How To Be Mad About Your House

How to reach an agreement with partners and children

with KATE WATSON-SMYTH — Design expert, journalist, best-selling author. Creator of UK's #1 interiors blog and podcast.

Lesson 28 of 29

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It is never fun to argue with your partner and kids about your decorating plans. Kate offers insights into how you can have a discussion with your family to figure out what they want from a home and to make a space that everyone will love.

From the Lesson Workbook

How to Reach an Agreement with Partners and Children

Whenever someone shows strong feelings against a colour, you should investigate whether it is an emotional reaction or a cultural reaction. There is no such thing as the wrong colour, only the wrong shade. It is crucial to understand why someone dislikes something, to talk to them about it, and to see if there is a way to reach a compromise along the colour spectrum. Interior design is a long game. Often, people will accept designs.

Decorating Children's Bedrooms

You can let your children have what they want in their bedroom. They need to have ownership over their space. You should try and guide them, give them an edited choices and let them chose from that.

Making Plasterwork a Feature

You can make a feature of cornicing or plasterwork. Picking a colour out from your room to tie the space.

Kate's Extension Ceiling

Kate added panelling to one wall adding further character to the space. The wall behind was painted first and the battens were then glued on below. They put bi-fold doors onto the back of the kitchen. Rather than critcutter doors they used black electrical tape, more important with the period property. Having a dark window frame draws your eye to outside. Kate added a woodburning stove and character by making a much bigger chimney than is needed, using old chimney bricks.

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Rated 4.7/5 on Trustpilot

437 reviews

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Very good tutorial from a professional garden...

I have subscribed to access all the courses so have watched one on interior design and this one with Butter Wakefield who specialises in small garden design. She ...

Louise Brown

Apr 10, 2026

Time spent well

I love CreateAcademy. I came in for the gardening and floristry courses, but am also watching an interior design one at present. And the photography course is an ...

Wellesley

Apr 1, 2026

What a great investment

What a great investment, I have learned such a lot from the first three courses. My evenings have gone from not being able to find anything that captured my imagi...

sojojo

Mar 30, 2026

I loved this course with Amanda\u2026

I loved this course with Amanda Lindroth! Her approach to decorating is so relaxed and she makes it feel attainable. She explains the reasons behind her decisions...

Elizabeth

Mar 27, 2026

Kate Watson-Smyth

Your Instructor

Kate Watson-Smyth

Design expert, journalist, best-selling author. Creator of UK's #1 interiors blog and podcast.

Kate Watson-Smyth is an award-winning design journalist and author of the best-selling Mad About The House book series. She has spent the last 20 years writing extensively on interiors and design for publications including the Financial Times, The Independent and The Sunday Telegraph. Her home has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Elle Decoration and Livingetc, and her acclaimed website, MadAboutTheHouse.com, is officially voted the UK’s No1 interiors blog.

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