For all those who choose to live "imperfectly" with the messy things they love, this book shows how to do so creatively, happily, and with considerable style ideas from leading designers. A beautiful and inspiring volume, A Perfectly Kept House is the Sign of A Misspent Life focuses on living well with everything that makes a house a home. If you have been influenced by the picturesquely cluttered studios of Pablo Picasso or Alexander Calder, or by the art- and book-filled house of Vanessa Bell, this unique style book will stimulate you with its creative ideas.This volume explores how real-life tastemakers (photographers, textile designers, fashion designers, writers, artists) integrate their life and interiors to live well with their passions, histories, conveniences, and inconveniences. In inspiring essays, Mary Randolph Carter muses on such key housekeeping concerns as clutter versus mess; open windows; and unmade beds. Combining practical tips with liberating philosophy—"Don’t scrub the soul out of your home"; "Make room for what you love"—this volume celebrates living beautifully and happily, not messily. Lavishly illustrated with intimate photographs of different living spaces, Carter exalts in the beauty of imperfection and in living perfectly in our "imperfect" homes. Life isn’t perfect—why should your house be?
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About the Author
Mary Randolph Carter is an author, photographer, designer, and longtime creative director for Ralph Lauren. She is the author of For the Love of Old and the Junk series of books.
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Most helpful customer reviews
By Madom
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is an unusual coffee table art book, where 12 artists from around the world and their unique homes are the subjects. Carter's photographs and words illustrate how creativity can come from controlled chaos. What would be a total mess in suburbia is a work space for these artists. However, there is a fine line drawn between messy and filthy, as shown by the balance between cleaning and tidying vs. living and creating discussed in each of the twelve cases. The layout of the pages, the quality of reproduction and the images themselves are stunning. This is a book to sample over time. The text can become repetitive if too many articles are read at once. But, it provides an insight of a world that is unfamiliar to most of us. The world where seemingly random ideas, experiences and images and imagination produce innovation. A wonderful gift for all the artists in our lives, and for those who live with them.
By Reader Writer Runner
TOP 50 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
I read about this book on my favourite decorating blog ([...]) and heard the title quote speaking to me loud and clear! "A perfectly kept house..." confirms that decorating "rules" no longer exist; a clean home that tastefully displays clutter can have just as much charm as one with a minimalist look. Using thoughtful, gentle prose and photos that come alive on the page, the author bares the soul of nine homes that inspire comfort through imperfection.
Although the book embraces messiness and the "lived in" look, the profiled houses do belong to famous chefs, artists and designers. Refreshingly quirky, they certainly differ from those in House and Home magazine but are still too "picture perfect" for most homeowners to replicate.
Although the book embraces messiness and the "lived in" look, the profiled houses do belong to famous chefs, artists and designers. Refreshingly quirky, they certainly differ from those in House and Home magazine but are still too "picture perfect" for most homeowners to replicate.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.6 out of 5 stars
18 reviews
80 of 84 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lives up to its title
Dec 12 2010
By Ruxandra Barb
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I bought the book because of its clever title, and was not disappointed. Even took it to a couple of meetings with clients, whose only complaint was that it has more to do with displaying collections creatively than making clutter work for you. Well, I see their point, because in my experience as a Feng Shui interior designer, clutter doesn't work. Period. What Mrs. Carter refers to as clutter is for her, as opposed to mess, interesting stuff that has an emotional value, without which life would seem emptier (i.e. the book of poems left open in the cozy and sunny reading nook). For quite a few of my clients, clutter is the stuff that they have kept accumulating for half their lives and they have no idea what to do with (hint: many charities pick up, too).
The pictures are beautiful in an artsy, boho way, the book is well written and the kind that I would leave open on my old green velvet sofa that's turning yellow because of the sunny windows behind it.
The pictures are beautiful in an artsy, boho way, the book is well written and the kind that I would leave open on my old green velvet sofa that's turning yellow because of the sunny windows behind it.
44 of 45 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love, Love, LOVE this!
Dec 19 2010
By Emmy
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book is simply amazing. I've even framed the motto of the book! I can't stop flipping through the pages over and over again. All the different artists' houses are wonderful to look at and get lost in. I love seeing how others live! I highly recommend this book to someone who love interiors, art and the art of living itself.
42 of 43 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A breath of fresh air in a cluttered world
Mar 21 2011
By Ella Kwint
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I buy these interior style books with a boho lean less for inspiration to decorate my own space, but more for confirmation that there really are no 'rules' anymore; it's perfectly ok to keep a home that's clean, but cluttered, and it's perfectly ok to shun a minimalist look in favor of conspicious consumption--especially if the items you collect and display have special meaning to you. Since I don't really know anyone in my own life who has adopted this 'look' of just going with it, this title really will hit home that you're not alone with your love of stuff. The author writes about it beautifully and the photos are scrumptious treats. Is it a how- to book? Oh, not to me. Rather you'll pour over all the eye candy, feel bouyant at the amazing collections, and yes, perhaps be inspired to fully embrace the messiness of imperfection. Homes that look like hotel rooms really can feel souless. Soul, I am happy to report, is here in spades. It's a hefty coffee table book that is too special to gather dust on an actual coffee table. My copy will be dog-eared in no time and displayed anywhere else but my coffee table. Of course, this sort of decorating style is certainly not for everyone; if you break out in a cold sweat over the mere idea of dusting dozens of figurines, would not be caught dead at a garage sale, or always choose fuction over form, then skip it.
Also would recommend "etc" by Sibella Court.
Also would recommend "etc" by Sibella Court.
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3.6 out of 5 stars
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