Get The Look: Outdoor Patio

Design Paralysis (noun): When you spend 3.5+ hours searching Pinterest for decorating ideas and then do nothing different to your house afterwards.

We see this ALL the time and we understand the struggle. Being exposed to so much design inspiration makes it hard to narrow down what you love and actually come up with a decorating plan. So, how do you fix this? First, you need to take a deeper look into each inspiration photo and ask yourself some questions. For example:

• Do I like this room because of the color scheme?
• Am I drawn to this room because of the style of furniture?
• Is this a space I could actually live in?
• Do I like this room because of the furniture layout?
• Do I love this space only because it is styled so perfectly?

It is easy to glance at a photo on Pinterest and automatically "PIN" it because it is so perfectly clean, styled and new, but did you really love the room? Did you take a look at each furniture piece? Did you look at the flooring? What aspects of this room did you really like?

This "Get The Look" series is going to help walk you through the process of finding inspiration, asking the right questions and coming up with a decorating plan. For this special Get The Look, we are using this cozy patio design by Monika Hibbs as our inspiration photo:

Source: Monika Hibbs

HOW TO USE THE INSPIRATION IF YOU LOVE THE COLOR SCHEME:

When decorating using an inspiration photo, we strongly advise NOT copy the design exactly. Inspiration photos should help narrow down what you love and give you ideas for things that could incorporate into your existing space. In this inspiration photo, you might say you love the color scheme. Maybe you don't necessarily love the style of furniture or the layout of the space but the colors really speak to you. A color scheme of dark gray, white, beige and green can be used with a different floor plan and different style of furniture for an outdoor look that is still inspired by the inspiration photo. Take a look at this in action:

HOW TO USE THE INSPIRATION IF YOU LOVE THE LAYOUT:

Maybe you love the layout of the inspiration photo. A layout is something you can copy exactly because it gives you a good starting point for decorating. Using different furniture, styles or color schemes are going to be how you make the exact same furniture layout your own. Here is an example of this in action:

HOW TO USE THE INSPIRATION IF YOU LOVE THE STYLE:

Wanting to incorporate the style of the inspiration photo into your space is very achievable for everyone. Maybe you just have one small wall on the patio that needs to be decorated or maybe you have a huge patio area, incorporating the style from the inspiration photo can work with any size space. The ultimate goal in using inspiration photos isn't to copy the space exactly, the goal is take the aspects of the room that you love (we are using style for this example) and making them work with the space you have. Take a look at this in action for a smaller size patio:

Do you have a Pinterest board full of inspiration photos that you want to incorporate into your home? Our designers can help with just that! Start a project today and have a shopping list in your budget in 3-5 days.