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
People first. Dogs second. Things last.
I was a boy with one dream and one dream only: I wanted - no, strike that, I was desperate for - a room of my own. You see, in those days I shared a room with my little brother, Jesse, and it wasn't pretty. He was the Oscar to my Felix: messy, careless, and just a little bit sticky - exactly the way a kindergartner is supposed to be.
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.
I do shop online! But I'm shopping online mostly in the home categories - One Kings Lane and Gilt. At a lot of architectural websites, I buy a lot of hardware for cabinetry like hinges and things like that from England. So, you know, for me, I shop at Net-A-Porter, but I don't really shop that much for clothing online.
I love linen in soothing colors for any room in the house.
One of the biggest lessons I've learned during my time on 'Oprah' is that everyone wants to be heard. We all want to have our humanity acknowledged - to have others see us for who we truly are. We all want to know that we are valued, we are heard, we are understood.
I think I was the only kid on the block who knew about furniture scale by the time I was 8.
Twitter is a place where you share your thoughts, yourself... you don't want a plain white backdrop for that. You want the entire page to say something about who you are. Designer or not, if the urge strikes you, go for it. Put up that watercolor you've never shown anyone. Take a photo of that hat you just knitted... whatever it is, share it.
When you have a bunch of comfortable upholstered pieces, a single bronze or brass chair really turns the energy up.
A lot of guys go in immediately for status, as opposed to comfort and allowing their home to tell a story about them.
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.
It's my job to know what's available from every retailer, catalog, website, antiques mall, and craftsperson. A good designer or decorator has to have an almost encyclopedic knowledge.
There’s something beautiful and very circular about passing by something that was important to the person you loved, or touching something that once meant something to him — that brings me some peace.
You don't need to spend a lot of money on stuff when you have amazing architecture.