Where to look for inspiration to update the design of your home space?

When you want to change something in your apartment, unwittingly think, and where to look for ideas? We all remember the brilliant slogan «there is an idea – there is Ikea», but 20-25 years ago in Russia there was neither her, nor Instagram, nor YouTube with multiple reviews of design decisions, nor normal furniture stores. Almost all the salons in the country were so: in one room – beds, in another closets, in the third – chairs, and so on.
But today, the sources of inspiration are much larger! In large cities, stores have showrooms of furniture, halls, where displays and sales of finishing materials, repair accessories, where visitors can see also finished interiors. In addition, people are increasingly going to beautiful cafes, watching Instagram and Pinterest tapes, watching designers and watching movies shot in stylish interiors. But what if the «its» idea is still missing?

It means it’s time to get your shit together! This is such a cool skill, which will immediately distinguish the combination from incongruous, current from irrelevant, stylish from «cheap». This is the compilation of internal «library» images, from which it is already easier to choose. Tell us how.
Often we flip the web or shop randomly and aimlessly, what if we do it methodically?

Step one: look for references

Finished interior

Consider not just all designers in a row, but blogs of large, especially foreign editions – trendsetters. They often prepare interesting projects and set the tone for everyone else. If in your city there are furniture salons from famous factories – do not neglect them, also look in Ikea to understand in volume whether it is convenient to live in the interior every day, and not just see the picture. Purposefully watch movies – you will see how the interior reflects not only the era, but also the characters of the characters.

Artistic inspiration
Museums of painting will help to develop a sense of style or combination of colors, textures. The same exhibition can be visited twice: the first time – with a guide, which will help to understand the context of the epoch and history of style, and the second time – alone, to be with art alone and immersed in contemplation. Don’t think – feel! So you will begin to notice the beauty literally in everything. In photo galleries – the same story, but in the end you will notice the laws of composition, contrast, geometry: everything depends on the exhibition, and the more – the better.

Nature variability
The palettes of colors and shapes in each season are unique: seemingly, in winter we see almost monochrome graphics, but in it you can find such interesting combinations of shades, and what to say about the tenderness of spring tones, the rampage of summer colors and soft warm autumn transitions?

Urban architecture
Read the theory about different styles, learn the names of moves, details – you will look at the usual urban landscape. And if you start to turn more often from the main streets and walk in the old gardens and yards, you will see a magic combination of textures: cracked paint, rust, old wood – all this can be incredibly beautiful. By the way, find on the Internet a macro of such textures: your imagination will tell you a lot!

The second step: collect and analyze the referents

In addition to all the previous methods, add Pinterest. There is everything. You can collect boards with your favorite interiors and analyze them. To make it more productive, choose, for example, 30 pieces, close the file for a month, during this month work with your understanding on all the items described above, and then make another folder with 30 interiors and compare! You will see how your taste has changed and your ideas have become more concrete!

If you have already decided on the style of your future interior, but there is still no specifics, then arrange «casting» – group pictures of 10 pieces. Select 5 winners from each group. Then it’s the same, only for the winners, and so on and so forth, until you have a dozen finalists left.

Analyze what do the pictures that came out in the final? Disassemble the color scheme, style, mood, decor items. Check how this applies to your apartment in terms of lighting, space and so on.

It’s also good to work with contrasts. Collect those references that you find tacky, dysfunctional, watch videos and read articles about design errors, antibrands. This will help you evaluate not just on a scale «like-not like», but to make a competent analysis and apply knowledge in practice. Then your house will eventually turn out exactly as you see it in your dreams!