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Almost seven years ago I started this blog.

And two months into it my sister told me I should talk about my window treatments.

My first reaction was that I can’t share my little embarrassing secret.

I was sure I’d be met with comments telling me I’m not supposed to do it that way.

I hadn’t been in this online community for long and sharing something so blatantly rule breaking as hot gluing my unlined, raw fabric ‘drapes’ was getting too real too fast.

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I wrote about them. How we hammered an upholstery tack with a high heeled shoe. Poor photography in bad lighting.

And I waited for the comments to come telling me how wrong, and dumb, and mistaken I was and how ashamed I should be. I waited for the citation from the ASID. I waited to be laughed off the internet.

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And that isn’t what this community did.

This community embraced it.

This community met these imperfect, hurried, I-love-pretty-things-but-protecting-the-family-budget-is-more-important-than-impressing-my-friends–ideas and accepted them.

Instead of my ideas and true self being met with hate or laughed off. You embraced them.

You said “me too”.

You said “more”.

You said, “we can see through the imperfection to the beauty and worth”.

“We see it too.”

You met my imperfections with love not hate.

And I was astonished and forever changed.

That was the day Nesting Place truly began.

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You are the reason this book exists.

Because your acceptance of my imperfections launched me into a place that freed me to be who I truly am, faults and all, so I could share my ideas, good bad and ugly.

This community was safe.

You made this online community feel like home.

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Revealing my imperfect ways connected us.

Revealing ourselves to trustworthy people always connects.

Imperfections are important in our life and our home because they put people at ease.

You are the ones at the play group, in the community groups, welcoming friends into your imperfect homes, embracing that imperfection despite what a glimpse on the screen might tell us is acceptable.

You are the ones risking, because you know true connection is worth it and it can start in our very homes.

You are the ones looking past the imperfect to the true beauty.

You are the ones teaching us, teaching me that this imperfection isn’t to be hidden, but embraced, celebrated even.

You are the ones saying YES, let’s stop pretending that we need to impress each other. None of us is perfect and I’ll take that risk and be the first to admit it. And it can start with a pair of mistreated, hot glued drapes. That actually look pretty good.

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That disapproval letter finally came.

It came in the form of a comment on a post about how to make slipcovers, the easy way.  It was 5 years into blogging and by then I had so much confidence in the strength and truth of this message that I didn’t affect me the way I had feared. Don’t get me wrong, I had other people who didn’t get what I was doing. But this one comment addressed everything an imperfectionists faces all in a few words. It said:

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It’s a lot of work to be the gatekeeper of what is and isn’t acceptable. Deeming only perfection has worth. Who would you rather be friends with? Who’s home are you more comfortable in? The person commenting, or the owner of this chair with the threads hanging off the bottom?

Embracing imperfection does not mean that we have given up or settled for less. Maybe accepting imperfection is a sign of maturity, balance and contentment.

I’m a normal, average woman who loves to be surrounded by meaningful beauty and it has been so freeing to drop the burden of perfection.

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We put that $12 thrifted, broken footed, craizily slipcovered chair, threads and all on the cover of a decorating book. Because IT. IS. BEAUTIFUL.

Not despite it’s threads and overly cushy seat  but maybe because of it. Because we know the secret. We know what true beauty is.

Not everyone can see the beauty in the midst of the imperfect.

But you can.

I can.

Because we choose see it.

Sometimes we have to fight to see it.

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We are the imperfectionists.

You are the ones teaching me, urging me to truly believe something I always secretly hoped was true.

That it doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.

And I can never thank you enough.

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Win a Copy of The Nesting Place arriving in bookstores and mailboxes this week:

Because Perfection is for the Birds @ Emily A Clark

It Doesn’t Have to be Perfect @ Naptime Diaries

The Top 10 Reasons You Should Buy The Nesting Place Book @ Caroline TeSelle

Every House Has A Silver Lining @ (in)courage

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Find out more about The Nesting Place here.

Has it been worth the risk to reveal your imperfections?

Have you learned that sometimes good enough has been better than perfect?

Are you waiting on the next house to create the home you’ve always wanted?