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13 Inspiring Ways To Style Your Inspiration Board
Step it up beyond square corkboards and plastic push pins
Houzz Contributor. Hi There! I currently live in a 1920s cottage in Atlanta that I'll describe as "collected."
I got into design via Landscape Architecture, which I studied at the University of Virginia. I've been writing about design online for quite a few years over at Hatch: The Design Public Blog.
Houzz Contributor. Hi There! I currently live in a 1920s cottage in Atlanta... More »
Do you tend to collect postcards from museums, doodle on napkins, swipe paint swatches from the Home Depot even when you're just there to buy light bulbs, hoard wallpaper samples, snip fabric samples, rip things out of magazines and then let them all become a big, inaccessible pile of clutter? You need an inspiration board.
Today such boards have come a long way from those brown square corkboards where you may have hung your swim team ribbons, your John Taylor pictures from Tiger Beat and the hang tags from your Izod shirt. Oh wait, that was my bulletin board. Anyway, it suits my point: As for the content of the boards, to each his own. As for the board itself, chic it up!
Today such boards have come a long way from those brown square corkboards where you may have hung your swim team ribbons, your John Taylor pictures from Tiger Beat and the hang tags from your Izod shirt. Oh wait, that was my bulletin board. Anyway, it suits my point: As for the content of the boards, to each his own. As for the board itself, chic it up!
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| Line your board with grasscloth. This designer filled a frame with grasscloth wallpaper to serve as a sophisticated background for her favorite things. |
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Frame your corkboard in an interesting shape. An interesting frame around a bulletin board provides a sophisticated inspiration board in this Century City office.
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Keep things straight. Ceramic artist Heather Knight keeps a board that is always evolving, which inspires her work. Notice how the neat orientation of each image makes the whole thing easy to read.
P.S.: Stay tuned for an upcoming tour of Heather's studio in Asheville, North Carolina.
P.S.: Stay tuned for an upcoming tour of Heather's studio in Asheville, North Carolina.
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Neatness not really your thing? Pin over pins. Don't be afraid to overlap the images you pin; once something gets a bit stale, feel free to pin right over it. In a year or two when you want to start over, taking everything apart will feel like an archeological inspiration dig.
| Cover an entire wall. Need a lot of room for your clippings, postcards, sketches and color strips? Consider making an entire wall a place to pin. |
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| Create a boardless board. Huh? Start with a few framed favorites and then let your wall composition fill up from there. This wall looks like it was built up organically over time. |
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| Make grosgrain ribbons work for you. No pins are required when you can tuck your bits and bobs into a grid of ribbon. |
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by Nicole Lanteri
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| Try a triptych. If you have several different projects going on, or several different areas of your life you want to keep separate, try giving each one a board of its own. |
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| Combine a tool wall with your inspirations. Pegboard is handy for hanging tools and supplies as well as inspiring images. Use bulldog clips to hang images from pegboard hooks. |
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by Ish and Chi
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| Cover the board in a wallpaper sample. One way to make your board more sophisticated is to cover the cork with a large wallpaper sample. Handmade paper or fancy wrapping papers can also help you accomplish this look (personally, I love the selection at PaperSource for this kind of thing). |
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Think vertically instead of horizontally Architect Sharon Portney keeps her desk surface neat by integrating spots for drafting tools into her inspiration board.
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| Here's a longer view of her clean desk. |
Don't neglect the pins themselves There are many stylish push pins to pick from these days. Matching pins creates uniformity, while an eclectic mix adds some fun to a board that's all over the place.
Coordinate your board with the rest of your room. This board fits in well with the neutral color scheme of the room, and its darker color punctuates the depth between the two cabinets.
More:
Shop Inspiration Boards
Craft Rooms
15 Ways To Be More Inspired by Your Studio
A Room of Her Own
More:
Shop Inspiration Boards
Craft Rooms
15 Ways To Be More Inspired by Your Studio
A Room of Her Own
Ideabook updated on May 8, 2012.
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And, speaking of ideabooks...I've been wishing there was a way to add sub-books (think sub-folders) to each ideabook category. Since my ideabooks are ever-growing, I'm beginning to lose track of them. Of course, I suppose I could try to stop being inspired by every other image I see here on Houzz. haha
I just can't seem to help myself, there's so many great photos here!