Nate Berkus Quotes
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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.
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I believe your home tells a story about who you are and who you aspire to be. We represent ourselves through the things we own. I don't believe in trends. I believe in collecting things that you connect with. We should surround ourselves with things we care about, that have meaning.
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The Things That Matter convincingly lays out Nate Berkus’s philosophy that things do matter. Our homes tell our stories, they reflect the places we’ve been and the people we’ve loved along the way—and there can be no more beautiful design for living than that.
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I was barely in grade school when I helped my mother rearrange the living room furniture for the first time.
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I think that a lot of guys reach for electronics first, but the truth is that you can never keep up with electronics. You buy a flat-screen TV, and then six months later, there's one that has 3D and Blu-ray and all this business, and that is just going to keep continuing.
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I can look at a photo and the dimensions of any piece and tell you if it's going to sit well with the four other pieces in your room.
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I knew that I was a gay boy fairly early; what was interesting to me was that my mother didn’t know. She made me play baseball - I had no desire to do that. I said, ‘Mom, I don’t like direct sunlight, I don’t like bugs, I don’t like grass, and I’d rather be in the house playing with your fabric samples.’
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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.
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If you actually keep things very organized and clutter-free, you can have more furniture than you think you can in a small space.
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When you buy things that are expensive, like a sofa or something that really feels like an investment, you need to keep it as plain as possible, as simple as possible. Make sure that it's a clean design that will work with whatever style you want it to.
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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.
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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.
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I am not ever in the business of making anyone feel bad.
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I can change a light fixture, and I can do certain things. But I'm really bad in terms of construction. I can't do any of it on my own.
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A lot of guys go in immediately for status, as opposed to comfort and allowing their home to tell a story about them.
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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.
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Buying found objects means repurposing something that was already made years before, sometimes decades before. It strikes a nice balance between the new and used equation we should strive for in our lives.
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In a small space, you want to keep the bedding as simple as possible so it looks clean, calm and collected.
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I hate sets. I've always hated sets. I think that if you have a dining room set, break it up!
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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.
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I didn't grow up thinking I'd be a decorator. Design is my greatest passion, and it naturally just pulled me down the path. Same with TV. Being famous or having a show was never the motivation. I got a call and was swept up by the challenge of that first small space redesign.
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I'm not going to say paint is an easy spruce-up. It takes time, it needs touch-ups, and you have to be very methodical. But it is worth it, and it isn't particularly expensive.
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You can find a lot of reasonable buys at Wal-Mart. But one key to making it on a budget is by donating your time and labor to the project. Do-it-yourself projects will always help you save.
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I like my house to be unique to me. Sure, I've bought plenty of things out of a catalog, but the way I put them together in my home is special. You might have bought your sofa at a major home decorating store, but the rug you found at the flea market is so unique, it takes your room from 'carbon copy' to 'simply yours' in no time.
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First and foremost, I'm a decorator and product designer. Everything I do, the television shows, the books, that comes from the design work. It's what I love.
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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.
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I got my first Charvet knit tie when I was 15. I actually stole it from my father. I love them because you can wear them day to night. They're French and preppy and have been around since the 1800s.
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I always had this New York fantasy of living in a glass high-rise.
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In a minimal interior, what you don't do is as important as what you do.
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Go outside! I mean, even leaves from a park are beautiful in a clear glass vase. I'd rather see that than fake anything any day.
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