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
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.
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.
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.
I really can't live without my In-N-Out burgers. Honestly, I can't. Even when I'm doing the whole no-carb thing occasionally, I make an exception for these. They're too delicious to count.
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.
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.
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.