How To Get Interior Design Inspiration Using Pinterest, Houzz and Google Images
Planning to start designing for the renovation of your home, but unsure of how to start? Fret not, you are not alone! Always find yourself whipping out your mobile phone to snap a picture of a home in an interior design magazine that you really like and having trouble finding that specific picture afterwards? While we still agree that this is a great method of gathering inspiration, these days, there are countless online platforms that provide plenty of design and decor ideas at the touch of your fingertips.
In this post, we will be sharing with you how to fully optimize these platforms to find exactly what you need and provide you with a detailed look on Pinterest, Houzz and Google Images, so that you can choose what suits your desired style best!
Pinterest has gained the reputation of being the “Google of pictures”, which is a visual bookmarking platform where pictures do the talking instead of words. It also allows you to collate and sort out your ideas from the pictures that you have gathered.
Step 1:
Let’s start off this journey of creating your dream home by conducting a search on Pinterest. If you are interested in homes that exude minimalist vibes, you may type in a keyword phrase like “minimalist home” into the search box. By typing the keywords “minimalist home” into Pinterest’s search feature, all the popular searches will appear to help you narrow down your search, and you can click on those that are more relevant to what you are searching for exactly.
Step 2:
Once you have found a picture that you like, you can proceed to pin it on your own board by clicking on the red button with a pin. You can also save pictures to your Pinterest boards from other people’s board or from other websites. To view a video tutorial of how you may do so, you may click on this link.
By pinning your pictures into one board, you can create a collection of pictures to gain inspiration from for your next project! Here’s a tip from us! You could start off by creating a board for each room in your future dream home, as shown below. As a result, you will be able to access all the information related to each room that you have collated over time when it is finally time to start designing your home.
Houzz
Compared to Pinterest, Houzz is also an online platform filled with design inspirations to help spark some creativity in the creation of your dream home. However, besides providing inspiration for your future dream home, the website also allows you to seek out real professionals in your local area. Houzz has been recommended here as it is very much less “commercialized” as compared to other renovation portals in Singapore typically. Houzz does not require interior designers to pay them subscription or advertising dollars. In short, you can expect the quality of reviews to be more unbiased as well.
Step 1:
Visit https://www.houzz.com.sg/ and sign up. You might be prompted to choose the design styles that resonate with you and the area that you are residing in.
Step 2:
You may then search for local professionals and filter according to “Best Match”, “Most Reviewed” or “Recently Reviewed”. We recommend that you search based on “Most Reviewed” or “Recently Reviewed” as the “Best Match” apparently doesn’t seem to deliver a good match most of the time. Searching for “Most Reviewed” would also give you a sense of which companies have done well and received numerous reviews. However as always, read deeper to see if the reviews appear to be genuine.
When viewing the portfolio of the interior designer, if you find something that you like, you can also click on the “Save” button. Houzz has a feature similar to Pinterest that allows you to save all the pictures that you like into a folder called Ideabook. When you’re ready to start building your dream home, you can email your Ideabook to your interior designers to help them understand and better convey the visual aesthetics that you would like to achieve for your dream home!
Google Images
Lastly, we are sure all of you have heard of Google, which is known for being a powerful search engine, before. Apart from Pinterest and Houzz, Google Images is yet another online platform that can be a source of inspiration for the creation of your dream home!
The strongest benefit of using Google Images (other than Google Ads) is that results are organic and are curated based on good user search experience and engagement. The rankings of the search results are also often based on the reputation and credibility of the companies. Much homework has been done for you in split seconds.
Step 1:
If you are interested in let’s say homes that exude Muji vibes, you may search for “Muji Home Design Singapore” into the search feature. Google Images will then show up relevant images that has the best chance of delivering the style that you are looking for. You may search for other themes as well as shown in the pictures below.
Step 2:
Once you have identified a picture that you like, you can save it by right-clicking the picture and selecting “Save Image As”, so that you can always look up the image on your computer when gathering your saved photos to show to your interior designer.
And of course, you could right click on the picture and “open link in new tab” to read up more on the specific interior designer to know where they are from. You can also then look them up in the various social media platform to learn more about their works and see if they are consistent in the design theme that you are looking for.
“Help, I Can’t Decide Which Method?”
These three methods provide plenty of design inspirations for homeowners and designers. You can do your design research anywhere and anytime from the comfort of your phone or computer. Moving forward, let us give you a breakdown of the benefits of each method.
A Simple Round-Up
All in all, everyone has their very own way of gathering inspiration. There is no fixed best method or platform for gaining the best ideas as every individual platform is specially tailored for different objectives. Typically, we would recommend that you do a fact finding of the design themes that perhaps appeal to you on Pinterest. It does not matter if the designs are local or overseas as we are only considering the suitable design theme.
After which you could head over to Houzz to assess if there are suitable companies that you could shortlist that resembles closely to what you are looking for and also to check out some of their past clients’ reviews. A home renovation is after all, not just about aesthetics, but also about having a smooth and fuss-free experience.
Google Images also does both well and would help to focus on the design theme that you are looking for and ensuring that it is in local context by typing the keyword “Singapore” together with the design theme during the search as well. You can then dive deep into the design consistency by checking out these companies in their various social media platforms as well.
We wish you the best in your renovation journey!
Article written by:
Shawn M
Disclaimer:
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the above article belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author’s employer, organization or other group or individual. This article is non-sponsored and provided is solely for information purposes for the convenience of the user. It is also subjected to change without notice. Nothing contained in this article should be construed as a form of endorsement for any platform or company.
The search results that the user obtains solely online can be be incomplete, insufficient or unsuitable. We do not recommend that any engagement by made through only online research. Home owners should seek face-to-face professional advice before any engagement. We accept no liability with regards to the reliance on the information and home owners are encouraged to do their own due diligence in their decision-making process.