How to Search for Home Decor Inspiration Without Getting Stuck on Pinterest
I am about three months away from my new home build being complete! All of the little decisions I made months ago are now coming to life with cabinets coming in, walls being painted, and tile getting installed. It's equally exciting and a tad overwhelming to think that in a few short weeks, I'll need to make some expensive design decisions about the furniture and decor that will go in my new home.
How I Approach Decorating My New Home
I want to pull back the curtain and show you my process for how I'm approaching starting from scratch and decorating my new home. First, let me tell you where I'm NOT starting from. I'm NOT starting with visits to furniture stores or Facebook Marketplace. I'm starting with gathering inspiration. Why? Because
"It's your direction, not your intention that determines your destination."
You may intend you have a space where all of your selections perfectly fit your needs, style, and budget, but unless you have a plan to get there - I promise you'll end up far away from where you intended to be. More than likely having spent far too much on costly mistakes that you now have to either live with or start over. It isn't worth it to play the guessing game, there is a better and frankly much easier way!
How To Gather and Edit Your Home Decor Inspiration
Okay! Now, let me break down my process for gathering, sorting, and editing my inspiration. I would start this process as far out as possible from your target completion date. This is the step you should spend the most time on because you'll naturally refine your preferences as you go! I give myself the freedom to save anything and everything that inspires me or catches my eye to a Pinterest board. There is no "editing" at this stage - everything is a yes. You're never too early to start gathering inspiration.
Organizing Your Inspiration
Since I'm going to be designing my whole house from scratch I have a single Pinterest Board - Anna's Dream House that has subfolders for each room. That way I can organize inspiration within a single folder. Pinterest has a feature where you can leave comments or notes on pins. This is a great way for you to remind yourself what drew your eye to it in the first place. I recommend starting with at least 30 pins per room. We'll edit this down but you want to cast a wide net to begin with - let your imagination run wild!
Where to Find Home Decor Inspiration
Being a designer, I have a pretty good idea of the accounts and influencers that have inspired my own design aesthetic so that is where I start. I go search their names on Instagram or Pinterest and save anything and everything. It could be an entire room I love or just a feature or single product - anything goes at this stage! Pinterest at the end of the day is a search engine. Type in the name of the room or your design style and see what inspiration pops up!
Pinterest has a great recommendation tool so if you find one image you like, scroll down and it will begin to recommend more like it. This is a massive time saver! The Pinterest algorithm will also learn from what you Pin and you'll see your home page filled with more inspiration crafted to your tastes.
Auditing Your Home Decor Inspiration Images
This is such a critical step that many people miss when simply selecting inspiration. It's the editing phase. As you're pinning, especially over a long period of time, you'll notice as you take a 10,000-foot view of your inspiration that some things stick out. We created an Inspiration Audit Download to help you observe and answer some critical questions about what exactly it is about your inspiration that you like. Here are some questions for you to consider
What do your photos have in common?
What colors are you most drawn to?
How would you describe the overall feeling?
What elements would you MOST want to incorporate?
Editing Down Your Home Decor Inspiration
As you answer the questions above you'll see some of your inspiration pins don't fit - eliminate those. You'll likely see images that are very similar, perhaps one is slightly better than the other - pair down. The goal is to get to a tight 15 pins. These pins should best reflect the answers to the audit questions above and at a 10,000-foot view feel cohesive. If you step back and your inspiration images don't feel cohesive at this stage there are two things you can do. One - You may not have a clear enough idea of what you want and need to spend more time looking for inspiration to gain clarity. Two - You need to pair down even more. Your space will likely have multiple styles represented but those styles should complement each other.
What to Do with Your Home Decor Inspiration
Okay, you've got a tight 15 or so images that best represent the look, vibe, and feel you're going for in your design, so now what? We want our inspiration to guide us and serve as guard rails keeping us on track. Now, it's time to actually make a plan and no it's still not time to visit a furniture store. Now it's time for measurements and space planning. Yup - next time we're gonna do some math!
Feel like you’re ready to start decorating? Here’s everything you need to know for creating a fool-proof budget for decorating your home.
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