Like me, many of you have Pinterest accounts and use the site to find decorating inspiration, diy ideas, new recipes, craft projects and entertaining tips. I use Pinterest for all those reasons and more. One of the primary reasons I use Pinterest is to help define my personal decorating style.
a snapshot of ConfettiStyle pinterest boards
Pinterest is a great vehicle if you’re unsure about your design style or if your style is always evolving like mine. There are images out there that represent every design style and every type of decorating approach so using the site to help you identify your personal style is something I recommend.
Sorting through thousands of images can be overwhelming but if you create a system for pinning, it will make defining your style easy. I’ve outlined a few tips that will help you with this process:
- Create boards for each of the areas in your home–living room, bedroom, kitchen etc. Instead of pinning images to a generic board, create a separate board for each room that you need help defining. This will help you focus in on the specific needs for each space and make it easier to see the common threads of what you like or don’t like. And don’t forget to include boards for your outdoor living spaces too.
- Pin images that provide the feeling your want to achieve–sometimes the mood of a room is what you’re attracted to and what your own home may be lacking. Pin images not only because of the elements that are in the space but also because of the emotion and feeling the space gives you.
- Pin images that provide color inspiration–sometimes seeing a visual of a color you have in your head can confirm whether you really like the color or not. If you’re attracted to blues, pin rooms decorated in different shades of blue that appeal to you, to help you pinpoint the exact color direction you want to go. While I love shades of blue, after pinning rooms that really spoke to me I recognized I’m more attracted to vibrant colors combined with neutrals.
- Pin images that represent the style of furniture and accessories that appeal to you–this can be a tough one since there are so many amazing products on the market. Start by identifying the materials you like such as a wood coffee table and then focus in of the style of wood coffee table you like. After you’ve pinned a lot of images with wood coffee tables it will be clear as to whether you like a traditional wood coffee table or one that is antique or mid-century modern.
- Pin images with design details you like–one of my favorite Pinterest boards is my Vignette board. The images I pin here are snapshots of rooms, tabletops, bookcases or art groupings that have some small detail I admire. It could be the way accessories are arranged on a side table or how a corner seating area is styled. Discovering what details you like will tell you a lot about how you want a room decorated too–sparse and minimal or heavily embellished.
- Once you’ve created your boards and have a generous numbers of images pinned, you need to spend time looking through those images. Take the time to analyze each image and ask your self what it is that you like about it. After you study a collection of images you’ll begin to see the elements that really excite you about a space and those that don’t. Your design style will become clear~
Here’s an example of how you might evaluate images you pinned. You may have pinned the two images below because of how color was used in the room. One image uses color as an accent while the other is dominated by color. Take notice of which one you really gravitate to and that will tell you a lot about your design style and how you ideally want to decorate with color in your own home.
Better Home and Gardens
Better Homes and Gardens
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I don’t spend as much time on Pinterest as I used to but it is definitely a key source of inspiration when I looking to re-decorate a space or need some diy inspiration.
Spending a little time carefully curating your boards on Pinterest will not only help you define your design style, but you’ll find inspiration that you can use in other areas of your life too!
You can follow ConfettiStyle on Pinterest to see what’s inspiring me.
[…] you need visual help to define your style, read my tips on how Pinterest can help and take this fun quiz over at Decorist. I took the quiz and they nailed my style […]