Seek inspiration.Look through your favorite magazines, books, catalogs, websites and blogs for images that inspire you. Keep magazine tear sheets in a file and bookmark your finds online so that you can easily find them later. If you find most of your inspiration on websites and blogs, you can use online tools to organize your finds, like creating an ideabook on Houzz.
Working on this step will help train your eye and give you a place to collect all of your ideas. It may take you anywhere from a single weekend to several months, but the time put in at this stage means fewer regrets down the road