How-To
Different tastes, shared walls. Art buying is deeply personal and visible, and buying art as a couple is one of the most common challenges faced when building a home together. But the joy of decorating your new home or first apartment together shouldn’t be overshadowed by the stress of clashing tastes and endless debates. The good news is that finding art you both love is absolutely possible. With a little strategy, patience, and willingness to meet in the middle, this is how you will find art you love.
Start with Visual Research Together
Before you even start browsing galleries or online platforms, spend time understanding each other’s aesthetic preferences.
Pull up Pinterest, flip through design magazines, scroll through saved Instagram posts, and look for overlaps:
- Color palettes
- Compositional styles (bold vs. delicate, busy vs. minimal)
- Subject matter or themes
- Mood and emotional tone
You might gravitate toward completely different styles, but often there’s common ground. One partner might love moody landscapes while the other prefers bold abstracts, but if you’re both drawn to deep blues and greens, that’s a starting point.
Focus on Feeling and Experience
Instead of starting with “I like this painting,” try asking: “How do we want this room to feel?” or “What experiences do we want to celebrate together?”
Questions to ask together:
- Should our living room feel calming and serene or energizing and bold?
- What atmosphere are we trying to create?
- Do we both love the beach? Have we shared a memorable trip to Paris? Are we similarly smitten with cats?
When buying art as a couple, working backward from the desired emotion or forward from shared experiences often reveals unexpected agreement. You’re sure to find common ground around artworks that celebrate a shared passion or depict a place you have fond memories of together.
Designate Spaces for Individual Taste
When decorating as a couple, not every room needs to be a compromise. A good tactic is to divide and conquer. Think about where you spend time together or apart within the home.
Shared spaces (living rooms, dining rooms, entryways) → Reflect both partners’ sensibilities
Personal spaces (home offices, dens, hobby rooms) → Lean into individual preferences
This gives everyone autonomy and prevents one person’s taste from dominating the entire home. Your partner gets their vibrant figurative work in their office; you get your minimalist photography in yours. The living room gets something you’re both genuinely excited about.
Start Small
You don’t need to buy one perfect statement piece right away. Starting with smaller, more affordable works takes the pressure off and lets you experiment with your combined taste without major financial commitment.
Why starting small works:
- Test what you respond to in your actual living space
- Build a gallery wall where partners’ tastes can coexist and complement each other
- Gain confidence in your decision-making before investing in larger, pricier pieces
Small purchases also let you collect over time rather than forcing immediate agreement on high-stakes investments, which leads us to our next tip…
Take Your Time
Rushed decisions lead to regret and resentment, especially when you’re spending significant money on work that will live on your walls for years. It’s completely okay to keep looking until you find the work that excites both of you. The right piece is worth waiting for, and settling just to end the search almost always backfires.
Get Expert Help When You Need It
If all else fails, seek help from an art advisor! Art advisory can help navigate differing tastes by acting as a neutral third party—someone who understands both partners’ preferences and can curate options that work for both of you.
How advisors help couples:
- Source works that meet both partners’ criteria (color, style, subject, budget)
- Provide a professional perspective that moves past subjective “I like it/I don’t” debates
- Save you from endless scrolling arguments by narrowing options to pieces with real potential
When you’re investing in significant pieces or designing multiple rooms together, having expert guidance can make the entire process smoother and more enjoyable for both of you.
You’re Ready to Buy Art as a Couple
Buying art as a couple comes down to communication, compromise, and building a home that feels authentic to your partnership. Whether you’re decorating as a couple for the first time or refining spaces you’ve shared for years, the process might take longer than shopping solo, but when you finally hang a piece you both genuinely love, your home becomes a reflection of the life you’re building together.