Nate Berkus
'Priced to sell' - just the phrase makes me smile. When a dealer says all the items in his booth are priced to sell, he means he's tagged them as aggressively as he can to get you to buy them. Don't worry, though, I still haggle. You have to. That's the point of a flea market.Collection: Smile
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.Collection: Design
Books are the heart of any home, and I spend hours going through books for design inspiration.Collection: Design
You don't need to spend a lot of money on stuff when you have amazing architecture.Collection: Architecture
When I take on a design project, I have to jet from the bookstore to the hardware shop to the lamp store and back again just to collect a small portion of the many items I need to fill a home. But, when you hit the flea market, they're all right there. From booth to booth, you have the bases covered.Collection: Design
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.Collection: Design
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.Collection: Fear
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.Collection: Home
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.Collection: Design
In a small space, you want to keep the bedding as simple as possible so it looks clean, calm and collected.Collection: Space
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.Collection: Design
You will enrich your life immeasurably if you approach it with a sense of wonder and discovery, and always challenge yourself to try new things.
When you have a bunch of comfortable upholstered pieces, a single bronze or brass chair really turns the energy up.
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.
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.
You can change the feel of your sofa by adding a thick, cozy throw and playing a couple of classic pillows off a more Moroccan-inspired one.
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.
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.
Everywhere your eye travels in your home, it should land on something that resonates with you.
In a modern loft, you can't just fill a space with furniture. Each piece has to be perfect.
I made my parents crazy. As a kid, I redecorated my bedroom every month. I would literally save my allowance and go buy things.
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.
I hate sets. I've always hated sets. I think that if you have a dining room set, break it up!
Layering in different patterns will keep things from appearing too studied.
I love linen in soothing colors for any room in the house.
Mixing in some rusty oranges is a warm way to update your place for fall.
Everywhere in my house are these little things that have meanings and make me think of great memories.
I live in a beautiful vintage building that was built in the heart of downtown Chicago.
I was barely in grade school when I helped my mother rearrange the living room furniture for the first time.
I think I was the only kid on the block who knew about furniture scale by the time I was 8.
Working on 'Big Give' was an opportunity that I felt compelled to do. It was my chance to share in showing people how they can give big in their own life, to send the message that giving goes way beyond the gift of money. We want to share that the best thing you can give is your time and understanding.
As a kid, I think I rearranged the rooms of almost every house on the block.
In a minimal interior, what you don't do is as important as what you do.
If you actually keep things very organized and clutter-free, you can have more furniture than you think you can in a small space.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.'
A lot of guys go in immediately for status, as opposed to comfort and allowing their home to tell a story about them.
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.
You don't have to paint your walls lime green just to try to have your home feel decorated. If you're a classic dresser or preppy dresser or a modern dresser, you wear a lot of black - whatever it is - your home should reflect that as well.
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.
The truth of the matter is being gay is the way I was born. I believe this to the core of my being.
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 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.
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.
I always want objects in my home that have a connection to me or something I've loved. It's still stuff, but it's stuff that has meaning.
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.
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.