The Liz Moody Podcast - Nate Berkus's 5 Secrets For Creating a Home You’ll Never Want to Leave

Episode Date: November 19, 2025

Have you ever walked into someone’s home and instantly felt something—warmth, calm, personality, creativity—and wondered why your own space doesn’t give you that same amazing feeling? In this episode, I sit down with the world’s top interior designer Nate Berkus to unpack the psychology behind creating your dream home—a place you're so proud of you never want to leave.  Nate breaks down practical tips to find your style, avoid trends, and insert more of you into your home, sharing that the real key to great design isn’t money or square footage—it’s your personal history. He also encourages you to shop local, lean into sustainability with vintage or thrifted finds, and enjoy the creative process of finding “that special piece you’ll have forever”. Whether you're living in a bland rental or renovating a house, this episode gives you practical steps and advice you can use today to have a landing place that makes you feel incredible.  🎧 What you’ll learn: Why “eclectic style” is often code for “I don’t know what I like” How to figure out who you are at home—and why that’s the start of great design The real reason your rental feels flat (and how to fix it with cheap vintage finds) Why trends exist (hint: they’re not for your benefit) The four principles Nate uses to create personal, elevated, collected spaces How to build confidence in your own taste—even if design intimidates you Why vintage pieces instantly add soul and character (and what should never be vintage) How to combine contrasting styles without creating chaos A simple assignment to instantly sharpen your design direction ✨ Homework: Find a photo of a room you genuinely love. Identify three things you love about the room and three things you don’t. Use the details you love as search terms to start uncovering your design language. For more from Nate Berkus:  His Book, Foundations: Timeless Design That Feels Personal  His Website  His Instagram, @nateberkus  Visit www.liveauctioneers.com to find a live auction for special vintage finds near you as suggested by Nate. Check out the previous episodes of The Liz Moody Podcast discussed today: Style And Success Secrets With Fashion Icon Rachel Zoe. Ready to uplevel every part of your life? Order Liz’s book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now!  Connect with Liz on Instagram @lizmoody or online at www.lizmoody.com. Subscribe to the substack by visiting https://lizmoody.substack.com/welcome. Buy our cute sweatshirts, conversation cards, and more at https://shop.lizmoody.com/. Use our discount codes from our  highly vetted and tested brand partners by visiting https://www.lizmoody.com/codes.  To join The Liz Moody Podcast Club Facebook group, go to www.facebook.com/groups/thelizmoodypodcast. This episode is brought to you completely free thanks to the following podcast sponsors: Seed: go to Seed.com/LizMoody and use code LIZMOODY for 25% off your first month. LMNT: visit DrinkLMNT.com/LizMoody to get a free LMNT sample pack with any order. Birch: head to BirchLiving.com/LizMoody for 20% off sitewide.  OneSkin: check out OneSkin.co and use the code LIZ for 15% off your purchase.  OurPlace: go to FromOurPlace.com/LizMoody for 35% off sitewide to access their biggest sale of the year. The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. The Liz Moody Podcast music by Alex Ruimy. Formerly the Healthier Together Podcast.  This podcast and website represent the opinions of Liz Moody and her guests to the show. The content here should not be taken as medical advice. The content here is for information purposes only, and because each person is so unique, please consult your healthcare professional for any medical questions. The Liz Moody Podcast Episode 383 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do we not get whipped about by the wind of trends? Design is evolving constantly. A room is really never done, and our homes are really never done. How can you tell when somebody is making choices based on a should and based on what they genuinely truly want themselves? If you can spend some time before you spend some money, getting to know yourself, collecting this library of images that really matter to you,

then when you see something that doesn't fit within that, it doesn't really hold the same power. Let's say we kind of figure out what our style is and our partner has figured out what their style is, but those two styles don't really match. What do we do? I think you have to really figure out what the blend needs to be, what the common language needs to be.

What I also love about what you do with design is you really make a case for its importance and how it can make you feel and how it can help you connect with your sense of identity and your sense of self, and you really help us dig deep and realize how much they matter. and why they do.

Nate Berkus, welcome to the podcast. I don't know what we should talk about now. I have like so many things that you've just filled my head with that it makes me so happy. What do you want to talk about? Well, I want to talk about the fact that you and my husband are both from Modesto. Do you think growing up in Modesto influenced Jeremiah's design style at all? He always says that what he used to do with his mom, his mom was a single mom for a while and then remarried, but that they used to go to open houses in the nicest areas of town.

And back when he was a kid in the 80s, the 80s and 90s, sorry, Jerk, there was a big boom in Modesto with a lot of people commuting to the Bay Area and all of that. So there was a lot of new homes being built. So actually, though I think his designs wouldn't even fly in Modesto because people would be like scratching their head like, what is this? I do think he was influenced by construction and architecture and things that like were happening when he was in his really formative years. Oh, that's so interesting. That leads me to one of the questions that you ask us to reflect on when we're trying to figure out our design style,

which is where are you from? Yeah. Can you speak to the importance of that question? I think it means more than just geographically. Like, I was raised in Minnesota and Southern California and went back and forth, but culturally I was raised Jewish and religiously. I went to Hebrew school. My grandparents were French, Eastern European, English. For me, it's more about ethnicity and more about embracing culture and understanding sort of what the best crafts and the best things you can buy. They don't need to be expensive, but that represent sort of your family's legacy, your family's history, not just the most recent generations.

How are we doing that? Design is a little bit of psychology and it's a little bit of sociology, and it's a little bit of magic, and it's definitely about being a great listener. And the best example I can give you is that I think when people hire an interior designer, they kind of position themselves to be perceived as, like, maybe something that they're not,

or it feels kind of fancy, it feels like a little snotty. and I think a good designer, it's their job to really kind of unearth who somebody really is. Like, how do you really live? Where are you really from? Like, what things are really important to you? And once you start to get to know people and their guard comes down a bit, you realize that, sure, they can have a dining room that seats 12, even though they eat, you know, dominoes every night with their kids. If they want that, they should have that. It's their home.

But it's really important for me as a designer to dig in and say, okay, well, let's talk about the fact that your father is from Mexico. Like what region? In that region in Mexico, did you know that it's like known for like the most beautiful woven textiles? Like, why are we buying pillows from China or France or wherever for your sofa when we could buy these textiles on Etsy, cut them up, and take them to the dry cleaner around the corner and make pillows that every time you fluff them and sit down on them, you're like, this is from the town where my dad was raised

or where my family's heritage is from. So it's really more about just thinking through, I think we live in a culture right now that's like, then I'm guilty of this as well. We all are. But, you know, we try and do things so quickly. We try and do things so inexpensively. And as a result, we end up doing things thoughtlessly. And foundations, the book that I just wrote is really, to get people thinking about how to consider design as a way that kind of shuts out all the noise of the trends of the people like me talking on TV, makeovers, Instagram, blah, blah, blah, whatever.

It's like, you know what? Let's take a beat and really try and figure out when my eye travels around the room when I'm done, which you'll never be done, by the way. But when you're mostly done, does your eye land on something that's delightful? This is like a little bit in the weeds, but... I love the weeds.

Do you think that we like things that we're culturally connected to more? Is it the idea that I don't necessarily know what I'm going to find delightful? And that's a good, solid path into that? Why do you start there? There's several paths into it. What you wear is one path. I'll go up to a client's closet and I'll be like, okay, what's your favorite sweater? What's your favorite t-shirt?

What's your favorite dress? What do you feel really pretty in? what do you feel really elegant in? What do you feel most comfortable in? And I can tell within their closet within five minutes, there's not a lot of florals. There's not a lot of multicolored patterns. There's a lot of stripes, and that's the only pattern.

But everything else is solid or based on men's suiting fabrics and flannels and whatever. That gives me a huge clue as to like what I can direct my team to pull in terms of textiles for their home. Because if your favorite, suit is gray, chances are you're going to respond really well to a gray sofa. I do think that culturally it matters. I do think that who we've evolved to be also matters. So I think our home should also represent not only who we are at the moment and who we've been, but also who we aspire to be. And there's some freedom in that. There's some real opportunity in that. I'm not French. I'm not from France, but I spent a lot of time there. And it was the place for me that taught me the beauty of

old architectural details. That has completely influenced my work for the last 30 years. But I'm not walking around like, you know, in a beret. I just like old fireplaces. A lot of what we talk about on this podcast is freeing ourselves from the shoulds in all parts of our lives. How can you tell when somebody is making choices based on a should and based on what they genuinely truly want? themselves. When there's pretension involved or when it's trend driven. Pretension meaning they're buying something or they're asking us to source things as their designer because they think it's fancy. What do people think is fancy these days? Oh my God. Art artists, they see something, you know, sell at an auction on Instagram and they're like, what about this artist? I'm like, it's not the same

thing. Having like a lithograph of this. Like, that's not elegant. Like, I'd rather have real art from an art fair in a little town than I would a fake painting or a version of something, a work on paper, the Chanel bag of decorating. I find it so hard, though, because I struggle with my style because I'll not like something. And then because of the way our brain works, where familiarity makes us like something more, as something becomes a trend, I'll be like, oh, wait, I do like those weird, very thin, sold Adidas shoes. And I thought they were hideous before, but then I see them more and more.

So then I fall prey to these trends just because I've seen them more. and then I develop familiarity and then I like them. It's like seeing the new body style of a car you've always loved and initially you can't stand it and then you want it. You're like, oh, that's actually really nice, like six months later. How do we not get like whipped about by the wind of trends? The antidote to that is taking the time to kind of assemble a visual library of imagery that you really, really respond to and just hold fast to that.

Design is evolving constantly. A room is really never done. and our homes are really never done. But they can be livable and beautiful and comfortable. But as soon as you introduce one new thing, you kind of have to address the rest of the things around it because it's never going to read the way you see it in an image once you get it home.

In terms of like silencing the noise out there as far as trends, it's a bit of a fashion reference. But if you know that you look hideous in that cut of a gene, it doesn't matter who you see wearing it. it, you're never trying them on. Like, you're like, it's just not my body type, like, period. If you can spend some time before you spend some money getting to know yourself and collecting this, like, library of images that really matter to you, then when you see something that doesn't fit within that, it doesn't really hold the same power. And you talk about in your book, and I like this,

that those images aren't necessarily just images of rooms. You're taking inspiration from all over the place. In fact, one of the things that I think has been missing in the design conversation is how we as designers look at images of interiors. Because we don't see them the same way that the general public sees them. We see them in terms of like what we call out from those images. It could just be spatially how they laid out the furniture or it could be one fabric in a room of 30 fabrics that were like, wow, I would have never thought to use that as a bench or a headboard. It's training your eye. and I talk a lot about this to edit those images and take out what really resonates with you. You're never going to have a home that represents you if you have a carbon copy of something

that was an image that you used for inspiration, period. Like if that's where you're starting, you're going to have a bad copy of somebody else's creative interior. And my goal is to help you have a great version of your own interior, taking elements like we all do of different things and different pieces of imagery that we've collected along the way. So is the practice step there to like look at a photo that you like from Pinterest or something, but then go a little bit deeper and say like, what am I specifically responding to you? I actually put like historic photos of really important rooms and design throughout history in the book.

And I say when I look at this photo, I don't see this, but I do see this. And of course, you would look at the same photo and the same things may not matter to you, but it's just shifting your mind to be like, I'm not meant to live in this person's living room, but I really like the shape of the coffee table next to that sofa. That's really cool. I'm just going to save this image for the coffee table. I feel like what I often like is the room itself. Like I'll pin something and it'll have a wall of windows or really high ceilings.

And then I'll be looking at like the craftsmen homes that I can afford and Berkeley and it won't have any of that as like dark and grim. And like how do we translate those things that we like into what we can actually access and afford? Sometimes you end up living in a home that doesn't make your heart saying architecturally. I'm really honest about this stuff because I've literally been doing this on behalf of other people for 30 years now. And when a client comes to me and they show me all their inspiration imagery, I'll look at them and be like you you actually live in the wrong house. Like we could do this.

We could get close to it, but you're never going to turn this split level in this suburb into this French chateau. It's never happening no matter what we at, and you're just going to be wasting money. And I have had clients buy new homes instead of and be like, look, when we find the house, or can we send you links? Because you're right.

This is what, this is, we shouldn't gut this house and try and try and create that because we're never going to be happy. I'm like, exactly, so don't hire me. That's the worst idea you could have. I will say most of us, I would say 95% of us wish there were things in our homes that we could change architecturally, but we can't afford to, and we don't have access to do it. And so that's when I talk about embracing history in the book as well. What can you do?

What can you add? What can make your home distinctive in a way that is approachable? Like, where do you start? For instance, if you have built-in millwork that, you know, isn't your fantasy of bookshelves, could you refinish it? Could you find beautiful vintage hardware at an architectural salvage place in your town? Yes. Like, you can start there. Could you replace your faucets in your kitchen or your bathroom? Could you even paint over tile? We were in Mexico years ago, and I was looking around and you know how in Mexico, like, everything kind of looks like plaster? And it goes like from inside. side to outside and it's the swimming pool and the sofa built-in sofas around it and everything and it's raining. And I was like, what is this material? Because if it can stand the elements, why can't you paint over tile with that in New York City? And it's called Shirkrete and you can paint over anything. It's really plastering over anything. But even in a recent apartment that Jeremiah and I

lived in with our family, we had bought this really ugly tile in our shower. We thought we were super cool. And when we moved back into the apartment, we coated the tile with this shirt crete that looked like plaster. And we were like, this is great. So, I mean, there are things you can do. What are some things that you're like, that's not changeable? Like, if you're walking around looking at a house, what is definitely off the list? And you shouldn't take that house and what's like more easy to change than we might think? Sealing height will never change. Natural light will never change. My husband and Isaac have looked at houses and I'm like, we could blow out the attic. We could add more windows.

You could do that truthfully. So you're talking about like a massive renovation? I don't know. Okay. I don't know what I'm done. I'll go in and I'll be like, can I change this? Can I change this? Can I change this?

And he's like, sure, but like we don't know. What does that really involve? Yes, of course you can expose the beams and blow out a ceiling and all that stuff or get rid of the room upstairs. But that's like a nightmare. It's a nightmare. It's a nightmare. And it's like not necessarily money well spent.

You might as well build a house at that point. But natural light is really important. Adding windows, sure. But like you have to walk outside and be like, what am I going to look at? The house next door, the AC unit. Like, what am I seeing here? The fence? For me, honestly, most of the homes that I've lived in and owned, I've bought the day I saw it.

And we have a friend who's a real estate broker here in New York City who like thinks we're so funny and we love her so much and she's a real friend, but she's been involved in every sort of move that we've ever made. She knows. Like, it's just a feeling. It's like I can see her daughter, who's 10 years old, said when we just looked at a place recently, I can see us making memories here, Dad. I love that. Okay, so we talked about two of your four tenants of design. We talked about make it personal. I love the question who do you aspire to be at home. We also talked about how you really use the space and like looking to cues like your personal style elsewhere. We also talked about embracing history.

Do you have any other advice from embracing history? I think if there's an old option, you should go for it. And that applies to almost anything except like a faucet or something that really is functioning. But like I'm notorious for ripping out fireplaces and using old fireplaces and lining them with roof tiles. So that it feels like crusty and patinated and lived in. I love old doors. I love old doork. I love old cabinet hardware, old ironwork, old garden stuff. I think some things can be new and should be new. Mattresses, large pieces of upholstery. My husband, I often tell this story. We state it his business partners like country house in England.

And he was like, I'm putting you in my granny's room. And his granny had it had a 150 year old mattress in it. And we didn't find out till like the next day. And we're like, we're sleeping on his granny. Like literally on her hair follicles. Yeah, it's really disgusting. No, I like a new mattress or my own mattress. But where there's an old option, pendant lighting, a bathroom fixture, a pair of sconces, usually the vintage choice is a little bit harder. It takes a little bit more time to find, but it is indescribable in what it brings to new construction or to making a home feel like your own. When you walk into a home and it's filled with things that your friends don't have, that feels really great. If somebody has never experimented with vintage or antique shopping, where should they begin? Facebook Marketplace. Okay. Listen, if somebody else owned it, it's vintage.

Okay. I mean, that's the truth. And meaning it's also not going to be at like a big box store. Although I feel like half a Facebook Marketplace is like some guy with the truck filled with IKEA stuff. Yeah, that's true. Like, what are you actually doing on Facebook Marketplace to find the good stuff? I don't do it. My office will do it, but I'll be like, is there anything right now? Do you know what they're searching?

Vintage stone table, a pair of vintage lamps, pair of Italian lamps, you know, gilded mirror. The more specifically you know what you want, the more you're going to be able to find it. And the more you know the search terms. Okay. I felt like that was a really like empty area where people were like, right, but what do I, what do I even put in? Can you give us a mini guide to search terms? Yeah. set of six French dining chairs,

set of six Italian mid-century dining chairs, pair of vintage sconces, pair of vintage sconces, set of iron sconces. It's hard for me because it's like so second nature. It's literally like a language that I've taught myself to speak. Because remember, I started my design from before there was an internet, so it's a little bit like hairy.

But I've become a definite expert at search terms. And I did on things, at auction. And it's my great... Where do you find an auction? There's a website called Live Auctioneers, and it's an aggregate of all the auctions around the world. Shipping is a problem. Duties are a problem now in tariffs, obviously. But you can actually go on Live Auctioneers and set your location and find auctions. My former assistant lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and I found this French daybed from 1950 in Beechwood, Ohio. And she was like, yeah, I'll go get it. I was like, great, cool, thanks. But she then went to pick up the daybed and then scoured that auction

house to see what was coming up next because she has a house there that she's furnishing. So I love auctions. I came from an auction house. That was how I started. Auctions are the truest value of something because it's the open market. And I've gotten such insane deals at auctions over the years. When you're vintage or antique shopping, are you looking for like, oh, they didn't know the real price of this silver cup thing? I love a deal like that. Absolutely. Is there a way to tell when something is that?

AI. Oh, wait, tell me. You can reverse look up the image using AI and it'll come up with like, hey, like this silver cup with these hallmarks, a similar one sold in England a year ago for X or whatever. When you think about strength and resilience, like your ability to feel energized, to recover well to stay strong as you get older. What do you think that actually comes from? Most people say working out or good nutrition and yes, of course that matters. But there is a biological foundation underneath all of that that most people are completely overlooking. I have been

diving deep into this lately with the team at timeline and what I've learned has genuinely shifted how I think about my own health. Every single movement that your body makes every step, every workout, every muscle contraction depends on energy produced at the cellular level. And at the center of that is your mitochondria. Here's the thing that nobody tells you, certainly nobody told me, starting around age 30, our mitochondria naturally become less efficient. More get damaged, more become sluggish, and over time that impacts your energy, your strength, your recovery, and your resilience.

Most of us respond by pushing more. We're like noticing these things and we're adding in more protein. We're trying to fix it with more supplements. We're trying to do harder workouts. And those things do help. But timelines research suggests that we also need to be supporting the cellular machinery underneath. And that is exactly what their supplement, mitochondria, does. It contains urolithin A, which helps your body clear out damage mitochondria and support healthier

ones so that your cells can produce energy more efficiently. Because this is happening to your cells, it's going to impact your entire body, your immune system, your muscles. One study found that taking mitopure increased muscle strength by 12% in four months with no change in exercise routine. It's going to impact your energy, your sleep, your skin, your cell health impacts all of this, and urolithine A keeps your cells healthy. Timeline has done over 15 years of research and testing on this one product, urolithin A, which, by the way, most of us lack the gut bacteria to synthesize naturally. That's why many of us need to supplement

it to get the benefits. This has become a staple supplement for me. It is my top way to support how I want to look and feel as I age. Support your cells and how you age with mitopure gummies from Timeline. Visit Timeline.com slash Liz and save up to 39% on your mitochondere gummies. That is timeline.com slash Liz. When it comes to wellness, you're going to get the best results by focusing on the big needle movers. A lot of us spend a lot of time trying to optimize that last 1%, which creates a ton of stress and it actually doesn't help our health that much. At the top of the needle mover list, sleep. And one of the best ways to optimize your sleep is to optimize your mattress, which is why I love avocado green mattress so much. First of all,

this mattress is so comfortable. I have the one with the pillow top, which is medium firm, and it's just a dream. I miss it when I travel. It's better than even the fanciest hotel beds. Having a mattress that supports your joints and your body and feels good is going to help you get more sleep and better quality sleep. But then, on top of that, avocado mattresses are made with certified organic cotton, wool, and latex, and they are made safe and greenguard gold certified. They're also Okotech certified, which is the gold standard. I look for it in any mattresses, sheets, or towels that I buy, which means the materials have been rigorously tested for harmful substances. You can actually look for the Okotech standard 100 label right on the

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30-day money-back guarantee so you can start learning risk-free. Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual membership at Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. That's 15% off at masterclass.com slash Liz Moody, masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. My other fear with these vintage and antique pieces is all just end up with a home that's filled with clutter. There's just like shit everywhere. Right. How do we avoid that? Editing is really, really important. You can't really bring a ton of stuff in without getting rid of things. And one of the things that I think is really important is like this exercise

of looking around your home, taking an inventory of what you have, that allows you to do two things. One, it allows you to save money because you can use what you have. Like, could that sideboard in the dining room be a beautiful entry table with a pair of lamps on it? And you have storage for mail and keys and gloves and whatever. Two, when you set out in the world of vintage and antique, it's not a grocery store. you're not going to be like, oh, great. I've set out to find one Italian alabaster lamp from 1950, and here it is. It doesn't work like that.

If you really know what you own and the pieces that really matter to you, then you can start replacing the junk from catalogs and from wherever, gradually. And those, like a series of those mini upgrades, all of a sudden, you know, your bedside tables are something beautiful that you really love, and they replace the tables that have been next to your bed for 10 years. And then you find four months later a beautiful pair of lamps,

and then you go on Etsy and create custom lampshades in a color that you think is beautiful or a pattern that you think is beautiful. And now everybody thinks, like, the big bedroom makeover is just getting a new comforter, but you're actually building the foundation

of things that you're going to keep forever that really do matter to you. You'll never get really. of those light stands and those lamps, maybe they'll go in a guest room someday. A vintage piece that you found or even slightly customized, a lamp with a new lamp shade,

whatever, a headboard you recovered yourself, it's always going to mean more to you than the click. Outside of AI, are there other, like, little things we're looking for to make sure something's quality? Like I know with clothing, are always looking at the seams of it,

and they're like, this is quality. Yes, there are. This is also like my auction house background. When you're buying sofas and things like that. They should be eight-way hand-tied. What does that mean? That means that's how it supports the cushion. It's very rare. Would it say that in the description? 100%. Okay. Is this a soap that I could afford? Yeah, in certain scenarios. Okay. Yep. And if it's not hand-tied, it could be killed and dried with the wood so it doesn't warp or crack. It would say that in the description as well.

But you also have to decide what you're buying it for. You know, if you're buying a sofa and investing in a really beautifully made, crafted sofa, that's something you're going to keep for 25 years. You may recover it someday, but you're not going to change it. If you're buying a sofa because you have a seven-foot wall in the apartment you're living in right now, then go for it. Just buy something that you love that's really comfortable that you can put on Facebook marketplace like everybody else in the world.

Where do you like for shopping for sort of more of those in-between pieces? I like living spaces. We designed for them and they're a family-owned business based in California. Then I think the quality for the price is amazing. I like Etsy a lot. I like finding a maker. There's this new furniture company called House of Leone that is online. It was an Instagram ad that I was like, what's this?

The metal furniture looked really beautiful. I was working on a $25 million dollar apartment here in New York City and Hudson Yards, and I ordered two pieces. I mixed it with a bunch of vintage things and it's sick. I was like, okay, House of Leon. Were there things you were looking for in the description there to know that it wasn't Timo furniture? I bought this huge steel coffee table, low, modern, very clean, like just a big square. And I could tell that it was decent because I was zooming in on the way the corners were done. And there wasn't like black, scorchy metal marks in the corners. And then I also looked at the weight. Because if it was

like, you know, 70 pounds, then it's like literally like garbage, like blow up furniture. But it wasn't. It's heavy. And so I could tell that it was crafted, that the base was probably solid. That's a good tip. Yeah. Yeah. You want to. High weight equals better. Kind of universally in terms of furniture and case goods. Yeah. If that's an issue for you and you're online and you see something really inexpensive, but it's really beautiful. And you look at the weight and like it's a dresser or whatever. And it says it's 120 pounds and you're like, is that good or is that bad? Google search like the most expensive dresser, six drawer dresser, and check the weight of that, you know, from the fanciest furniture store in your town.

With solid wood. Yeah. And like that might be 300 pounds. So now you know kind of what you're buying. Another tenant you have is to introduce character. Why do some homes feel really charming and other homes don't? So most of the time, unless you've wrecked it with really bad design decisions, old homes feel really charming. And most of the time, new homes don't feel super charming. And so the question to ask yourself in that is, what elements in here would make my new home feel older and more lived in and more layered and more. more assembled over time, not so instant, instant gratification, instant decor. What could I take away from my old home clutter, junk, things that don't matter, things that I don't really care about

so that I could highlight the most charming features of my older home or apartment? If you have like one of those white and gray shiny rentals, how do we add character to that? You should be shopping vintage 100%. And it doesn't look weird to have like a good. candelabra on your like gray plastic marble island. It does look weird, but it doesn't look weird to have six pottery vases that were five bucks a piece at an antiques mall in Pennsylvania. I know you know that in your head. I don't know that one of those looks weird and the other one doesn't.

I think stylistically, you have to be a little bit consistent. When somebody says I like an eclectic interior, it just means that they can't articulate what they really like and don't. That's my design style. It is. That's not real. It's like a lie. So what I say is I like modern eclectic interiors. Does the modern help you? I mean barely. Swedish modern, Italian modern, French modern, French mid-century, American mid-century.

Well, that is very, very sweet. If you're not doing this for a living and most of us aren't, you need to refer back to this like gathering of imagery of things that do make sense to you, that do feel good and feel good. balanced and feel right. But for that new, I'll give you a perfect example, that $25 million apartment that we just designed, there was no character, beautiful views, like incredible, but glass railings, like whatever. And I was at an auction house outside of Philly, and I saw this old paneling, like this old wood paneling that had been taken out of a historic home. and I bought two of the huge pieces and I mounted them on a wall and mounted a modern sconce on that, like with an arm, and then positioned the desk to sit there in this beautiful area.

But behind them, basically their Zoom background is 19th century French paneling in a totally modern interior. And it changed everything. That's, I think, the power of incorporating things that have personality, age, and patination. Okay, so we need to unpack that I don't. have a design style. Okay. Let's go back to it. Does one need a design style? Like, is that helpful to say that I like Swedish design? I think words are less helpful than visuals. How do we find the visuals? If we don't know what we're searching for. You're trolling Instagram. You get into

different blogs, people that you follow, people that your friends follow. Once it gets into your algorithm and you start seeing interiors, I think that's when you start saving those into different files. I love these 10 kitchens. I love these 25 sofa arm shapes. I love this color and look at it used in these 25 different homes. That's, I think, how you start. Most people feel exactly like you do. But I don't know how to define myself. There's two things you can do, assemble a visual library, and then also educate yourself on like different styles of furniture and what was cool. I break it all down in the book for that reason. People are like, well, what's direct tuar? What? What? What's primitive? What's this? And when you have those words, you can use those as keywords to do a search. It's literally like dropping breadcrumbs. Like if you see a table that you really love, you don't know why you love it. You just think it's beautiful. What is it? Who made it? Where is it from? What era is it from? Because chances are you're going to like more things that were made or designed in the same period, in the same country, in the same, you know, style. So you

might not even know that you love Art Deco, but you might see a pair of chairs that you're like, I would kill for those chairs in front of my fireplace. But you have to stop and ask yourself, like, the next step is, what are they? And you start building a design vocabulary like that. If you're doing your home on your own, you know what's up when you're at that Antiques Mall at the, you know, two blocks away. You're like, wait a minute, that is an Art Deco cabinet. And I, and now I'm starting to recognize these things stylistically. Does it make your home look cohesive versus messy, though, to have a style and then say I have an Art Deco couch and an Art Deco coffee table. I love a mix. I don't like one style. At the Met, there's these rooms that were

donated by Jane Reitzman who collected 18th century French furniture. And they're beautiful, but it looks like a museum. I think design has evolved so much beyond, you know, designing in one style. None of the interiors I've ever done have just been one style. But, That's why it's important for you to know what styles you respond to, what furniture styles, what era is because then I can figure out how to mix those. And that's actually an exercise that I dig into in foundations where I'm like, people are like, well, what styles work? I'm like, well, actually, Gestavian Swedish painted furniture looks really beautiful

with contemporary paintings and black and white photography. So think that through and like then do your own research because that image. is going to come up and you're going to feel like much more confident when you're standing at that flea market or standing at that auction or online on Jerish or Etsy or first dibs. And does that go back to how you're looking at rooms and photographs and things you're saying like, oh, that raw textured wooden table goes really nice to do that black and white picture? 100%. So that would be another thing we could be practicing doing is like, is there a pairing in this photo?

I'm responding to? 100%. Is there a tension between styles that I like? Is there a cohesion? And how are they unified? Did they use 25 different styles of furniture in here? But the color palette is only three colors and that makes me feel calm? Like, there is a psychology behind all of this. Do you think most people are happiest when their home makes them feel calm? If we're going to go for one feeling in our home, that's a good one? I think it depends on who you are. It depends on how you move through the world and what makes you calm, because it's not everything that makes you calm makes me calm and vice versa. I mean, for me, pairing objects and furniture that I really love, pairing them in interesting combinations. I know for Jeremiah, this is true as well, is so beautiful that when our eye lands on that, it does

kind of take the stress of the city away almost instantly. That back. backdrop for our kids doing homework of, you know, having beautiful, like this calm interior definitely works for our family. Jan Miller, who helped me sell this book, who's like this massive book agent in Dallas, Texas. And her house is like 50 jewel tones. She entertains for 100 people weekly. There's benefits going on. Like she's like the reigning queen of Dallas. The chest of drawers in the entry of her house is Hermes Orange. It's like lacquered bright orange, that would make me nuts. Do I love going to a party there? 100%. Do I see her thriving in an energetic interior like that? That's bright and animal prints and all that.

Absolutely. When I had Rachel Zoe on the podcast, she said, yeah, she introduced us, you know. Introduced me and Jared. No, she didn't. Yeah. Oh, because he was her assistant. Exactly. And they called him baby Nate. Really? Yeah. Oh my God. That's so cute. She still takes credit for it. She should. She should. Yeah, 100%. 13 years later, exactly.

Good job, Rachel. Right. When I had her on the podcast, she said that while you were finding your own style, it could be really helpful to sort of mimic the styles of other people that you like. So if you're like, oh, I love a Breachier-Bardo. I love a Santa Miller. You kind of can copy their outfits. Do you think there's a version of that we should be doing in home design?

I think so, but I think you have to be really careful about the references. I think if you're going to go down that road, you really need to dig deep into like historic interiors, like people that were known for their great taste, like that Truman Capote and the Swans, the Ryan Murphy Show, Babe Paley, Bunny Mellon, Jean-Michel Frank, in Paris. There's people historically that have really like set a pace that a lot of designers refer back to constantly, including me. But you don't go for like, you know, the actress on the WB and how.

her house that ran in us weekly. Like, let's go deeper. If we see a home on like AD and we're like, oh, we really like this home, can it be helpful to be like, okay, green wall, blue couch, while we're still learning these things? And also helpful to see who designed it and go on their website and screen grab imagery of other things that you like. It could just be the balance of it all. It could be the color palette. We have access to everything now. You know, someday somebody's going to like, be like, Nate Berkus Interior, click, and it's all going to be delivered. Yeah, that is crazy. It is crazy.

You know, what that's never going to replace is, is the relationship and the sourcing and the finding of like the really special things. And I want people to be doing that in the interim. Let's say we kind of figure out what our style is and our partner has figured out what their style is, but those two styles don't really match. What do we do? That is rough, especially if both people feel really strong. strongly about their style.

Divorce. Yeah. Like sell your house, find a different partner, and move on. Get the sofa you want, people. No, listen, I think you have to pick your battles. For me, my priorities personally have always been people, then pets, then stuff. I would never, ever want to make a design decision that my husband would be uncomfortable with. He wouldn't let me anyway, but still.

I think you have to really figure out what the blend needs to be, what the common language needs to be. You need to develop that common language together. Ideally, if somebody just doesn't agree, they also don't feel as strongly about it. So, like, usually there's like a negotiation tactic involved. Like, hey, you can watch football all day, Sunday if I can paint the room gray or navy or whatever. But if that really isn't the case, then again, you kind of both have to come together and kind of break it down element by element. What colors are you good with? What colors could you never live with? You'll find middle ground, but it just takes longer. Your last tenant is to develop your vision. What can we do to develop our vision that we haven't talked about yet?

You have to kind of remain open to inspiration wherever you are. Like sometimes I'll be in a museum and I'll look at a painting that I don't like, but I really like the frame. Or I'll like the paint color on the wall in the gallery where the painting is hanging. And I still don't like the actual painting, but I'll like the frame and how it relates to the paint color of the wall. Or I'll be walking somewhere far away. I'll notice the color of the shutters on a home and how that contrasts or complement the stone around the windows.

It's what I've been doing for 25 years. I'm a really annoying person to travel with. I'm like, everyone's like praying in a cathedral and I'm like taking pictures of the marble floors. It retrains you to take these things of beauty as you see them around your world, around the world at large, and translate them into a design vocabulary

that you can apply to living beautifully. It occurs to me as you're talking that a lot of what we're talking about is taste. And there's this cultural conversation happening right now that people are losing a sense for their own taste. Like we're being bombarded by these micro trends. We're being swayed by the forces of social media all the time. Have you found in your work that people don't know what they like in the same way anymore?

I think there's been a lack of confidence. I think, you know, that's always kind of been true in design, even when I started so many years ago. But I do think that the more we're exposed to, the more confusing it gets. sometimes the more we're exposed to, the more we're able to hone in on what we actually really like and what we don't like.

My grandmother growing up was from Philadelphia. Her interior was blues and white. Navies, royal blues, bright blues, and white. Period. There were maybe like a couple of red accent and she had like American antique furniture. If she saw something that wasn't blue and white, she never wavered.

If she was out shopping with her girlfriends or went to it and an estate sale and saw like a bowl and it was brown and white, it wasn't coming home. It just wasn't, she was so consistent. And I remember thinking, what a luxury that is to know your style and to live beautifully within that style, live graciously within that style for years, for decades, and never waver. And, you know, blue and white was in the 80s when I was a kid, embarrassing. Like, everybody had glass, coffee tables and low tan linen sofas. And that's what my mother did to our home.

And I remember my mom trying to clean up my grandmother's house one day. I was there. And she was like, what is all this stuff? What are these, like, bowls and dishes and statues? And my grandmother was like, that's my fruit bowl. What are you doing? Like, don't touch it. And then, you know, fast forward.

30 years and my mom's house is filled with all of that. Our styles evolve. They should. But if you really can lay the foundation of understanding what really brings you joy stylistically, if you can really quiet the noise and take some time to really develop your own sense of style, you're never going to regret it. Are there any fun behind-the-scenes stories from 80 home tours that you've done? Yeah. What are the little tweaks they're doing to make the, the homes look like amazing on camera that we could do in our homes to give that like wow factor. Fresh flowers, whether they're from the deli or the grocery store, cut low in low vases, because tall flowers can, if not arranged beautifully, can look like you bought them at the grocery store.

But if you hack the stems off really low and create those little light balls, they look really expensive. Greenery, whether that's going out in the backyard, you see in every AD home tour like a big vase with branches, like, You know, and the branches are four feet tall, and we go out in Long Island and we hack down branches before friends come over. Branches are so chic. They're so good. What's up with that? They just are.

They're just great. You know what? It's just nice to have something green. Yeah. You tell me a faster, less expensive way to add that kind of height and scale and drama. There isn't one. So that's two things that both involve like adding flowers or greenery. I would say that universally there's an edit that happens before that AD doorbell rings.

They're taking stuff out. Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, no one wants to see your gum. You know, you've never walked into a tour and seen somebody's like dirty hairbrush or weird, you know, rash cream, right? So that's all wiped up and, you know, put back in dress where it should live, by the way. Do you think that's part of making a home look chic in general is having everything have a place? Oh my God, I'm a psycho with a... I'm a triple Virgo. I'm so hard to live with. It's horrible. I just don't want to see your

genital floss. Do you have any genius tips for storing stuff? Well, if you're renovating, I can tell you a genius tip. One thing is that we ignore all of the storage space that's there that we can craft in our homes when we're renovating. We don't think about where all the little nail polish bottles are going to go and things like that. So what I do almost in every renovation is I will take the area between two walls. studs, which is like four or five inches deep. And I'll create like just a touchlatch door on that and finish the inside. So even if I have three inches of shelves, like that's the depth of a skin cream or a shampoo bottle. So like floor to ceiling, shelving in between the studs and bathrooms is like unbelievable. Why are we leaving space in our walls when we could be

storing things in shallow ways that we have access to all the time? I didn't know there was space in my walls. There is. What if we're renting? Are there any, like, oh, this is a really chic vessel that you could be storing stuff in that you wouldn't necessarily think of in that way? I use a lot of baskets. I like hand-woven things. I love the container store, but not for the actual, like, outside storage things.

I like them for, like, the labeling or the tags, the hang tags and things like that. But really, like, any weekend trip to the antiques mall in your town, it's like, what about that? beautiful old suitcase that could go up on a shelf and be filled with stuff that you don't need access to every day, your kid's artwork or, you know, stuff that you just kind of want to save. I like things contained in containers. I like things grouped on trays and I love things behind doors. If you have headaches, allergies, brain fog, skin irritation, or you've been dealing with hormone issues, you are especially going to want to listen to this ad. Every single thing that I just listed has been linked to chemicals and household cleaners. One study found that

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Have you heard about the one red thing design theory? I've seen it. Do you agree that the idea is that one red thing in a room makes a room feel really chic and elevated? Do you agree with that? I think the way that they used it in that trend was cool. There was like one red stripe at the edge of a shower curtain. And I thought that that was really handsome.

There's a designer friend of mine called Alessandra Branca, who is based in Chicago and Palm Beach, and she always used red in a really beautiful accent. That's not new. That's a very Roman thing. If we want our room to feel elevated and rich and we're not rich, what can we do? You can keep it simpler, number one, the fashion reference, like, you know, a camel suit with a black belt and a gray t-shirt and a black bag looks expensive. Like always, a cheap floral fake silk dress does not. So don't be loud. Air on the side of quiet if you're going to for sophisticated.

That doesn't mean like super, super plain. This is where vintage makes you feel like maybe you inherited that from somebody. You know, I love a gilded mirror. It's a really easy thing to find. The gilded mirrors that we have in our home and in our lives have moved a billion times. from our daughter's room to our entry to my office. You'll always find a spot for it. But it's just a quicker, more elegant investment

than trying to decide what you like in paintings or photography, for instance. Let's talk about art. How do we know what art looks good, looks good together, our gallery walls cool anymore, where are we buying our art? I'm confused by like every part of it. Like I bought a piece I liked and then it was framed.

And now I'm like, it looks like a 1980. Coke lounge with the frame that it has, and now I hate it. I'm confused about every single part of it. So the truth is, is that unless we're doing like a model unit as a firm and we are responsible for selecting everything, including the art, we kind of back off. And I'll tell you why art is so super subjective and that's why it's so confusing. What I like is not going to be what you like ever. we might agree on one out of a hundred examples that I show to you. So it's a waste of my time to put things in front of you and hope for an emotional reaction. It's not going to happen.

I see so much art. I go through probably 30 to 40 auctions a day online. And I never slow the scroll unless something about the composition or the color or the subject matter just stops me in my tracks. and then I'll click on it and enlarge the image so that I can see what I'm really looking at. And oftentimes the spell's broken when I see that it, like, you know, that beautiful portrait of the lady is holding a machete. I'm like, oh, I'm done. I'll never be able to define my tastes in paintings or photography. I just know what I like.

What about when we're looking at our walls, though, are there rules around, like, if you get as big of a piece as possible and as few of them, put three in a row or something like that? Not really. It's so dependent on the architecture and the actual room itself. I've been installing other people's interiors for 30 years. I have a sense of where I think their paintings and things like that are going to go, but I never really know until I'm in my socks standing on the back of the sofa going, hey, guys, you guys like it here? It's really meant to be experimental. And it's also meant to be weird. If you look at some of the interiors that I've lived in that Jera and I have designed for ourselves, the paintings are off center, or we have a very small painting on a cluster of three smaller paintings on a very skinny wall.

You know, that is stuff that just takes experimentation. You have to have a buddy. You have to have somebody standing there holding it while you're like stepping back and being like, yeah, I think that's really pretty. Are gallery walls chugie? For me, they became so ubiquitous. Like, they were just like everywhere. I have some friends who, live beautifully with gallery walls. And when they look at that wall, it all resonates for some reason. Each little moment that they've hung together matters to them. And I support that. But it's not my first choice anymore unless it's like a wall of family photos that is in a hallway or in a playroom or something. Do you have a favorite way to display family photos or

kids art or things like that that we want to keep in our house, but maybe isn't the shikest thing? I like framed photos and I like vintage frames, obviously, no surprise. I was in Minnesota antiquing with my mother like two months ago and found like four amazing vintage leather frames at an antiques mall there and shove them in my suitcase. So I like finding special frames very much. That's like something I would say I collect. Kids are it?

You know, they don't want to look at it. for long because they've moved on. So that's where I'll do it, really inexpensive frame, hang it in their room. And then I ask my kids, like, do you still want that on your wall? And usually the answer is no. And I'm like, well, is there anything else? And they're like, yeah, the pottery I made in, you know, pottery class. And I'm like, great, that Smushed Hamburger will be on your shelf in no time. Do you have any advice for having a home feel elevated but having kids, like having that lived in quality that makes a home feel accessible. Our kids were taught at a really early age to respect our things.

We didn't have rooms that they weren't allowed in. They were allowed everywhere, but they weren't allowed with a popsicle. When you teach your kids to respect your things, that's part of it. The other thing is that because we use so much vintage and antique stuff, it's already ruined. So, like, I'm not stressed out about... Like a stain. No.

That would add to it. Yeah, it's awesome. And same with natural stone countertops. Like, if you think about it, like ye old fudge shop in every town is always this big slab of Carrera marble that they would make the chocolates on. And it looks like worn and modeled and aged and dull. And I find that beautiful. So, you know, we don't baby the surfaces in our house. Carpet, sure. But that's where my little green machine comes in. Is that like the best carpet cleaner situation? The fact that I am not the face of the Bissell little green machine is the great tragedy. It's my favorite thing I've ever owned. We have a puppy. We have a cat. We have two children. My husband, like, drops his gym clothes, like, as he's, like, walking through the house.

And I follow the entire family around steam cleaning the carpet. Are you a clean? Beyond. Okay. And is your husband, too? No. He's not dirty, but he's not. Well, he probably, he'd say he doesn't need to be, like, hostile.

hospitalized over it like I do. What is the number one thing that you think people waste money on when it comes to decorating their homes? Trends. I think they go out and they're like, oh my gosh, this is so awesome. I have to have this purple chair or this red stripe and you're like, what are you doing? Like, stop. Again, like it's, it design is not instant. You're not going to end up where you want to if you're paying such close attention to these like fake actionable. I hear you. Design's not instant. And like if I move into a place, I don't want to wait months to have the place feel like home. What's like the lowest hanging fruit for that homey feeling? Listen, I think the lowest hanging fruit for the homey feeling is framed photos, books on subjects that matter to you. A small stack of coffee table books on subjects that you're really interested in that you'd love to read. I used to ask people to only give me books because I was like, I don't want some accessory that you think I want.

want in my house. That's the last thing I want. But you know I love travel. You know I love the beach. You know I love Mexico. You know I love Portugal. Like, give me a book. So we can be sitting on the floor next to our No, you can buy yourself a sofa. That's also paralyzing from a different, totally different perspective. I mean, you're not going to be madly in love and not everything in your home is going to be meaningful, period. There are going to be certain things that are utilitarian. What my point is, is that before you buy those things, at least have given yourself the opportunity to really know that you love that color

and you love that fabric and you love that shape before you're like, well, I just need somewhere to sit right now. Are you a fan of bold wall colors slash how do we know what color our walls should be? I am a fan of bold wall colors. I like black walls even, I think, can be amazing. That you have to really do.

a bit of a deep dive into other interiors that have used colors like that before you before you really just like fire the gun one thing I think is really ugly is when somebody paints like a dark almost black green room can be beautiful but it's not really beautiful with like cheap white baseboards or an aluminum window in the middle of it like it's not going to land the way that it lands in that picture of that French hotel room. So I think you have to be, you have to be aware of how to like really use those colors well. Do you paint the ceiling or do you leave it white? Do you paint the interiors of the doors?

I think when you're going really bold, you kind of almost have to like, blanket the whole room. Our accent walls? Hey, it's like bad. It's like a lack of commitment. Just go for it. What about like an accent wall that's like a wallpapered wall? No.

Still don't like that. Use it on all four. If you like it enough to put it on one, you should like it enough to put it on four. What's your best advice for styling a coffee table? Okay. So this is like an obsession. And I don't know that there's ever been a design book that has addressed that before foundations.

I, when we went around and photographed all of these design projects, and I asked the team to stand on something and take photos of the tops of coffee tables and the tops of end tables so that I could break those apart and talk about why I thought the styling was successful. A coffee table should have a mix of materials. You literally should have representation of like at least five different materials on a coffee table to make it successful. Metal, natural stone, something woven, a book with a cover that you love. I think texture is sort of one of the most under-discuitable.

things for making homes feel chic. Do you agree with that? I do because I think that it's a lot easier to take a swing with a bold color than it is to really play with the interplay of texture. And I think texture can make your home feel really expensive, if done right. What are some ways we can add texture to our homes? Take a look around at like the large banks of upholstery, like the big bigger pieces. What are they upholstered in? Are they cotton? Are they linen? Are they velvet and then don't do the same fabrics on your pillows or on your throws or on your drapery. If you have a linen sofa, you should be doing plusher woven pillows, velvet, leather, suede. If the sofa is velvet, then don't have two velvet chairs. Would you say the same thing

for hard services? Like if you have a wood thing, add a stone thing? Absolutely. The texture comes from you know, the age of an old metal side table with a stone top. It comes from the age of the wood on your dining table next to the painted dining chairs. I don't love sets of furniture. I never have. Dining chairs that match your dining table, night tables that match your bed. Even for like our collection for living spaces, we'll do matching night tables, but then we'll pair it with an upholstered bed.

I just don't like sets. Should your two bedside tables match each other? They don't have to, no. But I think there is something visually very balanced about that when they do. I've heard like little kind of design tricks. Like your curtain should always go all the way to your ceiling instead of just going right above your windows. First of all, is that true?

100%. And that's because it makes the room look bigger? Makes the room look taller. Are there other little design secrets like that you could share with us? When your draperies do go to the ceiling, you kind of always have that space of the top window trim and then some wall and then the ceiling. One thing that I'll do is do an outside mounted shade over the frame of the window also right at the ceiling. And I've done that for windows that start like two feet below the ceiling.

It makes everything look tall. Like the windows behind the shades go all the way up. And that I think is a really important trick. I don't like a really finished floor. I like a mat finish on wood floors. It's still protected, but it doesn't look like glossy and it doesn't scratch as easily. I think the biggest tip is to, like, I said, not be beholden to the finishes in your home. I don't stress out and like follow people around with a coaster when they come over.

Put your feet up, set your drink down, and live your life. And if you're using things that have a little bit of age or have a little bit of history to them, you're only going to add to that. What trend that's happening right now do you think is going to age poorly? You just have to decide what trends you want to follow because they mesh well with what you actually believe for yourself works and design. Yes, of course, Granny Sheik was in Coastal Granny. That's not new. Like, look at any grandmother's house in Maine.

It looks like that. Like, that's like what it's always. look like. But I think trends are designed to make people buy stuff, period. You know, that's, that's my belief. Trends are designed to make you feel like you aren't trendy, that your house is not current, that you're not cool because you don't have lime green, or you didn't do, you know, nautical stripes, or you don't have a fake Eiffel Tower that says, bonjour, show me a trend that's lasted. What's your most controversial design take? I'd rather have better and less. Better quality, fewer things, than fill my home with things that I don't have a connection to.

Can you leave us with one homework assignment for anybody listening where they can immediately start to tap into their own sense of style? I think what you should do is go find an image, whether it's a magazine or an online magazine or Instagram or Instagram. Instagram or social media, whatever, don't care. Go find an image of a room that you really love. Take a beat to figure out to name three things that you love most about it and three things that you like least about it. And then those three things that you like most about it, read this small print, find out who made that table,

where that lamp came from, and then use those as search terms to learn more. I love that. That's a really good tip. I'm going to do that for sure. Can you tell us a little bit in your own words about your beautiful new book, foundations? Well, it wasn't the book that I actually set out to write. I was really excited about my idea, but nobody else wanted to do it.

What I wanted to do was write this series of small guides, and each one would have their own cover, and it was like bathrooms, living rooms, common areas, bedrooms. and I thought it would be like kind of like the Aceline like hotel guides or guides to different cities and I thought it was like the best idea and every publisher like that's so dumb. So I'm like, no, it's not dumb. Like you can get somebody a $15 book to when they're renovating their bathroom. That's the greatest idea. Also it'd be fun to like in a bathroom have a bathroom book.

You know what I mean? Like to sit on the toilet and like think about what you didn't do. Yeah. Amazing. My editor at Simon and Schuster, Doris Cooper, who I've always wanted to work with, who really was instrumental with bringing this book to life, was like, Nate, do you have any idea the cost of paper and the idea of making 12 different covers instead of just taking all that information and writing a definitive book about everything you've learned in the last 30 years? You can still break it down room by room, and you should because it'll be easy for people to flip to things that matter to them. But we are not doing a series of those books. We are doing one, amazing book. And this was the most fun I've ever had. This is my third book. But this book is not about me. This book is about the work. And this book is really what I view almost as like a thank you note to everybody who's supported my career for the last 30 years. It's everything I've learned

over the last 30 years broken down room by room in a way that I hope really is a tool for people to work with. It's not the glossy $100 coffee table book of, look at all my beautiful homes I've designed. They're in there. But they're in there in a way that allows the reader to take a look at a room that we've designed and have that broken down by me to pull out what's important and what they can achieve in their own home. I think that you did that incredibly. And what I also love about what you do with design is you really make a case for its importance and how it can make you feel and how it can help you connect with your sense of identity and your sense of self. And I think sometimes we can feel like these things are superfluous and you really help us dig deep and realize how much they

matter and why they do. Thank you for the book. It's a phenomenal book. And thank you for this conversation and sharing all of your wisdom with us. Thank you for having me. This was really great. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of the Liz Moody podcast. If you enjoyed the episode, go ahead and follow on Apple or Spotify or subscribe on YouTube and hit that notification bell so you never miss a new episode. And if there's somebody in your life you think would benefit from this episode, send them a quick link. It is the best way to support the podcast and it is so, so appreciated.

And if you're watching this, drop me a comment. I would love to hear your thoughts and what resonated most with you. Thanks again for being here. I feel so lucky that I get to grow and learn and share with you. And I will see you on the next episode of the Liz Moody podcast. Oh, just one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, a psychotherapist, or any other qualified professional.