Your House and Home: The Art of Wabi-sabi and Japandi
Editor: Anita Newkirk Hackney
Decorating a home is an easy task for people who have an affinity for interior design and decoration. From online images to social media posts, there’s no shortage of immaculate style homes; however, this level of perfection has lost its charm to interior designs like japandi and wabi-sabi. As the intrigue of newer design ideas grows on sites like Pinterest, so does the number of online searches for interior designs like japandi and wabi-sabi. These interior designs have a variety of items that come in multiple shapes and sizes from wooden dressers to stylish vases.
Wabi-sabi is an interior design that integrates natural elements like wood furniture, fabric art, artisanal accents, and ceramics from places like Walmart, Target, local furniture stores like Kirklands, Furniture Row, At Home, or IKEA. This particular interior design style doesn’t need to match, but has a calm approach in the house. Wabi-sabi is more than an interior design but has a deeper meaning in the Japanese culture. Wabi-sabi is a Japanese philosophy.
https://loomliving.com/blogs/blog-5/the-wabi-sabi-bedroom
According to Thomas Oppong from Medium.com:
“. . . Wabi-sabi is a 15th century Japanese philosophy of accepting your imperfections and making the most of life. ‘Wabi’ is said to be defined as ‘rustic simplicity’ or ‘understanding elegance’ with a focus on a less-is-more mentality. ‘Sabi’ is translated to ‘take pleasure in the imperfect.’”
Wabi-sabi is a minimalist style but does not remove objects that are sentimental and essential to its character. The design keeps possessions to a minimum, which invites objects of sentimental value, beauty, utility, or a combination of these three elements into a designated area in a home. Wabi-sabi welcomes a peaceful, sentimental beauty within a minimalist style with a hint of imperfection, unlike Japandi.
‘Japandi’ is a word fused from two words: Japanese and Scandinavian and is an interior design style which blends the structures of the Japanese and Scandinavian styles into a hybrid design. This fused word is a perfect example of its united front as an interior design with a minimalist style that is simple in any designated area of the house. It is interesting to see this European and a Japanese style fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.
Japandi’s style contrasts in a good way. It is less casual than the Scandinavian style in Europe, and it is more casual than the traditional Japanese interior designs. The Japanese style is elegant and adds a rustic flair to a house due to the Scandinavian style influence of this design. This blended style also has a different color palette. For instance, Scandinavian interiors tend to lean toward a neutral palette, while the Japanese color palette leans toward an array of warm and cool colors to add a cool or warm ambience in the home.
The japandi and wabi-sabi interior designs share multiple similarities. Both are Japanese-inspired styles with a similar philosophy of imperfection. Both designs share a simple and natural presence while they embrace a minimalist style. They also share an affinity of nature, which fits their Japanese style. Both of these interior designs embrace natural wood furniture like an oak bedroom set and have organic materials, like succulents, in a stylish vase in designated rooms. Designing a home with interior designs like Wabi-sabi or Japandi brings people closer to the natural and peaceful side of the Japanese culture.
