The Nesting Place: It Doesn’t Have to be Perfect to be Beautiful

by Myquillyn Smith

Popular blogger (The Nester) and self-taught decorator, Myquillyn Smith, is a current day self-help guru when it comes to embracing reality. Particularly if this reality involves decorating a home filled with adolescent boys, pets, and the messy unpredictability of day-to-day life.

In The Nesting Place, Myquillyn takes on decorating for real people, which she feels has little to do with creating a flawless façade designed to wow potential guests, and much more to do with creating a living space where you and your family (and even your guests) truly feel comfortable and at home.

Myquillyn has much to share since moving into new places has been her norm. The Nesting Place is filled with simple tips, baby steps, and practical advice that will not only help you create a living space that feels like home, even better, the majority of her suggestions are practical enough not to break the bank.

And because Myguillyn thoroughly understands the frustrations of being a renter, she is highly sensitive to making sure to share suggestions ideal for people who don’t own their own home. She provides a plethora of tantalizing tidbits guaranteed to help create a space that feels like home for renters and homeowners alike.

Smith’s “The Imperfectionist Manifesto” sums up her approach succinctly, providing hope and insight for anyone contemplating the hows of creating their own authentic living space:

• We believe that home should be the safest place on earth
• We believe that home has a greater purpose than looking pretty
• We believe that authenticity trumps perfection
• We believe in mismatched sheets and unmade beds
• We believe that the things in our house are here to serve us, not the other way around
• We believe that both pretty pillows and dogs should be on sofas
• We believe that toys and homework and smelly shoes and spilled milk are signs of life

Sound familiar (and user friendly)? The beauty of Myquillyn’s approach is her ability to help her readers love the home and the life they have, rather than wishing for something more or something different.

For the perfectionists out there, this book may change how you approach not just decorating but your feelings about perfection in general. The Nesting Place is designed to help you stop trying to over-manage and realize that the place you live doesn’t have to be perfect to be filled with life and love.