Last week I bought the Nesting Place by Myquillyn Smith. I've been reading her blog, The Nester, for awhile now, and I knew she had a new book coming out. Since my mom's birthday and Mother's Day were last week, I knew the Nesting Place would make a great present. And since I was ordering, I went ahead and ordered one for myself, too! You may have noticed there is actually a picture and link to it in the sidebar of the blog - I'm loving it that much that I think you should buy it too! But a word of warning: If you plan to order this book, DO NOT ORDER THE KINDLE VERSION. I know, I love my Kindle too. But this book is gorgeous. Trust me. You will want to have this book sitting on your bedside table. You will want to feel the weight in your hands as you flip through the beautiful color pictures. So do yourself a favor and order the hardback. Right now it's only about $3 more than the Kindle.

I haven't made it too far into the book yet, but it's already inspiring me. I love that she talks to renters - so many décor books seem to focus only on homeowners or people who live in those awesome apartments with exposed brick and ductwork. In fact, she inspired me to go ahead and put up the gallery walls I'd been planning to do! I'll share more on those next week, but here's a sneak peek I shared on Instagram earlier this week.

I have a lot more decorating plans, but before I can do that, I have to get the house back in shape! We're only a couple weeks post-wedding, and the house still has wedding remains everywhere. There are gifts that need to be exchanged (you only need so many dutch ovens and cooling racks), dozens of mason jars, vases, and antique bottles to be sorted through, and a giant roll of kraft paper that never even made it to the reception site. Not to mention the random flower stems that found their way into the corners and crevices of the living room while we were processing the boxes of fresh flowers we used for the wedding!

When we walked through the doors of our house after our honeymoon, I almost cried looking at the mess. But I decided to focus on the two rooms that I use the most: the kitchen and the bedroom.

When the kitchen is a disaster, I feel all out of sorts. In our house, we rarely use the front door. We come in through the garage and walk through the little laundry area into the kitchen. Nothing is more depressing than coming home from a long day in the office (not to mention a frustrating commute) and walking straight into a MESS.

So my first order of business after the honeymoon was getting the kitchen back in order. I had to shuffle the Griddler and toaster around to accommodate the GIANT cutting board my husband registered us for. I started a couple of garage sale boxes for the old stuff that we needed to get rid of to make room for our new stuff (yay for stainless steel pots and pans!). But most importantly, I cleared off the counters. Actually, the Nester did a whole post about the importance of an empty surface.

There's something about a straightened up kitchen that lets me relax. At least until it's time to cook dinner and mess it all up again!

Next, I tackled the bedroom. You could argue that I should've done the living room instead, because guests rarely see the bedroom. And we actually just bought a new couch and had to scramble to clear space in the messy living room when it was delivered! But I have a hard time sleeping when the room is a disaster. Often there are clothes littering the floor all the way between the closet and the bed (and we have a decent size en suite bathroom between the two!). Plus my darling husband is always bringing in Oklahoma's iconic red dirt with him, so the wood floors get disgusting super quickly. It's not fun to walk across your bedroom floor barefoot and literally feel the dirt stick to your feet! Usually all the bedroom really needs is clothes put away and the awesome Shark vacuum/floor cleaner run across it. Sidenote: My parents bought us the Shark Navigator for our wedding. It isn't the one we registered for; it's even BETTER than that one. The hardwood floor attachment is glorious and I actually use it more than the vacuum part. Plus it comes with a reusable cotton pad for the floor attachment that you just throw in the washing machine to clean, so no wasteful disposable pads!

Obviously there is still a lot of work to be done, but the house feels livable again. Now I need to figure out what to do in the living room. This massive sectional is going to mean a total rearranging of things!

And please forgive my photography - I'm working on it :)

This post contains affiliate links but I was in no way compensated for mentioning anything in this post. I just really like my new vacuum!