5 Ways To Use Pinterest On Your Next Home Upgrade!
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I love Pinterest! I do. It’s the understated marketing tool that is basically a catch all for ideas in every sense of the word. In 2019, there were roughly 200 BILLION pins pinned on Pinterest - overwhelming? Uh… yeah, but if you know how to work it, it can work in your favor!
Dust off your Pinterest account - erase your Wedding 2014 board that you never used (oh… just me?) and let’s dive in on how to make 2021 the year you Use Pinterest to bring it home! Here are 5 tips on how I Use Pinterest for a design project!
one: use it to inspire the direction of your thought bubbles
Years ago, one of my friends told me about how she used Pinterest to outfit plan. She would buy a cute cerulean jacket and get tons of inspiration by just typing in the words “Cerulean jacket outfit” Simple. Easy. Tons of inspo rolling down your screen. This is exactly what we need in the design world, so I used it to my benefit.
Whether you’re trying to decide whether a leather ottoman would look good with your white sofa (white sofa leather ottoman search - done!) or trying to see how you can create your daughter’s dream bohemian bedroom (teen girl bohemian bedroom search - done!) It’s a great communal space that will at least give you a direction that you can be inspired by.
As a designer, if I have a few projects that are all different styles, sometimes it’s hard to just bounce from one to the other - like, it’s basically rocket science level hard, duh! - so I’ll take to Pinterest and scroll around for while just to get my mind back into a Modern Farmhouse vibe vs. the Super Traditional space I was in before.
Anyone who has ever planned anything knows that it can be difficult to always find a direction, but once you get one, you’re unstoppable. Let Pinterest help you get there faster!
a fairly generic search starts you on a design inspiration train - imagine if you were more specific?
two: pin + filter
It’s like the bend and snap, but craftier!
When it comes to thinking about the changes you want to make in your home, it feels like ideas are pulling from all over the place. Brick floors, tile floors, all wood, etc… flooring alone can drive you mad. I mean, even when you break it down to one distinct style, there are about 348293487 sub styles to choose from! My recommendation is to create a board called “Kitchen Flooring” and just dump every pin you find intriguing in there! The Pinning part has no boundaries. Once you feel that you have a significant amount of ideas, go back through and start look filtering them out - you might notice that while you have a lot of ideas, you seem to have a lot more brick options or maybe tile laid out in a specific style, etc. The purging kind of shows you what your heart is really going towards!
For example: When I’m was trying to navigate my way through bathroom mirror options, I noticed that arched mirrors were popping up all over my pins. This is when I would filter the rest out to focus on finish and size.
give me alllll the arched mirrors!
three: secret boards + collaborations
Yes, yes, I know - you shouldn’t care about other people’s opinions, but sometimes we do and we need ways to support that.
Secret Boards: Keeping a secret board is a way to potentially put a bunch of ideas out there that you’re not ready to share yet. Have friends that know you’re renovating your kitchen and don’t want them to add their two cents until you really have ideas nailed down? SECRET that board! I do it all of the time. If I’m pulling ideas for a client, you better believe that those boards are secret. Am I embarrassed of them? Absolutely not! Sometimes I just want a private place to collect my random thoughts until they’re more fine tuned.
Collaborators: This is one of my favorite features with clients. In fact, it’s a complete go-to. It’s a great way for you and your client to get a vision for the project. Typically, I ask clients to add me to their boards before we start designing. For the non-designers, this is a great space to add those opinions who you care about (maybe not the ones that you hide from in your secret boards!) Add friends, roommates, significant others, family, etc - whomever you’re hoping will help you gather some ideas. A home is always a total collaborative effort, whether you think you need it or not!
four: define your design style
Have you read Homebody by Joanna Gaines? One of the aspects I loved is that it really broke down design styles pretty well. People who considered themselves Modern Farmhouse lovers changed to Modern-Midcentury-Industrialists… or some sort of combo. That’s all great and fun until you’re trying to put that into a real vision. If you’re lucky enough to hire a designer, then pass the torch to them to make that dream a reality, but if you’re more of a hands on kind of person, let Pinterest help you!
Don’t limit yourself by only looking for what you think your style is on paper. Go into Pinterest, find inspiration photos that give you all heart eyes and scroll to see where your design styles really shift! Maybe your farmhouse is actually meant to lean a little more Scandinavian or it shows you how to add warmth to your coastal transitional spaces. Pinterest opens your eyes while also honing in on your style!
you love this…
scroll down to see this!
five: when in doubt, go straight to the source!
If you’re struggling to find your styles while scrolling or searching, but you know you love every single thing that Em Henderson has ever created? Type her name right on in there and see what comes up. Your screen will light up with all the goodies and other Em-spiration (see what I did there?!… I get funnier the more you get to know me!)
Try this with any designer or home you’ve seen on the cover of Architectural Digest and you will be pinning until you realize that you’ve been doing nothing but Pinterest for the last three hours… but is that really a bad thing?
If I haven’t said it enough already - Pinterest is where it is at! There is no other resource that will be as helpful in creating all of the spaces you want to make slightly upgraded!
PS. Follow me on Pinterest here!
