If you’re looking for ways to decorate your home, there are several resources that can provide inspiration (and Lennar on Pinterest is a great place to start!). This article from U.S. News outlines some other places to check out for home design ideas, both online and in person.
If you’ve got the urge to brighten up your current space, but don’t know where to begin, relax. Inspiration abounds, and there are great home design resources all around you. You just need to know where to look.
These days, it seems like everything begins with the Internet, and Pinterest, Google and Instagram are great places to begin your search for home design inspiration. In fact, creating a Pinterest account and pin board may be a good idea for this project, as it allows you to quickly find, keep and potentially share the bits of inspiration your searches turn up, whether it’s midcentury drapery or Spanish revival paint colors. The search terms you use in Pinterest will work in Google Image search and Instagram, too. If you’re looking for more than inspiration, the Internet hosts lots of free online courses – many offered by serious real world design colleges and institutions.
Open houses provide an opportunity to see how other people live – and design – offering you the chance to see things in a slightly different way. Even better, many home sellers hire professional stagers to design their rooms to sell, following fundamental design principals about color, light and space.
Another way to look into real people’s homes for free design inspiration is to browse Airbnb and other vacation rental sites like VRBO. The listings usually include lots of photographs, and many owners spend a great deal of time and effort designing their spaces to make them more attractive and comfortable for themselves – and for their paying guests.
Your local library has stacks and stacks of home design inspiration, but you’ll find the real goods in the 700s (that’s where the Dewey Decimal System classifies the arts). You can browse through the history of art, architecture and sculpture to get some ideas, or you can dive right in to classic and contemporary interior design books (look in 729 architecture: design and decoration).
Many furniture, home and craft stores, such as Pottery Barn, Michaels and Ethan Allen, offer free design classes and skill-building workshops. Their goal, of course, is to sell you the products, tools and materials required to make design inspiration a reality. But you won’t have to pay a cent for the inspiration, knowledge and skills you’ll gain in an afternoon workshop.
