After getting married in May, Chrissy and Alex Pagonis packed up their belongings and moved into a Naperville house they had built together. But not before striking a decorating agreement.

“We arranged that he would have the basement, garage and outside area, while I got the main floor and bedrooms,” Chrissy Pagonis said. “While we didn’t really get into a feud over anything, you do notice that the basement is strictly a guy getaway with a poker table. There are clearly defined lines.”

As couples take the plunge and commit to sharing a living space, the stage is set for the belongings battle. Neon beer signs and deer heads must merge with scented votives and Anne Geddes prints of sunflower-adorned babies. From furnishings to accessories and bedding to electronics, combining material possessions is never a simple feat. But as the sexes prepare to duke it out over bachelor chic versus shabby chic, a few interior design compromises can make the moving-in process less combative.

“It’s sort of like an adult version of play nice in the sandbox. You have to share,” said Kathy Dickinson of Kathy Dickinson Designs in Oak Brook. “You want something that’s not 100 percent frilly and not 100 percent hard-edge. You want a nice halfway meeting point for the look of your new home, and there has to be a lot of give and take for that to happen.”

When transitioning from the masculine minimalist bachelor pad and feminine Pottery Barn-catalogue quarters to a domicile in Coupledom, fusing individual styles is of the utmost importance.

“You have to start by honestly asking yourself ‘What can I absolutely not live without?’” said Anna Landolac, a designer with Designs of the Interior in LaGrange. “Men are content with a mattress, sofa, TV and entertainment center. Period. Women need throw pillows, ottomans, tchotchkes. But there is a middle ground.”

Robyn Bentley, a feng shui expert and author of “Creating a Haven,” said the negotiation process begins by writing up separate lists of both people’s belongings and making note of what each individual is unwilling to part with.

“You don’t show the other person your cards,” she said. “Then you say, ‘If you give this up, I’ll give that up.’ After you’ve bargained, then you deal with duplicate pieces and figure out what you can relegate to yard sale status or put on Craigslist. But it’s really crucial to be emotionally able to purge stuff so you can have a fresh start together.”

Janie Petkus, designer and owner of Janie Petkus Interiors in Hinsdale, agreed.

“There’s the leather sofa or recliner that he doesn’t want to part with and a stuffed fish she kept from her 21st birthday bash,” she said. “Can it be retired? Or maybe you can leave it in the garage or lake house or your mother’s attic?”

To avoid bickering matches over those precious pieces either party just cannot part with, Landolac urges clients to consider alternative placement.

“If it’s that golf trophy you think is an eyesore and really tacky... you don’t want it too visible,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be in the center of the living room table or anything. Put it on the desk in the office.”

Other times, the source of contention is college or sports memorabilia.

“You can contain the baseball cap collection or the frat boy paddle in one area rather than dispersing them throughout the house. If you make them look artistically arranged, it’s more pleasing to the eye and integrated into the overall decor,” Petkus said. “Maybe you counter the sports corner with a tweedy chenille sofa in the middle of the room.”
And to neutralize more girlie additions to the design scheme, she suggested putting a slipcover or some sort of drape over a floral chair.

Don’t get discouraged over pieces of contention, like the couch he just hates, Landolac said.

“Delve a little deep and figure out what that person hates about it,” she said. “Is it because it’s blue? You have that discussion and the other person conceded, ‘Yeah, it’s comfy and I like the style apart from the ugly color.’ So then reupholster it, and everyone is happy.”

When it comes to sorting out other big-ticket items like dressers or bookcases, the best bet is to pull out a pad of grid paper, Bentley said. After measuring the furniture, small cutouts (using a 1 inch equals 4 foot scale) can help take the guesswork out of placement.

“Evaluate the space and see whose piece fits in the room better,” she said. “If it’s too tall and thick and bulky, figure something else out.”

Bringing the keepers together in harmony is the next step so the finished product doesn’t look like a mishmash of random items.

Here’s where selecting an overarching color palette comes in handy, Petkus said.
“A lot can be done with color,” she said. “Sage green with a gray undertone will work with a blue or navy couch as well as floral patterns. And a goldish khaki is a good unifying color.”

And wall and window treatments can really blend overly feminine or masculine elements of a room, Petkus added. The texture of sisal floor accents also complements both shabby chic and rustic lodge motifs.

“Accessorizing will really make or break the decor,” Landolac said. “It will help you avoid a piecemeal look ... You can take the antiques or heirlooms and mix them with more contemporary stuff by adding transitional things,” she added.

“I call it ‘tramodern.’”

Valerie Irving of Bensenville recently moved in with her boyfriend and soon realized the challenges of maintaining her own look in a domestically commingled setting.

“At first, I felt like everything was going to clash,” she said. “He refused to toss the dogs playing poker poster, and I really wanted to stash floor vases with lily stalks in them in every corner of the townhouse.”

After a few fights over whether they should redecorate with a Parisian-style cream pinstriped sectional or a slate gray pull-out sleeper, the couple decided to go shopping together and revamp the living room. Now, a chocolate mocha suede couch and off-white tabbed curtains serve as an elegant compromise. And framed black and white photos of a Paris skyline and Wrigley Field line the walls.

“We’re slowly but surely getting to a place where our stuff can co-exist peacefully,” Irving said. “It’s a work in progress, but at least we come in the door and it feels like home.”