Giving your home a major overhaul can be overwhelming—from figuring out which color palette to follow, to finding the right design style that fits your day-to-day needs and your personality. Tearing sheets off shelter magazines and bookmarking blogs and websites that fit your aesthetic are a given when doing research, but with so much information available both online and offline, keeping track of all your inspirations can be extremely confusing.
Whether you’re more comfortable saving photos on your iPad or printing them out to store in your file folders, these nifty solutions can help you simplify your process and allow you to sort through a multitude of pegs in order to find the look that captures what you want in your home.
Pinterest (https://pinterest.com/)
This online mood board allows you to “pin” any image, video or article you want to bookmark onto a virtual corkboard. Your Pinterest account can hold as many boards as you want, making it easy to classify your pins (and the corresponding links they lead to) according to different categories. Creating a “hardware” board can help you focus on accessories like door knobs, curtain rods and fixtures, while a more general “kids’ room” board can hold photos that capture furniture, color schemes and big-picture ideas that you can filter through.
Mood Board
A tool used by designers to present a general look to clients before discussing floor plans and detailed elevations, this collage of images contains everything you can find in the finished space. Paint and fabric swatches, tiles, sketches and photographs can all be mounted onto a corkboard to give you a basic feel of the textures, colors and patterns that will all go into your space. Keeping your mood board tacked over your desk enables you to see the look you are aiming for all the time, helping you stay focused throughout the design process. More tactile than digital, a mood board’s multi-dimensionality allows you to explore how different textures can work together too.
Ideas Binder
A clear book is a handy tool you can use to slip in tear sheets from magazines, brochures from potential suppliers and DIY checklists that you can tote on shopping trips or site visits. Ideal for those who prefer flipping through pages they can feel rather than browse online, these expandable filing systems are perfect for those who like to shop around and gather plenty of material before making any decisions regarding the home. As your ideas binder slowly fills up, make it a point to set aside an hour or two every week to sort through everything you’ve collected. Create tabs to divide your pages into specific topics to keep everything organized.
SketchUp (http://sketchup.google.com/)
For those looking to take their ideas a step forward, one easy way of translating pegs into actual technical drawings is through SketchUp. The free version hosts a wide array of wall finishes, windows, doors and other items you can easily plug into a three-dimensional rendering.
Have more home and organizing questions for the author? Email her at chinggaylabrador@yahoo.com
Chinggay Labrador is a freelance writer and stylist, contributing articles on beauty, lifestyle and design to local magazines. Her background in architecture has her profiling trends and homes throughout the region. A travel junkie who likes to frequent Japan and Korea, Chinggay is the former editor-in-chief of Sparkling, a quarterly K-Pop publication and is also the author of “Popped and Popped, Too,” books based on the fun, frivolity and friendship centered on Korean Pop music.
