When you're starting your research looking for house designs, it might seem kind of daunting at first. You are excited to start working on your remodeling project but may be unsure how to go about finding great ideas. Look no further. We have put together some great ideas for how you can research house designs like a pro.
In the last several years Pinterest has really come on the scene as an app and a website for curating photos of your interests. As you can imagine, when you give an easy to use platform to find and share topics of interest through photos, it wouldn't take long before it takes off with popularity.
If you aren't currently on Pinterest, here is a quick 4 minute tutorial of how to get started:
Once you have setup an account and are ready to roll, here are some great ways for you to use Pinterest to research house designs. Start with creating boards around each area you are going to remodel. For example, create a board for bathrooms, kitchens, outdoor patio, or any other space you are planning for in your house designs. Then create boards around each type of design element. For example, setup a board for lighting, plumbing, flooring and so on. Once you have this setup, the next step is to put the "Pin It" button on your web browser bookmark tool bar. Doing this will allow you to freely search the web for photos of anything in any of those categories. When you find something you want to pin, just click the "Pin It" button and it will open up your categories for you to select the properly place to store it. The great thing about Pinterest is that it takes very little time to start it up and it keeps your house designs organized for when you meet with your home designer.
Here is a quick 2 minute video to show you how to setup your "Pin It" button.
Magazines
Another great way to pull together ideas for house designs is to use magazines. You might even have a stack of old magazines lying around somewhere. This would be a good place to start. If you rifle through those quickly and need more inspiration, head off to the magazine section of your local bookstore.
The best way to keep all of these ideas together is to buy a 3 ring binder. As you are going through the magazines, tear out the page with the ideas you like and punch it with a 3 hole puncher. Then just put them in the binder to look back through when you meet with your home designer. If you really want to get neat with it, get some tabs and label them with each section of your home. Also create a section for each design element like lighting, plumbing, flooring or the like. Sometimes the old fashioned way can still get it done.
Houzz.com
Like Pinterest, this is an online platform that allows you to save your ideas for house designs all in one easy to use place. Houzz.com is different in that it is built specifically for looking for house designs. You won't see any recipes for chili or 10 ways to fold your laundry. This tool is serious business and can help you change the direction of your remodel planning. After getting logged in you can create an Idea Book. This is where you'll put all your house designs and ideas. It is already broken down by each category. The detail is very nice and very helpful for someone planning a home design.
Here is a quick video of how get started with Houzz.com.
Pictures Out and About
One of the more obvious ideas is to simply take pictures when you are out and about. Maybe a neighbor has remodeled recently and you noticed when you were walking in the neighborhood. You can easily snap a picture on your phone but what do you do with it? It just gets lost to the place where every other seemingly important picture goes to.
One of the best ways to organize these photos is to sign up for a service called Dropbox. This is a service that will automatically back up your photos from your phone to a dropbox.com file that also resides on your computer. It acts just like a computer file but provides a backup online. From there you can print and put in your magazine binder or upload to Pinterest.
You should have a lot less of these photos than any other method of researching so it shouldn't take much work to get them from your dropbox file to any other platform.
In Summary
As you can see, the common theme in this post is focused on the importance of staying organized while looking for house designs. There are two main reasons to stay organized. First, by organizing your ideas into one or two easy to read platforms, you will be much quicker to develop your sense of what path you want to take with your remodeling project. You may think you know your style but once you start doing some research you will get a much clearer picture of the things you like and dislike. Secondly, it is much more productive to have done some preliminary research before meeting with a home designer. When sitting down to talk about house designs you will have a much clearer head which will allow your home designer help connect all the dots from research to designing.
