By tiffbrooks on January 2, 2015 ( 9 Comments )

It’s A New Year. Lets Do Something About Your Decor.

First off – Welcome to 2015. I hope that the year is all you have expected it to be so far. 😉

One of my resolutions, to stop inhaling caffeine, is already out the damn window. I will report back on how I do with the 1200 calorie per day thing. I anticipate I will be a raving biotch come dinner time. Any who on to you…

Aight folks, I want to get your home as fabulous as you are. So I am going to be posting about the 12 steps needed in getting you there. Week by week I will give you the necessary steps to pulling off a room that you designed with your very own 2 hands. If you stick with me on this, come February, you should be well on your way to a stylish domain. Now-There are rules to this ish – and we are going to start with the first one – Getting You Inspired.

First, lets pick one room. If you are not a professional designer I think we should approach designing your home with a toe in the water to test the temperature type of situation. I am going to assume that most folks will want to start with their living area.

Step 1: Gathering Your Inspiration:

When you start any creative project, inspiration must be either present or obtained. Decorating your home is no different. You may have a vision of how you would like your home to look and feel. Usually this is based on a space or other environment that you have once visited or experienced. I am going to tell you how to extract that feeling/experience and translate it into designing your room(s).

Start your clipping file. Fill it with images that speak to you. I know it sounds easier said than done but the online ways to pull this off are endless. My favorite way…..

PINTEREST!

My Pinterest page

I am going to spare you the 101 on how to use Pinterest. We all have a Pinterest page. But you need to make sure that you are using it right.

I would 1st create a board that identifies the room that you are designing. The second rule is to search for images by the room that you are designing and add one other identifier such as a color, or style that you are looking for. An example: “White Living Rooms” or “Living Rooms with wallpaper”

I usually end up creating a pinterest board for everyone that I am designing for. See more of my stuff here: http://www.pinterest.com/tiffbrooks2/

From Pinterest Source Unknown

From Pinterest Source Unknown

From Pinterest Source Unknown

When you are collecting these images you will start to see something of a pattern developing. Most folks (including myself) just haphazardly pin images. That is a huge mistake. You MUST WRITE A BRIEF DESCRIPTION ON WHAT YOU LOVE ABOUT THE ROOM. If you learn nothing else from this post take that last tip, and store it in your head.

With those descriptors you are unknowingly coming up with your rooms “Big Idea” – more on that next week.

If you have no idea what to write look for design elements that are drawing you in such as: Color, Patterns, Focal Points, Style, Accessories, or a specific piece in the space like the window treatments or a furnishing. If at all possible find the rooms source or who designed it. The designers that you are loving all over will give you clues as to who you are, style wise.

LOOK TO FASHION….

A crap load of us pros look toward fashion for inspiration. We are inspired by patterns, colors, and motifs that we fins straight from the runways.

from maneandchic

When I first pinned the above this years ago – I saw an entire room color plan – done.

Other places I get inspired are: design blogs, magazines, and Polyvore.

Let’s Chat About Houzz…

Last year I was all about sending my new clients to Houzz to gather images. I have had a Houzz account since they started off. I was literally one of the first 100 designers showcasing my work to the site. I have recently stopped sending my people there after I noted one troubling thing about the site. They tend to showcase the most popular images, and those that have paid for placement first. The problem with the Houzz algorithm is that the end user misses GOBBS of amazing photos, just because the designer is not paying for their images to show up or those images that are not popular are not showing up until the end. The thing that lead me to discover this was that all of my clients kept showing me these SAME 2 Living Rooms for inspiration:

On Houzz by Bruce Johnson

From Houzz by Heather Garrett

Now – Both of these living rooms are FA-BU-lous. But, I kept seeing it over, and over, AND OVER again from my clients in 2014. When I took a closer look, Houzz presented it first because both these images had over 100K additions to ideabooks. My take on that methodology is – “What is good for the goose is not always chic for the gandor.”

Since my realization I have taken a pass on sending my people to Houzz…moving on.

So – you have created a boards, have them all nice and “description’d up” How do you organize it all into one clear plan for inspiration? That brings me to Step #2

#2 Your Inspiration Becomes Your Guide:

“So how in the hell, do you let your inspiration guide you?” Well, there is no easy answer, but I have easily answered it for you. I made the below worksheet. In my e-book “12 Steps to Designing Your Interior” In the mean time you can use the below image as a guide to organizing your thoughts.

by Tiffany Brooks

Make categories about the elements that you need in your space like I have done in the above worksheet. Go ahead copy the headers on a piece of notebook paper and get started. Your categories should be things like what I have above such as Windows, Furniture, Art & Accessories, Wall Treatments, Patterns, Shapes, etc, etc.

Within those categories you can briefly reference what you love about the images you found on Pinterest.

At this exact moment, when you are working on your categories is when the light bulb should go off – You will find some common threads in the images you are gravitating towards!

So there you have it. Step 1 and 2 of Designing your New Space for the New Year.

We are in now ways close to being done! So check back in one week on your next steps to follow.