Discovery Series - Part Two - The Art of Gathering: Mastering Your Home Design Inspirations

William Reid: [: 00:00:00

I call this the Art of Gathering, building a home that feels like you. This is all about collecting your dreams, visions, and ideas so that you can share all of your design preferences with your architecture designer. So we're gonna take your personal profile and your property profile that we spoke about in episode two, and now we're gonna.

eople can just get frozen up [: 00:01:00

I'm gonna try to. Share with you some strategies, some resources, and a way to organize all of your inspirations so that you can just get it done and not just get stuck in this abyss of online pictures and videos and so on. So that's the idea here is to help you gather all of the information you need.

So that you can meet your expectations when it comes to the design aspects of your project. And again, I'll, I emphasize this is way before you talk to anybody about your project. This is you and your partner or your family getting it together, getting on the same page, if that's even possible.

d, and then we're gonna look [: 00:02:00

So that very first step of sharing your dreams and visions is. Coming up with a narrative story about your new home or your remodel project. You may recall in the personal profile, we came up with a narrative story about your family, your lifestyle, anything that you could have shared with them so they get to know you.

And we coupled that with pictures of your family and as much information as possible. So the architect got to know you. Now we're gonna do the same thing. With what we call the design statement. So a design statement is actually a term that's used in the world of design, and this is like a general overall summary of how you envision your new home.

our new home. Here's a quick [: 00:03:00

A private office or workspace would be ideal for Jane as she works from home and has international calls at odd hours of the day. So this is just a snippet of what I think a design statement should be. You want to write a story, this is going to help your designers connect your lifestyle, your personal design preferences, your property, your personal profile, and they'll start putting the pieces together.

stuck in solutions. This is [: 00:04:00

We put the bathroom there. We could extend out here, extend back there. Or if you're building a new home, you're running around your lot thinking you know what you're doing. I. You know generally what views you like what style of home or size of home, but you start deciding where you think you wanna put it on the lot and so on.

And you just go on and on. This can really freeze you up and prevent you from pursuing the project at all sometimes. So don't worry about the solutions, worry about. Desires that you have, worry about the lifestyle that you want in your home and describe that to your architect and designer.

, gonna have your own ideas, [: 00:05:00

So the word inspiration is really just something, a visual that sparks you, that connects you, that connects to you that. You enjoy. So this could be a visual picture of the outside of a home. It could be the interior of a home, it could be a particular lot. Anything that inspires you, that makes you feel good, makes you feel like that's what I want is what inspirations are.

use is great. These are more [: 00:06:00

They start drilling into it. Drilling into it, looking up this particular project, getting into the details, so on. So you don't want to go there yet. Now you can if you want later, but right now to get momentum, to get traction. We just want to be able to start saving inspirations. Now, there's ways to do this, and you've probably heard about a lot of these ideas, and I'm just gonna reiterate some of them.

It's not rocket science, but it's, how you go about doing it so that you don't get hung up and overwhelmed. So one of the, online applications out there is Pinterest, and Pinterest has been around quite a while now, and it's actually a very useful tool for not just home design, but just about everything in life.

If you've never used [: 00:07:00

Now, you may not know what you don't know, and you may not know what you like. But you must have seen a picture or two. Or you must know a particular style of home that you like, or style of kitchen or bathroom that you like. And for example, you could type in, white modern kitchens or modern farmhouse homes.

ow powerful and how accurate [: 00:08:00

And what I would recommend is create several boards, create one for exterior, one for interior, one for kitchens, baths, landscaping, so on, organize your project the way you'd like, but generally it's from exterior, interior, and then by room. And this gives you a way to organize your project. So that you don't get lost.

hen you're also gonna become [: 00:09:00

You don't know why you love it. You just you may like the colors, you just the feel of it. But then what you're gonna find out is you're gonna find out later in this process, what style is it? What architectural style is it that's used in the industry? Usually when you click on that particular picture, you can go visit that website and it starts telling you about.

The style of that home or the, even the colors used and so on. But we'll get to that later. Now I spent some time on YouTube, and if you haven't gone to YouTube lately, I recommend you go into YouTube and type in how to use Pinterest for designing a home. And there's some great designers on there that are showing you how to do it.

with your potential designer [: 00:10:00

You can always keep going back and keep going back, but you're gonna create these boards and then you're gonna be able to. Copy and paste the links to these boards and share these links. And we'll probably copy and paste them into a document. That's our, what I keep calling our project package or report that we're gonna send to architects.

And this is a really powerful tool. 'cause once that link is sent to somebody and you keep adding to it or deleting from it, it'll just keep updating it. So the next time your architect goes into that. They'll see more images. Another great feature is you can make comments, whether private or public comments on the picture, so you can say what you like and dislike about a particular picture.

om, and it's very similar to [: 00:11:00

By organizing your idea books by room or area. But once you click on those images, you'll see who designed the project. So houses specific to home design and construction. You'll see who built the project, who designed the project, and you'll see people commenting on that particular project, asking questions, and some of the people online will answer 'em.

there, but I have found that [: 00:12:00

You'll be able to search for architects and contractors in your particular area that have joined HOUZZ now, a lot of design and construction professionals have joined HOUZZ, so you can kill two birds with one stone there. We're not ready to do that yet, but. Again, if you start searching for design professionals in your particular area and see their portfolio, because what architects and contractors do is they upload their portfolios to their house account, and you can start seeing their projects that they're doing in your area.

s and updating their profile [: 00:13:00

' cause in some cases. Really good. Contractors and architects don't even need it, frankly. But this is a really good start. So what's cool about HOUZZ is you can do both there. So you can create your idea books on HOUZZ. You can create your Pinterest boards on Pinterest and you can share from either platform you can share.

So for example, on HOUZZ, if you found a contractor or you found an architect you liked on HOUZZ. You can share your idea book directly to them. So I think that's a really cool feature. Another source. There's a lot of websites out there that sell home plans, like pre-packaged home plans.

e of the things that you can [: 00:14:00

If you're building a new home. Or even if you're doing a major renovation where you're planning to update the facade of the house, I'd recommend you dig into a few home plans websites and you can look 'em up online, just say, home plans for sale or something, and there's just a million of 'em.

There's even some with AI tools in there that are really helpful. You're gonna get a lot of inspiration. Now another one is your neighborhood inspiration. So I know in, in dealing with hundreds or thousands of homeowners over the years, many, I would say a large percentage of people have walked their neighborhood or their area and see homes being built or remodeled and liked them and said, oh, I really like what they're doing there.

[: 00:15:00

So it's not a bad idea to take a picture. Of the outside of a home that you see in your neighborhood that you like. Now there's some side benefits to taking this approach too, that's gonna help us way down later in the process. And that is if you see a home that you like, maybe it's even under construction and it's maybe towards the tail end of construction, you can find out who the contractor is.

n the door and talk with the [: 00:16:00

But. It can't hurt to start building up these lists of names that are working in your neighborhood, that are doing projects that you like. So I call it the neighborhood inspiration. And that's a really good way to to get inspiration for your project while simultaneously beginning the hunt for architects and contractors.

There's another angle too, and that's using some of the AI tools. I know we hear this word, all the ai ai, but one thing I've discovered is if I saw an image of something I like, let's say I, I have a house that I copied and pasted off a website. Or I took a picture of a home in the neighborhood and I upload that into Google images.

But what you do is you drop [: 00:17:00

And then what you can do is you can save those images to your bookmarks or copy 'em out of the website and drop 'em into a folder on your computer and save them. This is a way to cut through all of the, just millions of things out there. And get to the style that you like, and then look at comparable homes to gain more inspiration and share your style with your architect.

odern contemporary home with [: 00:18:00

Show me pictures of traditional French country homes and it'll show you those. It'll also tell you what. A French country home is it'll show you pictures and it'll have links to particular websites that are out in the world that you could look at. Then you could continue the search and expand on it.

Show me French country homes in my zip code. 9 1 2, 3, 4, and it will search for that particular style of home in your zip code. And you can go further and further. So rather than just one search result, it's a string of searches and results that can refine and refine your goal. You can even say present to me a list of architects.

[: 00:19:00

Images and websites of the style that you like. You can have a list of maybe some of the homes in your neighborhood. You could have a list of architects, maybe even a list of contractors in your area. Again, we're still on the inspiration mode, but to maximize the efficiency of the time you're spending, think about this.

e it basically. And you can, [: 00:20:00

And then when you get up to, two or 300 pictures, quit. Hopefully you don't have to do that many. But so that's the idea is to, don't worry. About why you like something. You're gonna find out is you've developed a pattern and your architects will see that.

The second you show 'em your portfolio, your inspiration portfolio, they're gonna immediately get a sense and see a pattern in the style and the look and feel the, it almost always happens. Now, once in a while, if you get two spouses that completely disagree. On the architectural style or the interior style, then you usually see a more of a mishmash and some blending of ideas.

t. So it's a finished design [: 00:21:00

inspirations are just images and homes and interiors that spark you. Something's talking to you that says, I really like it. Dive into just a handful of applications so that you don't get too overwhelmed. Pinterest. Build your boards HOUZZ build your idea books, home plan websites, if you're building a new home.

Neighborhood inspiration, that's one of my favorites. And then some of those AI tools out there. There's even some AI tools out there where you can upload a picture of your living room and then tell it to make it more modern. If you want to get into that, all the more power to you. But this podcast and niche is really for people that don't have unlimited time necessarily to do this.

ime, that's even better. The [: 00:22:00

And you can be saving bookmarks from, perplexity or Google . So you can actually just assemble all of these links into a document. This idea here is to have a simple resource for people to look at. If you're gonna do this on your own, this is probably the best way to do it. In the app I'm developing called Build Quest, there'll be basically a tool, and it's gonna be called Vision Spec, [00:23:00] where you'll be able to do all of the activities in Pinterest and HOUZZ and AI generated resources and results within one system.

So you'll be able to create what I call vision spec, vision being the inspirations. Spec eventually being the thing that we'll be able to use, the tool we'll be able to use to build a set of specifications for your project. But that's down the road. So when you go to share these ideas, remember we don't want to over direct the design, shall we say.

We don't want to handcuff our designers and say, this is exactly what I want. I don't want to consider anything else. You're feeding the designers, you're giving them something to latch onto, to sink their teeth into, and then come back to you with their own interpretation of your style, your vision.

Your personal [: 00:24:00

You don't wanna direct the design too much, even though it's very tempting. You want to do the mic drop, just give 'em the information, walk away and let them come back to you. I guarantee you, if you've hunted down a qualified architect, you're going to. Be surprised at what they come up with and probably very happy.

into a shareable package for [: 00:25:00

In closing, as I get towards the end of this episode, we've now. Couple, and I know I keep repeating myself, but it's really important that we've coupling personal profile, property profile, and now your dreams and your visions and your ideas into this package. We're not quite done with this package yet, but we're now ready to show we're not quite ready, but we're now prepared to show an architect or designer what you're all about.

ot that you're purchasing or [: 00:26:00

Everybody uses the word I'm dream home. My dream home. Even I used it in the title of the book, but share your dream. A lot of times you wake up from a dream and you forgot what it was. This one's not. This one's pretty stuck in your brain, I'm sure. So write a story about your dream home. I wish I could have a wood shop.

ent, a nine car garage, and a: 1600

So we know we need a shop, we need a craft room, we need, an in-law quarters we [00:27:00] need a nine car garage, things like that. Start your inspiration boards online. It's really the best way nowadays. I think I've heard of somebody once in a while still ripping out magazine pages, but that's so old school.

Create your in inspiration boards online. Don't get too nuts on that inspiration. Sparks save the sparks. We'll get into the details later. Find some plans online that maybe you like. Floor plans. You can look at the floor plans. And visit your neighborhood. Go around your neighborhood we're gonna tap into that neighborhood search thing later and how that's gonna be really valuable.

d looking at your neighbor's [: 00:28:00

Thanks for joining me today on The Awakened Homeowner. Remember, the more clearly you can communicate your dreams, the closer you are to living in a home that feels just right. If you found today's episode helpful, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. And if you're ready for a full step-by-step guide to navigating your entire home building or remodeling journey.

Don't be shy and pick up my new book, the Awakened Homeowner. It really is packed with a ton of knowledge all the way through a project you'll be able to just hold onto this book and learn a lot from it as you start going through it. And that's what we are up to today. So thanks again.

My name's Bill Reid and this is the Awaken Homeowner Show.