The not quite perfect picture frame: this frame is in fact mirrored. You can see that by the fact that not all of the frame is there. At first glance, I thought that it was a silvered frame. But, there are pieces of bare wood. And the exposed pieces have just been left bare. Since this is from a particular designer's book, I was surprised to see that the frame was not perfect. 

Just in time I remembered, this is an English decorating book, and that means that overall style and a certain appropriateness, as the late Nancy Lancaster might put it, trumps the will to perfect every time.

The English know how to use the not-quite-perfect in their decorating schemes. And the effect? 

Perfect.

Do you agree?

Nina Campbell's Decorating Notebook. Clarkson Potter Publishers. 2004. Photographs by Jan Baldwin.