perfect is in the eye of the beholder

I don’t know about you but suddenly we are mid-way through October and the clock is beginning to tick on holiday preparation and I woke up this morning wanting to go back to bed with the overwhelm. Just me? I would give you permission to go back to bed today, but we both know that isn’t the best idea. Your list will still be there tomorrow.

Instead of going back to bed, let’s talk about perfection. Wait! Really. This is going somewhere, I promise. My husband and I have an ongoing debate about my relationship with perfection. In his mind, I strive for perfection all the time and do not feel like I’ve succeeded until things are perfect. In my mind, I want things the way I want them. I hope I'm not as bad as Sally and her pie (and yes, "on the side" is a very big thing for me too, so I guess I am that bad). If you want to call that perfection, go right ahead, but I just call it “my way”. Perfection is a moving target. Just like beauty, it is in the eye of the beholder.

It seems absolutely ridiculous to take permission from a stranger, but sometimes, that is just what we need. We hit upon the right words on the right day and things click. While I am not going to give you permission to go back to bed today, I am going to give you permission to do something else: decorate your own way. I’ve said before (and will again) that you don’t have to have a Pinterest-perfect house for your house to be perfect. But let me also acknowledge that some of us want our homes to look exactly like we see homes on Pinterest. Perhaps we admire a certain designer’s aesthetic or perhaps we want the easy button. It is equally ok to want your home to look clean and modern like your favorite designer or chock full of sentimental knick-knacks if that is your thing. The important thing is that it feels like you.

One of my favorite sentiments about design is this one from Albert Hadley: “Decorating is not about making stage sets, it's not about making pretty pictures for the magazines, it's really about creating a quality of life, a beauty that nourishes the soul.” Today, I would like to give you permission to let go of the perfect that belongs to the trends and the Internet, and embrace the perfect that is your way. I’m going to start by using pink in my house even though it is trendy and finding a place for this stool just because I have loved it for years. What are you going to do to make your home perfect?