Nate Berkus
Nate Berkus
Nathan Jay "Nate" Berkus is an American interior designer, author, and television personality. He runs the Chicago interior design firm Nate Berkus Associates and has been a regularly featured guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, offering design advice to viewers as well as coordinating surprise make-overs for people's homes. He has released numerous lines of products and authored several books...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Show Host
Date of Birth17 September 1971
CityOrange County, CA
CountryUnited States of America
We hold back our true feelings and beliefs, whether it's from a sense of being polite or fear of hurting someone's feelings. But what I have seen on 'The Oprah Winfrey Show' is that no one benefits from holding back and keeping things bottled up inside. So I pride myself on speaking my mind and not being afraid to give honest feedback.
I see it every day: People trying to create a home that somebody else tells them they should have. I don't care if it's a magazine or a bossy friend - when somebody says, 'This is what's elegant, this is what's trendy,' if it doesn't represent you, you're not going to be happy.
About 90 percent of the pieces in my home are vintage, and I'm a ruthless editor. I only live with things that I love. There is not one thing in my home that doesn't have meaning to me.
Even as a 10-year-old, I remember trying to explain to my mother and stepfather how upset and frustrated a messy room made me. But they just couldn't grasp it. They wanted me to be playing with baseballs and frogs while I wanted to be scouring garage sales.
I didn't necessarily want to be famous growing up, but I knew I would be a good famous person because I'm not offended if somebody comes up to me and knows things about me and wants to engage me in a conversation.
In design-speak, 'a library' means a room lined with books, floor-to ceiling, but it all depends on the space you have. You may have a free-standing bookshelf of your favorite books if that's all you have room for.
My favorite thing about decorating is mixing different periods and styles. If you have something that's old, and you really do want to mix those styles, then you have to add something that's obviously modern with it. You can't put a kind of a mediocre thing in the middle.
You can't be around Oprah and not have her influence you, and I don't mean that because she's doling out the free advice. I mean it because she is someone that leads with truth and follows her heart. She's a force.
Layering in different patterns will keep things from appearing too studied.
The truth of the matter is being gay is the way I was born. I believe this to the core of my being.
Color is a very personal thing. You need to make sure to choose a color that makes you happy. But I don't recommend accent walls - choose a color you can live with on all four walls.
I've always felt that color is intrinsically personal. It evokes a tremendous amount of emotion. If there's a color you respond to, that's something you can incorporate into your home. No one can tell you it's wrong.
We're not handling things anymore before they arrive on our doorstep. I like to feel how thin porcelain can be, run my hand over a textile, see if I want to sit in a chair.
Before you begin designing or buying anything, you need to get real and ask yourself: What do you really want to use this room for? What do you want to do in this room but can't now?