Quotes from Nate Berkus

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

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.

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

I hate sets. I've always hated sets. I think that if you have a dining room set, break it up!

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

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.

'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.

Your home should tell the story of who you are, and be a collection of what you love brought together under one roof.

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.

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

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'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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

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 a minimal interior, what you don't do is as important as what you do.