{PRETITLE} The Perfectly Imperfect Home: How to Decorate and Live Well {POSTTITLE}

Rating: (58 reviews)
Author: Deborah Needleman
ISBN : 0307720136
New from $16.52
Format: PDF

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Style is a luxury, and luxury is simply what makes you happy.

Over the years, founding editor in chief of domino magazine Deborah Needleman has seen all kinds of rooms, with all kinds of furnishings. Her conclusion: It’s not hard to create a relaxed, stylish, and comfortable home. Just a few well-considered items can completely change the feel of your space, and The Perfectly Imperfect Home reveals them all.

Ranging from classics such as “A Really Good Sofa” and “Pretty Table Settings” to unusual surprises like “A Bit of Quirk” and “Cozifications,” the essential elements of style are treated in witty and wonderfully useful little essays. You’ll learn what to look for, whether you are at a flea market or a fancy boutique—or just mining what you already own.
 
Celebrated artist Virginia Johnson’s original watercolor illustrations bring the items and the inspiring rooms of world-famous tastemakers to vibrant life. Styling tips and simple how-tos show you techniques to put it all together to create, say, a beautifully made bed (the fast way and the fancy way), an inviting reading nook, or an effortlessly chic display of pictures.

According to Deborah, the point of decorating is to create the background for the best life you can have, with all its joys and imperfections.
This book will show you how.
 
Deborah Needleman is the editor in chief of WSJ. Magazine and creator of the Off Duty section of The Wall Street Journal. She was the founding editor in chief of domino magazine and coauthor of domino: the book of decorating. 
 
Virginia Johnson’s illustrations have appeared in books by Kate Spade and on textiles carried in more than one hundred stores, including Barneys, Liberty of London,
and Net-A-Porter.
 
perfectlyimperfect.com
 

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• Product Details
• Table of Contents
• Reviews

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Potter Style; 1 edition (November 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307720136
• ISBN-13: 978-0307720139
• Product Dimensions: 1.1 x 8.3 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

{PRETITLE} The Perfectly Imperfect Home: How to Decorate and Live Well {POSTTITLE}

The Perfectly Imperfect Home: How to Decorate and Live Well by Deborah Needleman is a terrific resource for home decorators. Needleman writes that the point of decorating is to "create the background for the best life you can live." As a designer myself, I fully agree with this sentiment.

This book is the opposite of what a staged home would be like...(staging is when one creates a home to appeal to all and depersonalizes it.)

According to Needleman, one does not decorate simply to have a home look good...one decorates to feel comfortable, to fit ones lifestyle--functionality, and to feel good in. "Decorating improves ones life!" She claims.

The reader is asked to decide what you want your home to do--what functions should it serve? Next, how does your home make you feel? With this information, you are guided in furniture and styling to make your home work best for you.

The goal is to make your home personal and comfortable and highly functional. she writes: "Luxury is simply what makes you happy."

The remainder of the book is divided into sections with many tips on how to make a functional, personal and comfortable home. Within each of the following chapters, these are discussed:

* Lighting
* The entry way
* Areas for conversation
* "A bit of quirk"--personalizing your space to reflect you
* "Spots for books, drinks, and feet"
* "Cozifications"
* Bedroom
* Bathroom
* "Glamifications"--wallpaper, objects
* "Dinners with friends"--making entertaining special with pretty objects and functional with a well stocked pantry
* Personal stuff
* Smells--adding flowers, scented things
* History--adding antiques, crafts

Altogether, I highly recommend this book.

This book is as refreshing and lilting as a Cole Porter song. The tone of it is a great mix of what the author loves best in design, and writes about: it's light, welcoming, chatty, quirky, comfortable, insouciant, cozy, glamorous, festive, personal and has a sense of history.

For design aficionados, it may read like a good novel. The winsome watercolors by Virginia Johnson add to the quirky charm of this book. They are frame-worthy and would be lovely on the walls of a reading corner, guest room or small bathroom. The watercolors of rooms are appealing the way a painting of a loved one is appealing in place of a photograph. You may enjoy guessing which rooms by designers the illustrations are capturing.

The star here is the text--the pointed point of view of the author Deborah Needleman who was founder of one of the most original design magazines DOMINO and is now Editor in Chief of WSJ MAGAZINE. If all design is opinion, she's got one; it has been informed by the pantheon of the first generation of great professional designers. They are quoted liberally in this book. We know them by their last names: Wharton, Fowler, Baldwin, Hicks, Hadley, Parish, Hampton and de Wolfe. English design is a strong bloodline in this ancestry which influences her philosophy. It combines with a bit of French elegance, and a touch of American democracy in decorating such as don't get hung up on the provenance of a piece as Hadley would say, and combine the handsome with the homely per Bilhuber. Needleman also has favorites in designers working today--some of whom may be on your list. It's an eclectic mix. It may prompt you to create your own list of designers whose works tantalize you.

If design is an expression of personality, this book is an expression of the author's.