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
Design, to me, is part psychology, part sociology, and part magic. A good decorator should know what's going on in someone's marriage and how their kids are doing in school.
Home has always been one of the most important things. If I don't feel at home in my space, then I feel really unmoored.
I tend not to wear ties very often. I'm usually in old stuff: Hermes or Marc Jacobs boots and jeans and a T-shirt and a leather jacket or a jean jacket.
I am not ever in the business of making anyone feel bad.
Everywhere in my house are these little things that have meanings and make me think of great memories.
There's something I call 'Moving Day,' which I've done for the last 20 years. Look at everything in your home, then think about how you could combine things in a different way. Maybe you break up your night tables and use one in the family room; maybe the dining room sideboard becomes a console table for your television, with storage underneath.
As a kid, I think I rearranged the rooms of almost every house on the block.
Everywhere your eye travels in your home, it should land on something that resonates with you.
I don't believe in having spaces in the home that don't get used. We pay so much for square footage that to waste it is criminal.
About 80 percent of the stuff I live with is old. I like letting things take on the character they’re meant to have by really being used. … when you own things that have the imperfections they deserve, that they’ve earned from a well-lived life, it frees you from feeling as though they’re untouchable.
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.
In a modern loft, you can't just fill a space with furniture. Each piece has to be perfect.
Thread count is actually a lie. Just because a thread count is 1,500 on a set of sheets doesn't mean that they're well-made sheets. Truly, the quality of the cotton and the quality of the way something is woven is much more important than thread count.
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.