How can parents be sensitive to their children's evolving sense of self while sharing space? Linda K. Kusmer, president of Total Interior Designs, Inc. based in St. Louis, Mo., recommends each person pick "priority space." A husband might insist the home office be decorated with his favorite color schemes, and the wife could opt to control the design outcome for the great room.

Kusmer helps family members find common ground. "One can love it, the other can like it, but no one can really dislike it," Kusmer says. "That's the rule. That's where compromise and working through issues comes in."

When it comes to art tastes, she rarely finds couples who can't find some common denominator. Impressionist paintings are generally well liked. Also, nature scenes such as mountains, flowers and gardens are generally good across the board.

It may be trickier for parents to decorate a child's room or game room when the child is still finding his or her personality. She says it is important for parents to bring their children into the design process. "The child should have input," Kusmer says. "If it's a nursery, of course they can't. The rule of thumb with nurseries is whatever design you are going to use, have it at the level a baby in a crib can actually see." She suggests strong, bright colors for an infant's room. Also, infants tend to stare at the ceiling, so consider putting glow-in-the-dark decorations on the ceiling. "They will talk to things you put on the wall," she says.

Kusmer says parents can shape their child's personality with design choices, but they don't have to worry about setting the child's future in stone. She decorated her son's room in an old-fashioned railroad motif, and he did not grow up to be a train conductor.

What parents should be wary of is frightening objects and posters in the bedroom. "Some children are very afraid of clown masks," she says. "Turn off the lights at night, and the clown can become very scary looking on the wall. That's something they need to think about when they are painting murals. If you paint things that are going to change in the shadows of night, that's going to be scary to children."