors. And while my twin — an artist and interior redesigner — kindly classifies my taste as grunge chic, Bruce dispenses with the chic and pronounces my collection as simply grungy.

As the article pointed out, it’s not easy for couples to mix furniture. Bruce and I were no exception. The fact is, although we love each other dearly, our decorating styles are sometimes incompatible. More specifically, I’m not wild about his white, nubby recliner, but then, he feels the same about my wobbly pine armoire. Furthermore, he never did warm up to my white farm table with peeling paint, but neither did I to his octagonal, hand-tooled leather-topped coffee table so expansive it could double as a mini trampoline.

One of my favorite parts of the story was when it suggested women should be in charge of a couple’s bedroom decor. I don’t hold out much hope since he replied, “That’s an interesting idea.”

Just this once — I think I’ll take him literally.

Doni Greenberg’s column appears Friday and Sunday on the Local page and Wednesdays on the Food section. She can be reached at 225-8237