Want to quickly figure out the personalities and lifestyles of the four women on HBO’s “Sex and the City”? Check out their apartments.

Whether it’s Miranda’s dining room that serves as a home office, Charlotte’s mix of modern pieces and antiques, Samantha’s bed or Carrie’s closet, the homes and furnishings tell much about the characters.

Karin Wiesel, the set decorator who has been with the Emmy-winning show since 1999, spoke Thursday at the opening-day press breakfast for the International Home Furnishings Market.

For Wiesel — who says, “I shop for people that don’t exist” — the challenge is that the apartments must evolve as the characters do.

In the show’s first year, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) had an apartment, while the other three had only bedrooms on the set, “which I guess says something about our show,” she said.

Here’s how Wiesel describes the women through their apartments.

Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) bought her apartment during the second season. The contemporary decor with sharp edges fits her “what you see is what you get” personality. It also points to her income level as a partner in a law firm.

She has a high-tech kitchen that’s used only by her cleaning woman (who also is the one responsible for putting photos of Miranda’s baby on the refrigerator). She has a beautiful dining room but never eats there, using it as a home office. Instead, you’ll typically see her eating Chinese take-out while sitting on the living room sofa watching TV.

This season, Miranda’s apartment is evolving as she adjusts to life as a single mother, with a crib in her bedroom and a bassinet in the dining room. There’s also baby paraphernalia in odd spots around the house, pointing to some motherhood-adjustment issues.

Forced to leave her old apartment building after the neighbors complained about her frequent nighttime visitors, Samantha (Kim Cattrall) has moved to an apartment in the trendy meat-packing district in New York City.

“Her bed is the most important piece of furniture she owns,” Wiesel said. “She entertains there most often.” So the set decorators put the bed, with its luxurious linens, in the middle of the living space.

She never uses her kitchen, but the wine glasses and take-out containers are within close reach of the bed.

Charlotte (Columbia native Kristin Davis) is the opposite of Miranda. Her apartment represents her ideal world, and it’s the set that’s transformed the most over the seasons. When she first moved into husband Trey’s apartment, it was decorated by his mother in a style Charlotte found “repulsive.” She set out to redecorate it in season two.

The modern furniture reflects her art-gallery background, and the traditional and antique pieces show her values. It’s warm and homey in some ways, yet stark and stylized in others. And there are fresh flowers everywhere.

In anticipation of a baby, Charlotte and Trey converted the study into the perfect nursery. But when there was no baby, followed by separation and divorce, the baby room became the sitting room and ultimately became Charlotte’s study when she got the apartment after the divorce.

Carrie lives and works in her Upper East Side apartment. A writer, her apartment is filled with books and magazines, well-organized on shelves. Her furnishings range from flea-market finds to some fine mid-century pieces.

Her apartment looks lived in and gives a history of the show. For example, the purchases from flea-market trips that were shown on the show stay in her apartment. There’s a bowl of matchbooks of restaurants the women frequent.

But the most-requested place when visitors tour the set is Carrie’s huge closet packed with clothes. “Carrie’s closet is what Samantha’s bed is to Samantha,” Wiesel said.

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‘SEX’ tips

Each of the women on “Sex and the City” have a distinct style, formed by their personalities, jobs, finances and lifestyles. Set designer Karin Wiesel said it’s important to keep those traits in mind as you decorate your own home.

Some of her suggestions:

• Ask yourself questions. How do you spend time at home? Do you have kids or pets? What’s the most important room? Do you have a favorite piece of furniture?

• What inspires you? Look at home decorating magazines and mark the things you’re drawn to. Do you like bright or calm colors, for example.

• Look for inspiration. Wiesel said she fell in love with a bright, striped place setting and wanted to use it for the show. A restaurant — from the walls to the menus — was designed with the place setting as the model.

• Approach each room as a whole. You don’t have to furnish the whole room at once, but it helps down the road if you have a coherent plan in the beginning.

• Measure the room before you go shopping. Consider drawing the furniture on a template, since it’s hard to figure scale in a showroom.

• Don’t pick paint from a chip. Put some on the wall and live with it. See how it looks in various light.

• Invest in good task lighting (in a reading area, for example), and buy the best quality furniture you can afford.

• All that said, take some risks. Consider your needs and your family’s when you start decorating.

“You’re the main character for this show that’s your life,” she said. “So why not make it a little sexier?”