It’s a title tossed around my family a lot since my younger brother is a “Nate”, but that’s not the one I’m referring to today. Nate Berkus has long been one of my favorite designers, he has that knack of turning every space he decorates into a beautiful room that’s always perfectly pulled together down to the last detail. I also bought his latest book and the stories throughout The Things That Matter  are examples of this truth:

So I was catching up on my O the other day and came across this video where Nate reveals his thoughts about why his television show didn’t work. I was sad to see the show end since I enjoyed it and had the privilege of actually meeting him and being on the show.

I’ve discussed the end of The Nate Show with other interior design loving friends and I always thought Nate was so great on camera, I just wondered if the daily talk show really was the right format – those 3 to 5 minute snippets of decorating tips squeezed in between commercials – it was good, but he’s so much greater at doing what he writes about in his book, letting a space evolve over time with layers of meaningful things collected over the course of many months and years.

View the video here.

Nate talks about how he lost sight of what was important during those years, how he felt unhealthy, and reveals that the format was not right for him. In hindsight, it would have been so much better to have a once a week show. Yes, I so agree!

I was inspired by his revelation so I wanted to share it with you in case you haven’t seen it. He’s “Nate the Great” to me not only because of his gifted sense of design but also because he has the strength to admit that yielding to the pressures and values of others took him to a place that wasn’t authentic and made him unrecognizable to himself.

Good design, the kind Nate makes look so effortless, really does take time – and how true is it that the best rooms are multilayered, filled with meaning, and unfold slowly as you collect the things that matter most over the course of your life. I hope to see Nate back on TV someday where we can watch him work his magic on camera and transform rooms in realistic time. If it ever happens, I’ll be watching!

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Hey there friends, today CG turns four! February 15th marks the day four years ago I logged into Blogger, picked this url, and started this adventure as a hobby in the beginning and now it’s a job, I never would have imagined such a thing could happen.

Along the way I’ve made some amazing friends and been blessed with incredible opportunities, I’m so grateful for each one, but I must say the thing that keeps me coming back to the keyboard each day is you and I mean it with all sincerity.

Your comments motivate me to share my ideas, designs, and thoughts on a regular basis so I have to start with a big thank you to all of you who continue to read each day. I’m not going to analyze the blog traffic in numbers but I will say they long ago exceeded my expectations.  

Every year I write a summary of what I’ve learned so I’m doing it again this year but first I thought it would be interesting to see what four years into this gig the readership looks like – thanks to thousands of survey answers, here’s a breakdown of the numbers which reveal who YOU are.

This cracked me up but I really wasn’t surprised. Hello to you male readers out there, I love when you comment!

In the age group, I broke down the younger crowd into 5 year categories but then mistakenly grouped the over 40 crowd into 10 year groups (gaffe!) and you all left some great comments about that!  

A majority of you have college degrees, you smart people you, and I love when you catch my typos and grammatical errors, which is at least one per post. 

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I was organizing some pictures over the weekend and I stumbled across some images (below) of favorite rooms from 2010 that I had I gathered in an inspiration file on my old computer from that year (in those pre Pinterest days, do you remember them?) 

As I went through this “favorites” file I recognized something about myself, something that made me feel really good.  When it comes to my personal taste, I know what I like when I see it.  I like white bookcases and clean lines together with touches of wood and a mix of traditional and modern.

I like graphic wallpaper in a powder room paired with a fretwork mirror.

I like sculptural modern accents paired with classic Louis style chairs trimmed in nailheads and a healthy dose of dark and light contrast. 

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Long walks in the woods do wonders for the mind, body, and soul and bring remarkable clarity.  I was up in the mountains last week and had a lot of time to think about what I’d like this year to be about.  It’s common to set goals or resolutions for ourselves this time of year and the more I thought about it, the more I analyzed my dreams and the direction I need to take to make them happen, and to make my work even more fulfilling.   

I confess I needed a break from blogging which is why I took the week off.  All those unplugged hours helped me focus on what I wanted more of here on the blog and today seems the perfect time to share those ideas, hopes, and dreams.  I’ll be staying true to most of what I’ve been posting about for years, but here are a few changes I’ll be making in 2013.

1.  Less Me, More You.  I love home improvement but there’s only a few major projects left around our place before the house is “done” and after that we’ve no plans to move!  Yet I absolutely love DIY projects on the home front, remodeling and sprucing will always be a passion, so I plan to tackle a few more of your design dilemmas and include readers in the conversation too.  I’ll still have a lot of creative DIY ideas of my own to share too but I don’t expect to do quite as many this year as I have in the past.

2.   Random Beauty.   I love to explore the world with my camera, heading out into nature, popping into local shops, and taking pictures of cool places and spaces.  I’m going to adventure and share more of what I capture with my lens this year.  

3.  Great Design.  My favorite topic is what constitutes good design, from architectural elements to color, fabric, and furniture choices.  I’ll be beefing up the Style Files with weekly articles on random topics this year, together with some Contributing Writers. 

4.  Weekly Encouragement.  I love the idea of starting off the week with an encouraging word or quote, so I plan to do a lot of that on Mondays, and offer some free printables to go along with it. 

5.  Fabric Design.  I’ve been hinting at this for a while but I feel it’s finally time to share.  After a year of dreaming, I have all the tools in place to pursue something I’m truly passionate about and that is textile design.  More samples of my work are arriving every day and I’m excited to be launching a line of colorful prints for home this spring. 

We’ve decided to convert the small unit above our garage into a design and sewing studio, and we’ll be starting the transformation later this month.  For me, this is the ultimate DIY project, and I’ll be working on a lot of textile designs behind the scenes over the next couple of months until the collection is complete! 

In life, there is always uncertainty about what the future holds but I believe in taking a leap of faith and investing in oneself.  Finding the right path, my true north, is what this year is really about for me.  I believe we all need to focus on what truly makes us happy and not so much what everyone else is doing.  Life is too short not to pursue our passions! 

I want this blog to continue to be a place of inspiration and community and I’ll stay focused topic wise on inspiring you and me in the process of making our lives and homes more beautiful.  I love sharing the inspiring writings and projects of others so both the ‘Best of the Blogosphere’ and ‘Friday Finds’ series will continue this year. 

I know there are a lot of lovely blogs to read out there, I subscribe to so many too, and so I am grateful every day for your readership.  I welcome any of your thoughts on content or posts, feel free to suggest them in the comments or email them to me at kate@centsationalgirl.com.

I’ll be kicking off the New Year with an all star cast of tips on organizing tomorrow. 

Cheers to a healthy, happy, and productive 2013! 

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