A Blueprint for a Clean House and Broken Heart Survival

On Sunday, the current Parade cover story featured an interior designer I haven't heard of called Nate Berkus.  Why hadn't I heard of him before?  His ideas are fantastic and so relatable to regular joes like me.

He lost his partner in a tsunami.  Losing someone you love hurts. A whole lot. "How to Survive the Loss of a Love" was a book that saved me when I was going through one of the toughest times of my life, before I met Dave.

{You can read reviews and order it on Amazon by clicking here}

Anyhow, back to the Parade article on Nate Berkus, he is launching a new home goods line at Target on October 21...less than a week!  I went online to Parade.com to preview his new collection, it led me to the Target webpage, and there is a video of him and another design enthusiast, Nicole Gibbons decorating from his collection!  Jealous!!  The collection is beautiful and I can't wait to acquire some pieces, especially the chevron vases that look similar to this:


                                               

{originally from the Made by Girl blog}

Lastly, Parade had an exclusive video feature of his design tips.  I won't share all of them here, because this is deserving of viewing here:  VIDEO

His best design tip, which I agree and try my best to follow is to....clean your house!

DIRTY...

CLEAN!

{images from WikiHow: Clean-a-House}

What's the point of buying all of this beautiful stuff if you put paper, bills, clothes, and other stuff all over the place to hide it from all of its glory and beauty??  This tip has been around for generations of the matriarchs of my family.

That being said, I'm posting a picture of our living room.  I cleaned it just so I could take a picture of it to post online.  As Nate said, it costs nothing except for your time. But it pays off.

{Living Room: Dave is Home}

What do you think of the Nate Berkus line for Target?  What about his design tips on this past Parade issue?