Gone are the days when inspiration for interior design meant clipping pictures from Better Home and Gardens magazine. Nowadays the internet is the weapon of choice, with a wealth of information for amateur interior design enthusiasts or even just those who want to decorate their own home with a little bit of flair.
Here are 5 of the best websites for finding interior design inspiration for you own home, helping you turn the picture in your imagination into reality.
It is incredibly hard to help sustainable living in mind when designing your home, simply because your head is filled to the brim with worries about prices and style. Enter Inhabitat, the premier eco-friendly interior design website on the web, helping you cut through the noise and find out ways you can decorate your home ethically and for less – all while making it look the piece.
If you are looking for some interior design inspiration, then there is really no need to go any further than Pinterest. A burgeoning social media website based on the idea of creating creative pinboards, Pinterest allows you to follow designers you admire (both professional and amateur) to help you spark your own creative mind. Pinterest is also a great resource because it has a large crafting community, meaning you can find easy tutorials on making everything from picture frames to book-ends. Once you get to grips with it, it truly is an inspiration book that just keeps on growing and giving.
Simplicity is the watchword at Apartment Therapy, one of the most popular interior design websites on the net. Vowing to help people improve their homes while reducing their reliance on ‘stuff’, Maxwell and Oliver Ryan run Apartment Therapy to help connect people with resources to enable them to organize their space and make the most of their living arrangements – showing in their own words that ‘simplicity and luxury are not mutually exclusive’. Apartment Therapy places a high premium on simply, healthy living spaces that help you live and simple and healthy life, so if you need a change of pace as well as a change of space then this is the website for you.
Aptly called a ‘Martha Stewart Living for Millennials’ by the New York Times, Design*Sponge goes beyond simply being an online magazine dedicated to interior design and has expanded in recent years to cover everything from DIY tips to an etiquette column. It is obvious from the outset that the website is run from somebody who knows the design business, and Grace Bonney certainly fits the bill of a modern Martha with years of experience working for top-rank interior design magazines.
Clever pun namer aside, Decor8 is a great website because it is not afraid to be fun, fresh and forward-facing: it is basically the hipster equivalent of a standard design blog. Founder Holly Becker is all about creativity and fostering creativity in your home and in your life. With tips on everything from creative furniture to creative living, it is hard not to let the creativity bug bite you as well – and because of this it makes for great inspiration.
Kate Simmons is a freelance writer and blogger on topics related to DIY, home improvement and interior design.