I’ve been operating under the  assumption that my style of decorating my home and my life leaned toward shabby chic.  Nah-uh.

With the arrival of a new style labeled “wabi-sabi,”, I am given carte blanche to go with the imperfection of my home and accoutrements and even play them up.  I’m in.

Wabi-sabi is about embracing the subtle beauty of imperfection and maybe even decay which already exists in a home.  Yay.  That frees me up to forget about painting the back porch.  It’s perfect in its imperfection so to speak. If you notice the leather chairs above, they are frayed and weathered – probably family heirlooms.  Rather than send them off to the upholsterer they have used them just as they are with leather wrinkles created from years of loving use.

The term Wabi-sabi is used to describe some Bohemian design styles. Ooh, I like the sound of that since my latent hippy personality never got to see the light of day when I became a banker several decades ago.

Hey, if I extend Wabi-Sabi to my wardrobe, I I won’t even need to hem up by favorite dress.    I had scotched taped up a six inch section of the hem to wear to a luncheon last week because I don’t know where I keep the needle and thread.

“Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It’s simple, slow, and uncluttered – and it reveres authenticity above all. Wabi-sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use left behind.