Back to The Perfectly Imperfect Home

We're reading The Perfectly Imperfect Home at Back to A (someone I know very well expressed irritation that I refer so often to myself as "we" as it includes Harold and Luigi - "why can't you say 'I' like normal people?" ex-friend asked. . . back to zero tolerance for pea-brains in my new life) and we think it is a baller book. It's by the co-author of our all-time favorite decorating book Domino: The Book of Decorating, which was referred to us by that fabulous gun shooting, china-closet-cum-Jimmy-Choo-gallery lovin' Rebecca - remember her from this post? Deborah Needleman is currently the editor of WSJ - well-deserved. Women like her should become President of Life.

Back to the book.

We love Debroah Needleman's book for many reasons. It reminds us of a home we used to believe was perfect, but realize now was both frosty and imperfect and never "us:"

Perfectly Frosty

If you know us, this has always been more our thing:

Perfectly Imperfect. . . and Perfect

We'll never quite capture the perfection of Mom's House. . . while I will always respect how she vacuumed herself out of room (just so the 'lines' would be uninterrupted) and followed behind me, straightening the tassels on the rug while murmuring "she will never learn," (and I blissfully never did, but I do love you, Mom, you will always be the original A), these are the quotes that ring our (yes, "OUR" Back to A bell) in this gem of a book:

"When everything in a room has provenance or is absolutely just so, that room fails to put you at ease and welcome you and then, well, what is the point? I have seen rooms by decorators that are so gorgeous they are like visual poetry. Yet usually they are not livable - only gorgeous, only perfect. They are rooms without spirit, without serendipity, without potential for amusement. Sad. Sad. Sad. A bit of humor, a touch of fantasy or even something haphazard feels welcoming." 

"This led me to appreciate deeply homes that are imbued wiht a sensibility and spirit - homes with a strong personality and signs of life."

"The point of decorating, as far as I can tell, is to create the background for the best life you can have." 

"Making a charmed and a happy home is a noble endeavor."

And perhaps best of all. . . 

But of course.

Welcome to Back to A, Deborah.  We know a thing or two about being perfectly imperfect. . . it just took us a little while to figure out the two words were not a juxtaposition after all. Women like you are our heroes. . . it's never really about the decor, is it?