Well -- time to start your decorating notebooks!!

In your case I would buy several good-looking matching binders -- one for each room or space. Add LOTS of those plastic sleeve pages -- as well as ones that have a zipper close to hold fabric or other swatches or samples.

THEN add basic pages with measurements for each space -- including the doorways; doors; windows and a basic sketched plan of the room that marks where electrical outlets etc. will be placed.

Then go through your R&D (research and development) materials -- and cut out what you need. Also note (with yellow sticky notes) on the pages about "Purchasing Information" Also make note of "your Trends" as you cut out the photos .... perhaps a color, fabric style or type, furniture type etc. Helps you to narrow your choices.

So VERY Important to add paint samples, floor samples, fabric samples!

Now take these notebooks EVERYWHERE -- you never know when a bargain will jump out of a crowd! Also carry a good measuring tape and a camera!

ALSO -- always keep hard copies of e-mails between you and your contractor, suppliers and builders etc. Let them know that you will require hard copies of documents! Add photos of any and all "questionable" items or practices. Make sure that you sign off on EACH and EVERY change -- and keep a copy. Keep all of this in a separate binder ((with sections for each room)) under the title "General/Legal Building Information" Keep it in a place where you and your DH can refer to it on a daily Or hourly basis!

Also keep an online diary of the whole procedure -- again -- so you can keep a very good track of the timeline on each stage of the process! Add photos!! And then download it to a disc ....

.....and don't forget to hire teacats to help you do this and keep you on track as your build and shopping proceed ;-)

seriously, Jan - you could be a one woman house coach!

The binders with plastic sleeves can get well...HUGE. I ended up using a system similar to what teacats suggests when I was researching everything for my kitchen remodel. When DH and I went to the KD for the first time, I brought one of my many, many kitchen binders. The KD complimented me on bringing some pix of the inspiration kitchens and applicances I wanted. "You've really done your homework," he said. And my husband rolled his eyes at my overstuffed binder and said "And that's just volume ONE!" By the way, we didn't end up working with that particular KD, because he didn't do HIS homework...

Once again, I agree with teacats. When we had to rebuild our home, I had binders full of inspiration pictures, hardware, flooring, etc. I think I had a binder for the kitchen, one for each bathroom, then one for general things for the whole house like floors, moldings, doors, doorknobs, etc. I also had one with tabs for each room that had inspiration pictures for each room (that may have extended to two binders). Each one had sleeves where I put swatches of fabrics and paint samples in it.

It was extremely helpful and kept me from being completely overwhelmed especially since we were in a hurry to rebuild.

Wow...thank you for so many wonderful ideas. So, it is suggested then that I *gasp* actually cut up the Better Homes and Gardens, etc, etc magazines. LOL. I have a zillion pictures on the web...I'll have to get printing.

Thanks again for any ideas.

Yep...get printing. That's what I did. I printed everything and used a glue stick to glue them onto paper and made notations if I needed to. I cut out my magazine pictures as well. It really streamlines things. Good luck and have fun with it!

I cut pictures out of magazines and put them in photo albums with sticky sheets.

For pictures I find online, I have detailed folders where different things get saved. Also, I'll post them to an inspiration picture thread so I don't always have to go searching through folders to find pictures.

I'm the opposite - I can't stand the clutter and space-taker-upping ;-) of the binder method so I scan pictures from magazines and books, give them descriptive filenames, and have a detailed folder structure for keeping them organized. If I were working with a designer I would copy them to CD. Lists of materials, planned projects (in excruciating detail LOL) also on the computer in the relevant folders. When it comes to actual material samples, hardcopy receipts/contracts and such, I have a plastic accordion folder (the kind with the elastic to hold it closed).

I'm with Deb on Jan knowing what she's doing. We had only one three ring binder when we were building, but I also had an inspiration folder on my computer with a folder inside for each room and loads of others like ceilings, walls, window treatments, windows, doors, moldings, floors. On and on. Whatever you feel will help you find the picture you want when you want it. Sometimes I'll have the same picture in more than one folder to make it easier to find.
Personally if I had so much in paper that I needed more than one binder I'd be scanning like crazy to put them in my folders on my computer. You can always make a disc for each folder too.
I'm working on figureing out how to print out icon sized pix of each album to put into a folder to take with me when needed.