Nate Berkus Answers Interior Design Questions From Instagram

I don't think I care if you live

in a Cape Cod style house,

but you don't have bowls of saltwater taffy out.

I don't think your decor

has to match the style of the house.

Hi, I'm Nate Berkus, interior designer

and I am happy to try and answer

the 10,000 questions that you asked on AD's Instagram.

[upbeat music]

What makes a house look put together?

Layers. You have to have layers.

I know we're all like the weekend warrior.

We're like, I'm gonna change my dining room.

I'm gonna go out on Saturday.

I'm gonna find a new table

and new dining chairs, and then I'm done.

But that's not what makes a home feel finished.

What makes a home feel finished are the place mats

that you brought back from Mexico

or the grouping of pitchers that you found at flea markets

or local antiques malls that you gather

in the center of the table for flowers.

It's the silver. It's the napkin rings.

It's the idea of taking the time to recover

the seats of your dining chairs in a beautiful textile

that you love.

And the way that the layers

make a home feel assembled over time

that make it feel put together.

It's not instant and it's never done.

I think when I talk about layers

or making a home feel put together, everyone's like,

Eh, I can't afford to do that.

But the truth is is that I still live with things

that were under $10 that I found at a garage sale

on my way to the bus stop as a kid growing up in Minnesota.

It's not about price.

It's about gathering objects

and things that remind you

of places that you've been, of people that you love,

about experiences that you have or aspire to have,

and making your home be the home base for that collection.

'Cause when your eye travels around the room

and it lands on this geode

that I bought on a Saturday

with one of my really good friends at an antique shop

in Connecticut for probably $20.

It sits on my desk now,

but when I look at it, I remember how it feels

to have a free weekend with somebody that I love.

How can I make my bedroom more cozy?

You have to invite more people into it, I think. Right?

In all seriousness, I'm really into four poster beds,

iron beds, bed hangings.

If you look at traditional historic design,

people had sort of drapery around their beds.

I think a higher upholstered headboard

is also a really good option.

It gives you the height,

allows you to have some pattern and texture,

and really kind of make the bed feel a bit more intimate.

And a seating area in the bedroom.

I mean, we all know we need the bed,

we need the night tables.

But if you have room for a pair of chairs,

if you have room for a small set tea, a coffee table,

a pair of floor lamps, some symmetry,

give yourself somewhere else to land

besides the bed in the bedroom

and your bedroom will feel more like a room

than just a place to sleep.

I used to like really light monochromatic bedrooms

because to me, they were calming

after being surrounded by fabric,

and color, and pattern all day long.

Now, I'm really reaching for richer, warmer toffees,

putties, deeper earth tones in bedrooms,

because I feel like those colors wrap themselves around you.

They have this way of transporting you into this space

that really feels like you're sort of living

inside your own bathrobe.

I think TVs in the bedroom are great.

I think TVs in the bedroom are great,

especially when you have or are pretending to have the flu

Chic storage solutions for small spaces?

In a small space,

everything really does have to do sort of double duty.

So rather than just buying a console table,

that console table should probably be a chest of drawers

or a sideboard so that you have storage inside.

Big oversized armoires.

Even though it feels a little bit counterintuitive

using things with a huge scale in a smaller space,

I find the larger the piece, the more practical.

I don't like furniture that's designed for small spaces

in a small space.

It's never made sense to me.

I think use less,

but use properly sort of scaled pieces

that aren't designed for a small space, just less of them

and you'll have sort of a more gracious way to live.

Don't put in the search engine apartment-sized bed,

like you're not Ralph the mouse.

Like you need a proper bed.

When I had my first apartment in New York City,

it was under 500 square feet.

It had a little alcove as a studio.

I realized that I didn't need as many closets,

which sounds insane, that were in the space.

And so one of the closets, I pulled out the rod.

I mounted a TV in the back of it.

I left the shelves beneath it,

open to hold electronic components, and books,

and things like that, and it all went behind doors,

which made me really happy.

Are gallery walls over?

What do you recommend for somebody

with a lot of different kinds of art?

I think I would edit things differently these days.

We've all had like gallery walls

and there are places for them and they're really beautiful.

For me now, when I see an image of a room

that has a full gallery wall,

my brain sort of just shuts down.

It's like almost too much to take in.

That's for me personally.

But I do think that if you look like at the pages of AD

and you look at the design projects

that are published lately in sort of the movement

of how people are using art,

I think people are hanging smaller, scaled things

in unexpected ways and without groupings,

or maybe small groupings off center over a headboard,

or a row of smaller pieces over a side table.

So you know, is a gallery wall ever gonna be over? No.

But I think visually we tire of seeing things

and somehow right now, one beautifully chosen,

well-selected painting, or photograph, or object

hanging on the wall feels a little bit more fresh.

Do you have any advice on where to start

the design process, so it's not too overwhelming.

Hmm.

I think you need to sort of assemble a lookbook

of what you want your home or your space to feel like.

Spend some time in the, you know, over a couple months

before you actually start a project, gathering inspiration,

images of things that really speak to you,

so that when you're standing in front of a bathtub

or a sofa, you can reference on your phone the things

that you've loved and make sure you're not making a decision

because it's no payment for the next 65 years,

interest only, or free delivery.

There's actually this app called Sortly

that I'm obsessed with.

Everything I own is in this app.

I make much fewer mistakes.

When as you're out shopping,

you'll know does that towel bar fit underneath that mirror?

Will those sconces look good flanking that painting?

You can pull it up on your phone

and sort of you have like the entire visual inventory

and all the information you need to make smart decisions.

So, what is the most timeless architectural

or design style?

Ooh, people are gonna get really riled up about this answer.

I think the truth is it's traditional.

It's not an area that I play well in.

Friends like David Netto,

Alexa Hampton do a really good job.

I stress out with a lot of different pattern fabrics,

but I will say that I've always loved

timeless design decisions.

I think you have to really look back on historic properties

and do your research, do your homework.

When you look at things like the Wrightsman's rooms

at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,

no one's walking in there going,

Wow, this would be a lot better

if they just kind of changed the paint color of the walls.

So the most classic, the most traditional interiors

are the ones that stand the test of time.

How do I know the vintage piece is worth the price?

Ooh, this is my favorite question ever.

I started my career at an auction house,

so everything I do somehow touches the secondary market,

vintage, antiques, et cetera.

I have stood outside a jewelry shop in Rome

that sells silver things for the home.

And after I've walked through and shopped

and seen like things that I thought were beautiful,

a pair of candlesticks, a bowl, I've stood on the sidewalk

in front of the store going on sites,

like the RealReal or 1stDibs to find out

how I could buy something for less money,

the exact same thing, and what information I needed

to know about it.

So if you are curious whether a vintage piece

is worth the price, if it's signed,

that makes it really easy.

If it's not, ask what style it is,

and then step outside and do some research.

It takes two minutes.

It gives you an education.

It gives you also a negotiating tool

and you feel better about what you're buying.

If you're willing to take a risk

'cause it's not a lot of money

and you're standing at the garage sale

on the corner of your street,

but you just love something, then just buy it.

How bad can it be?

How do I find common decorating ground

with my partner who has totally different tastes?

You have to marry somebody like I did

who doesn't have totally different tastes.

That's the solution.

If somebody has completely different tastes than you,

you really have to kind of front load

the entire design process with honesty

and being as direct as you can be.

You can pick or have like veto rights on five elements

and I can have veto rights on five elements.

In our kitchen renovation in our apartment in New York City,

Jeremiah was convinced that he wanted to use the marble

that we ended up using, which had

a massive amount of green and brown in it.

I didn't dislike it, but I was really hesitant.

I was like, Don't you think we're gonna get tired of that?

That's really so busy. It's such a statement.

And Jeremiah was like, Well, I ordered it already.

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I had to furnish a new house so that it isn't only trendy,

but I will actually like it for long.

All right, I'm really going deep with this one,

so I want you to listen closely.

Trends are awful.

They make people feel bad about what they didn't have,

to make us buy things that we don't necessarily need.

So rather than worry about how to live with trends,

worry about how to craft an interior that's deeply personal

and reflects what you actually love

and will love forever.

Just don't be distracted.

Even if I'm on television telling you

that you have to have a green dining room, which I won't be,

but even if I did, don't listen to me.

How do I make sure my decor matches the style of my house?

Why do you want to do that?

I don't think you should do that.

I think that you should create an environment

that really rises up to greet you,

a place for experimentation,

a place that your own personal style shines through.

I don't think I care if you live

in a Cape Cod style house,

but you don't have bowls of saltwater taffy out.

I don't think your decor

has to match the style of the house.

I think when decoration is not real, that's when you notice

a real sort of departure from the architecture.

And by not real, I mean you know signs

that say like J'adore Paris, or fake like Eiffel Towers

on the wall of a suburban kitchen.

But if you want a French country kitchen at a beach house,

then you should feel the freedom to be able to do that.

It's what you love that's what you should be living with.

What's a good place to save money during a renovation.

The best way to save money

is to obviously create a budget

and try your best to stick to it,

but try not to move that many walls.

And if you are gonna move the walls,

try not to move the location of the actual appliances

or the plumbing.

Because taking down a wall between two rooms

that aren't utilitarian,

like a living room and a dining room,

is a lot easier than taking down a wall

that separates a kitchen or a bathroom from a bedroom.

And moving a toilet, for instance,

is thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars

of labor behind the scenes to get the toilet on a wall

across from where it originally sat.

Decor tips for beginners. How do you find your style?

I think it's taking the time to really go through

and collect images of things that you love.

You don't even have to be able to explain why you love them.

You could look at a picture of a room

and it likely won't be the exact room you love,

but you can notice how the color of the walls

works with the color of the sofa.

And that color combination

might be something you carry with you

to the next image that you like.

You can notice the way the room is filled with furniture

or feels more minimal,

and what feels good to you about that.

A floor plan that you wouldn't have thought of,

that most of us wouldn't have thought of.

I still do that.

I'm on social media, not looking at the fabrics necessarily,

but looking at how they position the sofa

or how they fit another piece of furniture in a room

that I wouldn't have thought of initially.

So finding your style is examining other people's styles

and figuring out what to take from each of those styles

to make it your own.

I found my style, I would say

a lot of practice and a lot of exposure.

And that exposure came from traveling,

came from being in old buildings

and studying how the hinges looked

and the patterns of the floor and things like that.

Not the most fun person to travel with apparently.

At Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, the auction house,

that was my first job.

I saw everything come in

19th century French dishes, silver,

rugs from all over the world,

whole estates and homes disassembled for sale.

Watching people's collections showed me and exposed me

to so many different ways of living,

but I'm still finding my style.

I hope I always am still finding my style.

I hope I'm always inspired by things that I see.

I hope everywhere I go makes me think

of how to assemble a room

or assemble a space in a different way.

I inherited a house fully furnished. Lucky you.

How does one include your own style

without changing the core furniture?

I think if I inherited a house that was fully furnished,

which has never happened, I would take a real inventory

of each piece and I would start moving everything around.

Maybe I would recover some of the upholstery

if there was anything that like,

I really didn't like a pattern of color.

But you know, when I was younger,

before I had my design firm,

before I did anything, I loved moving my bedroom around.

Or we would go to friend's houses

and I would go for a play date,

and the mom would come home and be like,

Why is my sofa in a different location?

So, I think when you have a fully furnished home

that you've inherited, you've also inherited

an opportunity to be really creative

and pull out that chest of drawers that's in the bedroom

and tried in the entry with a mirror hanging above it.

Break up a set of night tables

and use one as an occasional table next to the sofa.

I love a deep inventory,

that's why I have lots of warehouses all over the place.

Thank you so much for all of the questions.

It was really fun trying to answer everything truthfully

and honestly.

I hope I did that. Have fun on your design projects.

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