Two ways of living: Newlyweds are designing homes around their individual lives

A couple’s home used to come with predictable markers of adult taste, the wine fridge, a home bar and a formal dining room. But as interiors become more closely tailored to the people living in them, designers are seeing a growing demand for spaces that reflect individual interests too. A reading nook for one, a Mahjong table for another, a kitchen garden, a movie room or simply a quiet corner to retreat to.

The shift isn’t about dividing a home into his and hers. Instead, it is about recognising that sharing a life doesn’t necessarily mean sharing every hobby, ritual or hour at home. The most interesting spaces are often the ones that make room for both.

Making space for obsessions

The most telling requests are often the oddly specific ones. A Mahjong table that gets its own considered setting, a library built around one person’s reading habit, or a room where a doctor can close the door and get back to her work. “Neither was treated as just another ‘study’,” says Surabhi Somani of Studio Baariki, recalling a home she designed for a doctor and her husband, an avid reader. “They were designed around how each person actually spends time and what they need from their space.”

That specificity is the point. Sravanya Rao Pittie, interior designer and founder of homeware brand SOKKA, has seen clients create dedicated movie rooms where everything from the acoustics and seating to the lighting and snack storage is considered around the experience. Another client wanted a Mahjong area designed around the table, with storage for the sets, rather than treating it as furniture that could be packed away. At this point, the question isn’t whether a hobby deserves a room, but whether it deserves to be designed properly.

And the spaces don’t have to be elaborate. Aashi Gupta, founder of Aashi Gupta Designs, has created reading nooks with bespoke seating and integrated book displays, as well as a hybrid study-bedroom with an oakwood library and lounging chairs. “The space doesn’t just function as an office; it serves as a personal sanctuary for reading, reflection and focused work,” she says.

Not quite his, not quite hers

Personal space doesn’t necessarily mean putting up a wall. Sometimes it is a corner, a balcony or a particularly well-designed chair that signals: this is where I do my thing. Somani remembers a couple where the wife loved gardening while her husband had no interest in it. Instead of trying to make it a shared hobby, they created a kitchen garden near the kitchen for her. His retreat was much simpler: a couch, an ottoman and good lighting.

It is a useful distinction. The goal isn’t to give both partners an equivalent amount of square footage, but to understand what each actually needs. “Sometimes respecting someone’s identity means giving them the space to pursue something they love, and sometimes it means giving them a corner where nothing is expected of them,” says Somani.

That could mean a dedicated dressing and hair-and-shower area, a meditation alcove or even a photography studio. Gupta is also seeing collectors’ corners and meditation spaces that open onto balcony gardens, while Pittie has gotten requests for infrared saunas and ice baths. What they have in common is that they make the home respond to an individual routine, rather than asking the individual to fit into the conventional rooms of a house.

Two personalities, one palette

The trick, of course, is preventing all this individuality from making the home feel like a floor plan split down the middle. The designers rely on a shared visual language: materials, colours, detailing and architectural elements that can hold together spaces with very different purposes.

“Individual spaces can have their own character, while the overall material palette, detailing and language of the house keeps everything connected,” says Pittie. For Gupta, it is about creating what she calls “different chapters in the same story”. A dark, moody study and a bright, plant-filled library can coexist when the wood tones, brass accents or architectural detailing give them a common thread.

Sometimes the compromises are more inventive than visual. One of Pittie’s clients wanted two televisions in the bedroom, one positioned towards the bed and another towards the sofa. Rather than let the screens dictate the room, an automated rail system allows the television to move depending on where he is sitting. His wife, meanwhile, got a dressing and hair-and-shower area designed around her routine.

The result is less about separate spaces than a more generous idea of sharing one. A home can hold the things that make two people different without turning those differences into a design problem. After all, being together doesn’t have to mean being interested in the same things.
 

Lead image: Pexels 

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