The Nate Experience

It took a few days to re-arrange my schedule to head out to NYC to join my fellow design bloggers in a one-day love fest. It literally took planes, trains and automobiles to be in NYC for a total of 5 hours (yes, 5 hours). My brother was holding down the fort, clients were being patient, my sister was texting support, The Hubs was rearranging travel, my sweet friend Sharon made sacrifices to be my guest, my debit card lost weight…it took a Village.

As I was heading to The Nate Show, I was mentally writing this post. Ya’ll know I can gush and use words like “loooooooove” and “holy amazing wow” and “Seriously.” That’s how I talk in real life, that’s how I write the blog. Was it worth it all the effort? Yes! Here are some of the highlights:

1) Meeting Design Bloggers: We follow each other, we tweet to each other, we write e-mails, we read each other’s blogs. These are the men and women who share a love of writing, dishing and gorgeous design. It started with a suggested idea on Twitter by Julieann Covino of CreateGirl, picked up by the Janet & Joy of the Moggit Girls and bloomed into a whole blog community working together. To meet in person — this was special. During the days leading up to “the event”, blogger Chanee Vijay of {me}longings took the time to put a Blog Cheat Sheet together of all the bloggers attending so that we could recognize each other. Wasn’t that nice?

Upon arrival, we were led into different green rooms and started making our way around to each other. So much fun — wish there had been more time to chat. They then brought us into the studio set and when the show wrapped, we also hung around until they ushered us out. In a nice, but very stern way. Seriously, they had to since we could have stayed all night running up to each other. An after-party was also planned by Camila Pavone of High-Heeled Foot in the Door. A complete bummer that we were not able to attend (plane to catch and all) but I heard it was amazing.

2) Seeing the Behind-the-Scenes: For all those interested in your own show — it takes a lot of effort and can take over your life, it seems. It was fascinating to see how it all worked — from the incredibly funny warmup, Dena of One Funny Mother, to how to work with both the small and large cameras zooming all over the place, to how each segment works and how flubs are re-recorded (for the record, not many with Nate). It’s easy to see why Nate is a star: he’s personable, magnetic to watch and so confident with design — it comes through loud and clear. We had segments involving a design makeover by HGTV’s Design Star winner Emily Henderson (A-do-rable. Seriously.), a fashion makeover with Project Runway winner Christian Siriano and two shorter segments involving fireplaces and blogger Susan Brinson of House of Brinson showcasing her gorgeous kitchen. Very cool to see how it all works.

My Section - Great View!

The section affectionately called "The West Wing"

Nate loves the vertical gardens (2 on set). I wanted to take one home -- they were gorgeous!

3) Question & Answer Session: At the end of the taping, Nate sat with us to answer some questions we might have. This was the only moment we had to use cameras so you should have seen the whipping out of the cell phones and cameras and flashes going off. Craziness. And oh, yeah — there were questions: from painting cabinets to how to live a full life to how often he changes his bedding to getting advice on marketing a product line. He was very warm, gracious and spent his time on each question, not just giving one-liners. This was a special moment – not scripted, totally accessible and completely real. He also mentioned that this was not something he does normally with an audience but he planned it for the bloggers, so that was very nice.

Julieann Covino from CreateGirl assisted by Dena from One Funny Mother

Q & A with Nate Berkus

4) Only One Thing: Perhaps it was a creative decision or a time issue but no mention of the design blog audience was made during on-air time. (We were thanked for coming to the show in between segments.) I believe about 100 of us flew in from around the country to gather together for this show — I do wish the show had involved blogging in a more impactful way or my favorite, let us go crazy by mentioning we were in Daaaa House. Regardless of that decision, it was wonderful to be invited and I do look forward to when they do segments on design blogs in particular.

5) Giveaways: We received a Payless Shoe Source gift card and everybody received a different accessory from Send the Trend. Thank you to both those companies for our gifts.

BTW, we were not given an air date but they did let us know to check the schedule to see when our segments were airing. So, I am glad I attended since I saw the show and met so many wonderful bloggers in person. I’m sure we will continue networking and collaborating — much more so now since we know each other. Plus, to visit NYC again — even if only for 5 hours — was a rare treat. I love NYC — I miss living there terribly. And isn’t life supposed to be about experiencing as much as possible, taking chances and leaps of faith? Exactly.

UPDATE: Because it’s my job to keep you informed, I did want to let you know that many bloggers felt it was a wasted opportunity on behalf of The Nate Berkus Show not to acknowledge the efforts made to promote the show and arrange schedules en masse to be there. I truly understand their viewpoints — hey, I was there. It’s a new show, though — barely a week into filming and they have a few things to work out. I’m sure it’ll all come together which is something all of us who attended look forward to. All in all, a positive trip for me.