Finding Inspiration & Organization Using Pinterest

Creating a Space you Love | Part I

This is the first in a series of posts about how you can create a space you love in your home. This post focuses on how to use Pinterest to find inspiration and organize your ideas to create your design plan.

Finding Inspiration & Organization Using Pinterest

It sounds cliche, but anytime I have designed a room, it always begins with Pinterest. Pinterest is actually a super-intelligent and robust search engine, but instead of populating a list of search results in text, it does so utilizing images.

Get Inspired

Pinterest is an amazing tool for organizing ideas and inspiration for just about anything under the sun–but I especially love it for interior design. As you continue to search for and “pin” ideas to your “boards”, the algorithms will generate a personalized feed based on your tastes, likes, saved items and searched keywords.

If you are not yet on the Pinterest bandwagon, hop on now. You can create an account, utilize the site, and download the app for free.

The images shown are from my Pinterest account and the Pinterest app on my iPhone–which is my preferred method of use.

This is also a blatant plug to get you to follow my boards on Pinterest. Ain’t no shame in my game.

Well, maybe a little.

But that’s between me and my therapist. Her name is Dr. Sauvingon Blanc. World-renowned in her field.

The “For you” feed will show you those pins that Pinterest thinks you will be most interested in, based on recent pins and searches. As you can see from the photo below, I have been searching and pinning for this blog series, so Pinterest is populating mostly home interior images–similar to those I have already pinned.

As you scroll through your home feed or after performing a search and you encounter a photo you like, click on the image for more information and to increase the size of the image. You can choose to “Save” at that point or “Visit” if there is a website associated with the image.

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Getting Started

Naming your Boards

First, you will need a “board” to save your pins to. Click the “+” icon to create a “board”. Choose a name that matches the theme of the board–it can be witty or generic.

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In the beginning I tried to be super creative when naming my boards. Like “Jardin” for garden stuff and “Olive in the Oven” for Liv’s baby board.

Then, I became a mom and my brain was fried so I started naming boards “Food and Shit” and “House Crap” . . . . just kidding. I only did that in my head.

I started keeping it simple and just naming the board what it is about– Parties & Events, Food & Drink or Home Design.

Get Pinning

In terms of starting the design process for a room, “pin” or “save” whatever catches your eye–without much thought to what might work together. Doing this for a few days will generate the algorithms to populate other pins similar to those which you have already pinned.

Use the “search” function to look up ideas based on keywords–like “boys room” or “farmhouse living room”. As you continue to use Pinterest, it will start to generate “Ideas for you” based on previous searches and pins.

Click the “magnifying glass” icon at the bottom of the page to pull up the search page from the main feed.

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Another cool feature is located in the bottom-right corner of every image. Click the “focused magnifying glass” icon and select “Explore”. Pinterest will generate images similar to the one you selected. This will help you to find more inspiration based on your favorite pins.

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Get Organized

As you scroll through your pins on your “room board”, you should start to notice common themes or trends. Then it is just a matter of narrowing it down.

Creating “sections” within your “room” board will more clearly organize your related pins. For example, for a “Bedroom” board, you might create a separate section dedicated to “bedding” and another for “storage” or “dressers”.

You can also use sections to separate different color palettes or styles to help you to choose a final direction.

To create a section:

Go to your “room board”, click the “+” and then choose “Section”.

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Next, move pins you already have saved to your board by clicking “select”.

Then, check the box in the bottom-right corner to select the image and click the “move” icon at the bottom when you have selected all the images you want to move.

Choose the “board” and then the “section” to move the pins to the newly created section.

You can do this same function to move pins from other boards that you may have “mis-pinned” (I totally made that word up) or which may fit better on this particular board than another.

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Alternatively, you can create a “section” by clicking “select” on the “board” and choosing the images from the board you want to add to that section, then clicking the “folder” icon.

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Name your section or choose from one of the suggested titles based on the photos you are categorizing. Or refer to my notes on naming above. Or choose something completely arbitrary. Hell, name everything in code for the love of God.

You do you.

I mean, the fact that you’ve read this far about how to use Pinterest is impressive to me. And, I thank you for your patronage.

Moving on . . . .

Uncategorized Pins

Don’t worry, any pin that is not categorized into a section will remain in the main feed of the board. Just scroll past the “sections” to view the uncategorized pins.

Not that you were actually worried.

Because I am the only one looney enough to be concerned about where my “uncategorized” pins might end up.

Like there is some “pin” black hole where all the un-organized pins go. And there is a dive bar where they all hang out with a one-eyed cocktail waitress named Tina with “Barry” tattooed on her arm, a biker gang of lost socks from the dryer who play pool every Thursday night and poker on Fridays and a bartender with two teeth and three bad jokes . . . named Barry.

And don’t get me started on what is written on the bathroom walls.

“Pin ‘3 Easy Steps to Update your Kitchen’ for a good time’ . . .”

“Beautiful Charcuterie Boards + Wine Pairing Tips = True Love Forever”

I tell you what, a minute in my head is a trip man.

All the Ideas

While Pinterest offers a comprehensive and continually updated library of inspiration, it can sometimes be hard to weed through all the ideas.

If you find ideas while looking at other sites, look for the “Pin It” button to add it to your Pinterest board.

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If you can’t find the “Pin It” button or it’s not working (sometimes it can be glitchy), simply copy the URL, go to Pinterest and click the “+” to add the pin.

Then, select the image you want from the site, re-name if necessary (otherwise it will populate from the website you saved it from) and make notes in the description.

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Outside the Box . . . or in this case . . . the Board

You can look for inspiration in other more traditional places like magazines, catalogs and design books. Take a photo on your phone and upload it to Pinterest to keep the ideas in one place.

Lastly, but certainly not least, you can typically find rooms or ideas you loved from your favorite DIY or HGTV show by going to the show’s website. Just look for that “Pin It” button or follow the steps to copy the URL to save the idea to your board.

But, sometimes inspiration strikes in an unexpected way

Is there a specific place that evokes the feeling you want to re-create in your space? It could be a park, restaurant or vacation spot–or even a home you saw in a movie or envisioned when reading a book.

Take a photo or find photos of that place and add them to your Pinterest board.

Next Up . . .

Your Pinterest boards will continue to evolve as your design plan does. The next few posts in this series will refer back to your Pinterest inspo and help you to create a design plan built on the images you’ve saved.

So, stay tuned for more to come! But, if you don’t want to wait–check out this post for some decorating tips in the meantime.

Cheers,