The key to beginning your design journey, no matter the project, is as simple as starting with something that you love. It's this starting point that will dictate the path necessary to complete your project. To seek out this inspiration, become in tuned with what surrounds you. As you stroll through a department store, big-box retailer, or specialty shop, take note of the items that you gravitate towards. Yes, you can design an entire room around one item. For example, in one of my guest bedrooms that I am currently designing, I began the room design with the coverlet. Yes, this can be a large, graphic item that really does envelop the space, but it can be as simple as the texture of the coverlet to which you are drawn and find inspiration.
Another great source for inspiration is the catalog. As a home design aficionado, I am inundated with home furnishing catalogs on a weekly basis. Similarly, magazines provide a great pictorial source of inspiration. Within these two types of sources, you may find a chair that you absolutely love yet find to be extremely overpriced for not only your budget but for any sane person's as well. Do not feel discouraged! Take a closer look at this chair and discover what element attracts you. Is it the color, the pattern, or the shape? After pinpointing the attracting element, keep on the look out for items that mimic this element. Just as repetition can be the mother of learning, it can also be the cohesive factor that makes repetition the mother of design.
As technology has grown to envelop our lives, it has also become a big source of inspiration for myself. While searching for a hotel room for a recent shopping trip to Dallas, TX, I stumbled upon a picture of a room in the new Omni Dallas Hotel. I cannot tell you how long I had been trying to find the right "something" to display above the television in our living room. Low and behold, there it was, jumping at me from above the bed in that hotel room image.
As you can see from the inspiration image that I mention, the design is simple, modern, and colorful. I am often influenced by these punches of color, dark wood tones, and matted photographs. Why not recreate this look that I love in my home? So I set out to take the Omni design and re-tailor it to our living room scheme
While shopping at what I consider to be a hidden gem, the Pottery Barn/West Elm Outlet in Memphis, we happened upon this floating shelf that mimicked the color and size of the one found in the Omni room. Additionally, I enjoyed the use of the frameless canvas art used in the inspiration photo, so we purchased this canvas from Pier 1 Imports (currently I have this design fetish with birds/fowl, don't ask). We purchased all of the frames, while they were on sale, at Hobby Lobby. For the photographs inside these frames, I wanted something more than the black and white images found in the inspiration room. Through the use of Picasa software, I altered the color of photographs that I had taken on the various global trips we have shared, uploaded them to Walgreens.com, and had them printed for Jesse to bring home. I had seen the paper mache animal heads in various catalogs and longed to have one of our own. We found this one at the West Elm outlet and decided to add "him" to make the vignette a further reflection of our taste.
The moral of my story, don't be closed-minded to what surrounds you. No matter where you look, inspiration can be found. I would love to hear stories of how you find inspiration. Drop me a line on Facebook, Twitter, or send me an email. If you haven't done so already, follow me on The Southern Domestic Gentleman Twitter Feed to received updates before others do. Until next time, have a great Southern day!
Image used from Omni Hotel Dallas
Omni Dallas Hotel. N.d. Photograph. Omni HotelsWeb. 11 Oct 2012. http://www.omnihotels.com/FindAHotel/DallasHotel/GuestRoomsAndSuites.aspx
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