Early Stages of Decorating: Part 1. What inspires you?

~All pieces available for sale can be found here~

As I mentioned last week, I am doing a basic home decorating series over the month of June! My plan is to post for this series every Monday throughout this month. Being that I found Domino: The Book of Decorating so very helpful in my endeavors to decorate our own home, I am loosely following their Getting Started section of the book. 

Today we'll talk about finding inspiration. There is inspiration for decorating everywhere; nature, movies, literature - there's no wrong place to look and it's nearly impossible to avoid. You are wired so uniquely and intricately that very particular things will catch your eye that may not stand out to anyone else.

You are who you are. What turns your head?

Collect these inspirations in one format or another and keep them all together in one place. Pinterest is a wonderful tool as so much is offered online now. I  prefer a more tangible style and have a small red notebook where I've kept clippings and descriptions of things that have grabbed my attention. When something catches my eye I record as much information as I can, (where I saw it, why it attracted me, etc). Whatever your format for collecting, make sure it's one that will be easy, convenient and helpful for you.

You will never stop being inspired so there is really no defined beginning and end to this exercise. But, a great starting point for decorating your own home is taking some time to intentionally notice what inspires you and record it. After taking some time to record start looking for commonalities throughout your collection. Are there particular color schemes, patterns, fabrics, lines? Is there an era that your inspirations seem to derive from? Maybe a specific geographical area, like the Mediterranean or Sweden? Or perhaps a general area, as in coastal or country. Finding these themes throughout your inspirations is a helpful step in beginning to identify and define your style.

Identifying your style will be a useful, (and potentially time and money saving), tool in helping you stay on track while decorating your home. Next week I'll go over the process of tracking down your style. I can't wait!

Part 1 task: Identify, record, and connect what inspires you. Have fun!

~Chelsea