What's the most provocative thing in this picture?

As I've mentioned recently, I've joined the world of co-habitation. Because he's moved into a ready-made house, rather than us finding somewhere jointly, decisions about furniture, re-painting or what to put on the walls could have become unfairly loaded (or just unintentionally insulting).

But it's been great. I'm enjoying changing things around together – and want it to feel like our home, not mine (and this generous sentiment is not in the slightest bit prompted by the fact that he happens to have brilliant taste and is way tidier than I am). In fact, it was all a bit too-good-to-be-true harmonious. Until this...

What do you think the issue is here? The loo seat position*? The paint I've allowed to hang, peeling off various surfaces for several years? My appalling plant nurturing skills (that greenery is meant to be an orchid)?

Nope. None of the above. Instead, this is the one thing that has divided our style sensibilities...

One of us likes the loo roll this way**.

One of us likes it this way.

With no hint of the strong feeling beneath the breezy "oh, this just popped into my head" style in which the topic came up, he asked if I deliberately put the loo roll any particular way round. He'd hoped I'd never given the matter a second thought – just throwing it into the holder and leaving it whichever way it landed. Each time I've reversed the thing in recent weeks to face "my" way, I'd hoped the same – unaware of how deliberately it had been positioned. We should both have known each other's aesthetic pedantry better.

Pretending to Google something unrelated, I looked up the officially "right" way. I wanted to end the conversation with surprise, smug victory. But I was disappointed: despite there being, madly, a whole Wikipedia entry on the topic, it is as inconclusive as our conversation was (60-70% of people prefer one style over the other, but neither way is "correct"; suggested solutions include using separate bathrooms...). At least it proved we aren't the only ones to get worked up over something so idiotically trivial.

* The up loo seat is always down – this is purely for the photos by way of red herring (before I inadvertently start another debate entirely).

** That someone is me, by the way: "But it's just obvious that the other way looks much better," according to the only trained designer in the house (him). But he's WRONG! Right?