Taste or follow convention?

My trouble is that DH wants white doors and windows everywhere in and outside the house and I do not.

He would happily live with muted colours on every wall, and I want something bright and cheerful.

Compromise is difficult when tastes are so different!

I went looking for a new carpet recently: the choice seemed to be '50 shades of grey' (or neutral). If I wanted something different, I'd have to pay a lot for it! Don't know what to do now!

GrandMattie

You have good taste (in my opinion) my dining room and one sitting room are deep red, one sitting room a very dark aubergine, master bedroom deep blue, everywhere but the ceiling, and all the other bedrooms/bathrooms a mixture of bold colours. I love it, warm and cosy.

Sometimes it depends on what you can afford. In 1996 grey was just going out of fashion, so we bought, at a bargain price, a complete bedroom set of wardrobe, shelves and drawers for one of the DD's bedrooms. Navy and dark blue accessories. We had the furniture until last year.

If you ask yourself, "What makes a trend?" you get the answer, "People choosing that style/colour," so if you choose it when your taste would be for something else, you are just perpetuating what you don't really like.
A no-brainer, really. Why not choose what you do~ like and maybe get a trend going in that direction?

I chose white ivory all over with wood floors. I have art on some walls and the"gallery" twisty staircase with photos of the children and Mr Merryweather and I framed and hung.

It's simple, easy to clean and if I feel fed up I get new art or change cushion covers to give it a refresh.

I think offering a blank canvas to a new buyer is preferable, however it's your house make yourself comfortable and make it your home.
FYI I hate the grey tone.'modern' trend.

Whatever the latest trend is, after a few years it'll be old hat and dated. Grey is one that's on the way out now, and about time too, IMO. Why anyone in the UK would want grey walls or kitchens, when for much of the year you only have to look out of the window, defeats me.

Have whatever you like, and are happy to live with.

I remember buying carpet years ago, looking for grey, and being told it WASN'T a neutral colour, but that beige was! LOL

In a rented house, I once painted the living room a vivid turquoise. While I LOVED the colour and it looked amazing with large vats of orange flowers, I hadn't realised the colour was a depressive. Now I see that colour and it makes me feel slightly ill. AND I had to recoat it with magnolia at least 4 times, when moving out, to return to the original neutral.

A no-brainer, really. Why not choose what you do~ like and maybe get a trend going in that direction?

But you cant on a budget. Even paint palettes change with the incoming trends so unless you colour match you are chosing from the "trends" unless you can afford pricer ranges.

At one point all blues had a tealey tone and it was hard to find a blue-blue

Another time all the reds had orangey teracotta-ey tones

Its designed to look "of the time" so it looks dated in a year or two and you redecorate

Navy and dark green seem to be the new grey.

White is being wild and adventurous at the mo!

I think they best way to not look instantly "last year" is to mix and match and not "theme" the room too much

When I last moved house, our buyers loved it because of the bright and cheerful colours we'd chosen!

Your home is yours so it should reflect who you are and not slavishly follow trends.
Having said that, I suspect most of us are influenced at least a little by what we see in magazines and the media.....remember the 1990's and all the spicy colours influenced by that TV programme.....I loved them at the time but shudder to think of them now! I have lived in my house over 30 years and it has changed many times, but always reflected me (and my family of course!)

Our first house, purshased in 1976, was all shades of brown or orange, absolutely ghastly! In our next house I discovered Designers Guild, a life long love affair with colour ever since.

Re-reading the OP. I can say that, without exception, it would never occur to me to go with a colour scheme in my home (or anything else, for that matter) just because it was what everyone else was doing.

I am secondhand rose and I have a house furnished, almost entirely beautiful 19th century furniture. It is all really good quality and completely worthless, as it is so out of fashion.

But I couldn't care less. I like it, DH likes it and both our DC have already decided what they will each keep when we die. Even DGD has been assured that, yes, she can have Grandma's Chinese carved sewing box/table when Grandma is no more.

As for colour, every living room I have ever had has been yellow, varying from the strong yellow/ornages of the 1960s, to pale creams in the 2000, back to a slightly stronger yellow and cream today. I like it, to hang with convention.