The Nate Berkus Blogger Show

I’m back from the wild and wonderful world that is NYC!

It was a fast paced trip and since this really was my first time to stay in the city and I was the NYC newbie of my group, I was a wide-eyed tourist for sure.  Now, mind you, I’ve been to many big cities in the world:  Rome, Paris, LA, and San Francisco, but NYC certainly has a vibe all its own.

Traffic speeding by, a trip in a NYC taxi is like a crazy ride at Disney World.  Scary, harried, fast and slow all at the same time.

(Me, Beth, Sarah in Central Park) Insert theme from “Friends” here

We met up with Beth from The Stories of A2Z (click over to read her post about the show) the morning of the Nate Show.  She and a friend had taken the train into the city to meet us.  We walked over to Central Park before breakfast and got a glimpse of that big green spot in the city.  It’s huge and we barely saw a fraction of it.  Beth is just a doll, loved meeting her in person after being friends online. I’m always amazed at how someone is just the way you picture them to be.  Love her!

Staying with my friends was such a highlight and getting to hang out with them all for a couple of days was amazing.  Sarah (Thrifty Decor Chick, as if you don’t know) and I, along with Emily Clark and her best friend, Katie, from Charlotte, all stayed in a hotel room together.  We had a blast!  I love all of those girls.  I had already had the pleasure of getting to know Sarah from the Blissdom conference earlier this year and she’s so much fun.  Emily and Katie were a joy to be around too, with their Southern sweet and sassy selves.

I met up with sweet friend, Centsational Girl Kate who I also got to know earlier at Blissdom and new friend Cristin, from Simplified Bee, both from California, the first day I got there and had dinner with them.  I’ll share more on the city and all of our adventures later on, but for the time being, we’ll get on to the Nate Show. (Megan from Modern Bird Studios, me, Sarah and Kate).

Loved hanging with these girls!!   After a quick breakfast, we headed over to the studio to stand in line. And here’s what awaited us.  A little time in the outside line, waiting to get in the studio. It was hurry up and wait, which I suspect is always the case with a studio taping. Friends outside meeting and chatting it up.   That’s Kate to the left and Cristin to the right. Once we got inside, we were directed to go either right or left to a waiting area that had chairs, snacks and coffee.  We were in here probably 2 hours, waiting for the cue that it was time to go into the studio.  Sarah and I were a little bummed that ALL our friends were in the other room, while we were in this one with more people that we didn’t know.  But, we did get to meet up with a few folks in here from blogworld.  That was fun!   There were several people in here that were not bloggers, so I’m sure they all thought we were crazy.

A shout-out to Lindsay at The Design Story, Diane at In My Own Style and Marcy from Pine Creek Cottage.  Great to meet all of these ladies at the show!

So, our room finally got to go in and much to our surprise, most of the studio was already filled.  Sarah and I ended up on the far right section, back row, much to our disappointment.  Oh well, that’s the way it goes.  We looked around to see all our friends in the middle section, some on the front row  Ahem, lucky Beth! 🙂   The studio seats are SO uncomfortable.  The backs almost pitch you forward, worse than an airline seat sitting straight up.  It has to be to keep everyone in a good posture.  You don’t have any choice with seats like that.  One of the tricks of a studio, I suppose.

No picture taking was allowed in the studio, so we had them put away in our bags, along with silent cellphones.  The taping lasted probably for an hour and 1/2 or more.  We were given instructions from this lady on how to behave and what we were to do.  Lots of applause happened, loud cheering and excited pandemonium was the behavior of the day.  We all know that applause and laughter are part of what is added to a show to energize the audience and enhance the live performance.  Between segments we sat and waited with the show producer talking us through it.

There have been a lot of negative blog posts written about the show, but I’m not going to be one of them.  I was grateful to be asked to attend the show and I didn’t have high expectation of what it would be like.  It was fun to be a part of it and I’m so glad I went.  The best part was getting to meet new and old friends and to hang out with them.  The show was just the icing on the cake.

The show began with Design Star, Emily Henderson, helping a couple declutter their house and she went in and gave them a makeover.  It was definitely needed and she did a great job of it.  Wish he had talked to Emily a little more about her blog and the fact that she is getting her own show on HGTV too.

One of the negatives that has been mentioned is that Nate didn’t acknowledge that the audience was mostly full of design bloggers that day.  It would have definitely been a great opportunity for him to say something about the fact that we all blogged about his new show and that we were all there to support him.  That didn’t happen on the air (just off camera), which many were disappointed about and voiced it very vocally on blogs.  I do think that was an oversight on their part and that could have been a very positive thing if they had mentioned it on-air.  Don’t know what the reason for not doing that would be, but hopefully they will remedy it next time.  I’m not going to use this post to bash the Nate Show.  I love Nate and wish him the best with his new show.  So far, I’m really enjoying it.  Hopefully, he will get into his groove and we’ll see even more of his fabulous decorating style, since that is what most of us want to see anyway.  I’m sure since the show is so new, they are still working out the kinks.  But, I’m going to be a fan.  This didn’t turn me off to Nate at all. After the taping was finished, Nate came out and took questions from the audience.  Some of my buddies got to ask a question.  I don’t think any of those will be on-air, but it was fun to listen in and get Nate’s input.  He’s just a cutie-pie in person and looked exactly like I expected him to.  I’m still a HUGE Nate fan.   That’s my roomie, Emily looking to the left above on the front row.   People started taking out cameras and taking pics, so I guess there was a cue given that it was OK, so I got my camera out too and snapped a few.

Nate was very warm and charming in the Q&A part.  Could the show have been better?  Our particular episode wasn’t exactly riveting and I’ve seen some of the other shows with better topics, but I think Nate will find just the right balance with it all eventually.   But really, as I said, I was happy to be there and getting to hang out with friends in NY was the best.  Love you, Nate!! I’m especially enjoying his feature with that Design 3-D gadget he has, showing a room from all angles and how it can be arranged and decorated.  That’s a fun tool!Here’s a flower arrangement at the end of our row.  The studio is gorgeous, all decked out with pretty pieces and lots of neat lighting.  This was my first time in a studio like that, so I was all eyes.  Studios are much smaller in person than they look on TV.This rug I have coveted from the very first show. I know it can be purchased online.  Love!  I did a search and found that Nate’s dhurrie rug can be found at HSN.com, so click there if you’d like to see it.  I’m loving this rug, now where could I put one? The famous wall of green that is shown at the beginning of the show, along with some studio props.  We all left the show and got a gift bag with an accessory (I got sunglasses) and a giftcard from Payless. One of the segments was a fashion segment and Payless was mentioned, so I guess they were a sponsor for this show.  I haven’t shopped at Payless for years, but will have to check them out.  Not a really exciting prize, but I guess it was the thought that counts. Kate, Sarah, Cristin,  and I headed down the street to a pizza place.  We were all starving, since we hadn’t had anything substantial to eat all afternoon.  I had been eyeing the pizza in these little joints all along the streets and we went in to indulge.  It was very good!  I was so hungry, I got 2 slices.  If I had more time in the city, I would have eaten a lot more.  I got a taste of Kate’s cheesecake and would have loved to have had even more time for grazing my way through the restaurants.  We did manage to get to Little Italy, but I was a little disappointed in that meal.  I had Italian my very first visit to the city 15 years ago that was fantastic. This one, not so much.

All in all, it was a fantastic time that I’ll cherish the memories of forever.  I loved it and would enjoy going back one of these days to take in a Broadway show, do a little shopping and eat my way through a few of those restaurants.

I’ll be back with lots more posts about the city.  We saw a lot and I took a ton of pics.  Our last outing before we all left was a trip to ABC Carpet and Design and it was a fun place to visit! I got lots to share from there too.

Speaking of NY, I never got the chance to share this, but my hubby’s youngest child, his 22-yr. old son, just moved back home with us about a month ago from NYC, where he’s been living for the last 3 1/2 years.  We never got the chance to go up and visit, he just seemed busy all the time, but I’m glad I got to go anyway.  He graduated in 2007 from the French Culinary Institute in NYC and loved the city so much, he stayed up there and worked for several restaurants during that time.  But, I think he found out how hard it is to make it in that city and decided to come back here and go to work for one of the top chefs in Birmingham, at Hot and Hot Fish Club.  And he’s doing well there.  If you go in there, look for a tall redhead in the kitchen. 🙂

Be back soon!