Email Answer: Inspiration Wrangling?
Q: I am wondering how you keep all your decorating ideas and images organized. Do you keep all the magazines and catalogs with good design ideas (if so how do you organize them?). Do you cut out images? Do you keep everything electronic or scan in images? Just wondering because I always want to keep lots of inspiring decorating ideas but then never know how to organize them or find them again without allowing the clutter to get overwhelming. Love the blog! -Lindsay
A: Good question! Of course I used to have piles and piles of torn out pages from glossy shelter magazines sitting around waiting to be filed or flipped through. But a few years ago I grabbed a 3-inch binder and some clear sleeves and literally created “the ultimate magazine” by adding all of my favorite inspiration pictures. It’s super easy to flip through (a lot less cumbersome than a folder of loose tear-sheets), and I even organized it by category (interior inspiration, curb appeal ideas, holiday stuff, art I love, etc). Life changing, I tell ya.
We also keep an inspiration folder on our computer desktop (with many of the same categories as the binder) for all of the virtual rooms and projects we love (blogger tip: we rename them with the source so if we ever want to use them on the blog we can properly credit them). And we also keep full issues of the glossies that we just can’t bear to part with (we’re the proud owners of every single Domino issue, seen here stacked proudly out in the open on the fireplace hearth in the den)…
… and we keep all of our favorite House Beautiful issues stacked on the pedestal table in the den…
…and we stash a bunch of Cottage Living mags that we covet in various leather and woven baskets near little reading zones in the sunroom and the den (see the little basket next to the white armchair?).
So that’s how we keep the stream of never ending inspiration in check around these parts. We can’t fully claim that our binder is always perfectly sorted (sometimes we shove pages in with the promise of organizing them later) but it’s a pretty simple system to keep up with for the most part. How do you guys organize your ideas from magazines and the interweb? We’d love to know what methods you have in place to keep things, well, in their place.
Wondering which magazines we list as our favorites? Check them out right here. And speaking of mags, check out the hysterical vintage glossies that John and I discovered at a garage sale. Too entertaining for words. And speaking of entertaining, don’t forget to drop in on Burger’s blog to see what he’s chatting about today. That’s a whole lotta links for you on this Monday morning. Enjoy!
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Comments
I totally stole your organization idea and I’m loving it. I’m as giddy as a little kid on the night before Christmas about having all of my inspiration organized!!
http://amandajillsblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/organized-inspiration-achieved.html
Thanks!
Ooh that looks great. Don’t you just love being organized? Awesome job.
xo,
s
I, too, have magazines waiting to be clipped and culled, and Someday, I’ll get a round TUIT. In the meantime, and/or in addition, I have developed a FileMaker database on my MacBook for just this sort of thing. I call the file Domestica (I have similar ones called Craftia, Costumia, Cookery Bookery and My eBAmazOnline to record my online purchases.)
Domestica has a container field were I drag-and-drop a picture, and 5 pull-down fields as follows:
Room (Any, Bath, Bed, Closet, Craft, Dining, Garage, Garden, Hall & cetera)
Surface (Ceiling, Door, Floor, Wall, Window)
Function (Art, Display, Entertaining, Furniture, Linens, Pillow, Storage)
Colour (the ones you are likely to care about with WHITE at the TOP!)
Technique (Assembly, Paint, Sewing, Stencil, Tile, Wallpaper)
Then there is a section with ‘radio buttons’ for Craft/Decor, Paint and Pets). This is followed by 3 free form fields: Notes, Materials and Instructions
And the final field is a pull-down for Source (Apt Tx, BHG, eBay, etsy, HGTV, IKEA, MSL, RS, TOH, other)
Now, this system helps best if, after dragging in the photo, and copying the URL to Notes, these various fields actually get filled in. I do this in batches, say, while I am waiting somewhere where there is no WiFi. I can then do a quick find on any combination of fields, say Room (Library) Colour (White) and I will get a list of all my entries that fit those criteria.
I also will use the Materials field for keywords related to items in the picture: iron beds, painted brick (I LOVE the texture of painted brick!), beadboard, framing and so on.
This database has over 550 entries gleaned from the Sources mentioned above (Apartment Therapy, Better Homes & Gardens, Martha Stewart Living, Real Simple, This Old House) with more added to the list if they become frequent-flier resources.
Frankly, I DO love being this organised if only on my Mac. Real Life is another matter: it isn’t as easy to create a folder and sweep all the Desktop clutter into it. And Real LIfe does NOT have an effective Spotlight search tool, either.
All the best.
They called me the ‘binder queen’ at my old job and I use this organizational system at home as well. Recipes, paint chips, decor ideas from magazines and other sources…all in clear plastic sleeves in binders. I have several. Right now they are organized by ‘color’…inspiration pictures of rooms in white, brown, green, blues and turquoise (favorite colors). Also have some organized by room. I use post it notes to tag things I liked about the photo such as furniture style, loved the lamp, like the mirror, paint color, etc, etc to remind me why I clipped the page if its something specific. I also have alot stored online but I find the binders more to my liking. Sometimes I get tired of looking at my laptop screen but when I flip through a binder I feel like I am flipping through a magazine. I see I’m in good anal organizational company…hahahahahaha! I love it!