Top 45 Nate Berkus Quotes

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.

I think I was the only kid on the block who knew about furniture scale by the time I was 8.

As a kid, I think I rearranged the rooms of almost every house on the block.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I was barely in grade school when I helped my mother rearrange the living room furniture for the first time.

I live in a beautiful vintage building that was built in the heart of downtown Chicago.

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.

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.

They used to tease me at the ‘Oprah’ show, ‘Are you really going to do another white Shaker kitchen, with white subway tile and stainless steel appliances?’ And my answer is, ‘I can vary it a bit, but I’m never going to err from classic materials.’

Everywhere your eye travels in your home, it should land on something that resonates with you.

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.

When you have a bunch of comfortable upholstered pieces, a single bronze or brass chair really turns the energy up.

If you actually keep things very organized and clutter-free, you can have more furniture than you think you can in a small space.

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.

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 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.

‘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.

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.

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.

The truth of the matter is being gay is the way I was born. I believe this to the core of my being.

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.

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.

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.

In a small space, you want to keep the bedding as simple as possible so it looks clean, calm and collected.

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 love linen in soothing colors for any room in the house.

I am not ever in the business of making anyone feel bad.

I made my parents crazy. As a kid, I redecorated my bedroom every month. I would literally save my allowance and go buy things.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In a modern loft, you can’t just fill a space with furniture. Each piece has to be perfect.

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.

I always had this New York fantasy of living in a glass high-rise.

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.

When I see a wall that’s hung with different objects, framed or unframed, what I like about it is its fluidity and rule-breaking nature. Just experiment a bit.

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.

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.