You be the judge: should my boyfriend pay more to custom frame our art?

Meera thinks her treasured pieces deserve bespoke framing. Raf thinks the cost is unjustifiable. Your decision will put one of them out of the picture. Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror. I’ve been collecting art from all over the world for years, and cheap frames don’t fit or look good. I’ve been living with my boyfriend Raf for a year now, and we’ve been putting off framing our art. I am a writer and Raf is a designer. We don’t struggle financially but we have to budget.

I’m looking after the smaller pieces of decor in our flat, such as cushions, plants and colour schemes, whereas Raf is very handy with making and upcycling furniture that we find in markets. We’re both quite creative and thrifty. But when it comes to spending money on framing art, Raf has this huge block. I’ve been collecting pieces on my travels for years. Before I met Raf I’d bought paintings in Vietnam, street art in Brazil and other bits online. I’ve suggested taking them to a picture framer and getting them framed professionally, in colours that match our home, but Raf won’t hear of it. He says: “Let’s just get some cheap frames from Ikea and be done with it.”.

But those frames won’t fit my art properly and are also limited in style. Custom frames elevate your art and make it look more expensive. Yes, they cost a lot of money, but once it’s done it will last for ever. Raf says we have more pressing things to tend to in our home, but what’s more pressing than the stuff you have to look at every day? Some of my favourite pieces are in old, cheap frames and others have yet to be put up.

Raf suggested we put up the pieces that are already framed, but I hate the old frames. He also suggested sticking the other pieces to the wall temporarily with Blu-Tack, which I refuse to do. One time he put a landscape of mine that I bought in Costa Rica in this awful antique gold frame he got from work. It didn’t look good – it didn’t fit the art. I took it out and we had a disagreement over it.

Raf works with a lot of carpenters so I suggested he ask them to help him with the framing, but he said he doesn’t want to look “cheap” at work. We’ve opened a joint account since moving in together. I don’t want to betray Raf’s trust by spending a chunk of the money on framing if he thinks it’s a bad idea, but I am really tempted. Good art speaks for itself, regardless of the frame, and the prices we’ve been quoted are madness.

Meera is making me sound like an uncultured swine here, and that’s not the case. I do love and appreciate art, and as a furniture designer I love good craftsmanship. I just think custom framing is expensive for what it is. Meera has about 12 pieces that she wants to hang up in our home. To get the type of frames she likes, we were quoted £700. For picture frames! It’s madness. Meera says it’s worth it but I disagree. If art is good, it can speak for itself. It doesn’t need fancy frames. Something subtle that fits properly is fine.

I found a gold frame at work recently and surprised Meera by placing one of her pieces in it, but she hated it. Meera said I’d made the artwork look “tacky” and that only custom frames would do. I was just trying to help. I suggested getting frames off Etsy to save money but she insists on getting them all custom designed. We have been together three years, and this is our first time living together. We’ve put off a lot of decorating due to lack of cash and are doing the urgent bits first. Meera and I are both creative but you learn a lot about each other when you share a space. I didn’t foresee art and interiors being an issue as we pretty much have the same taste in design.

This is more of a finance issue: I think frames are unnecessarily expensive, Meera sees them as a non-negotiable items. She keeps threatening to get them done by withdrawing money from our joint account. I think that’s a bit of a betrayal of trust. Meera has been on at me to take the pictures into work to get the carpenters to make the frames, but 12 is just too big an ask. They would probably do them for free and I just can’t ask them to do that. It’s a new job and I don’t want to look tight.

Perhaps we can do the frames once we’ve saved up a bit. I’d like to put the art that is already framed up as it is – the frames work fine. The other bits can be Blu-Tacked for now, and wait until we are richer. Sign up to Inside Saturday. The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend.