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Catalogs as idea sources?

User
13 years ago

I don't think we've shared this information before, so I'm going to ask.

What catalogs do you get which are sources of ideas for your decorating? This is print catalogs now. Ones you can get mailed to your house.

I started to say TWO favorites, but really I have THREE favorites.

IKEA

Pottery Barn

Room And Board.

These cats put their looks into rooms that give me ideas. There are other catalogs that present their stuff but not in room scenes that turn me on.

What are your favorite catalogs that spark ideas for you?

Comments (14)

  • Shades_of_idaho
    13 years ago

    LOL ML I will take the lazy way out and let you show me great ideas.No magazines or catalogs come here. I stopped all of that about 10 years ago. I used to keep stacks of them. My husband gets a few tool catalogs. I borrow magazines from the library so they have to go back and not add to the clutter here. I am hopeless with catalogs. Arn't most of them on line now?

  • User
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    Shades, you are spot on with reducing the number of catalogs. It makes a holy mess to get rid of. I suppose I could do without the print version of my favorites. Their products are of course on their websites. But I like to remove pages and pictures, and have a really wide area behind my desk where I tape them up so I can think about it for a while. I tend to lose my links, and at my age, forgetfulness is a problem.

    I also tape to the wall the pending projects, outstanding orders, or what I am actively looking for. Once it is attended to,, it comes down and is filed or tossed. For instance, I'm looking at a square wooden 36" tall nice bathroom storage cabinet from Pottery Barn. I'm not thinking of buying it. I am thinking of the 100 year old homemade solid walnut cabinet (no doors of course) which DH put in the storage shed a couple of years ago. The top was apparently hand planed, because it is so totally unlevel, but it has one small drawer with a finger hole to pull it open, and then the legs are gracefully tapered from about 2.5 inches at the top to a little less than two at the bottom. It needs cleaning so bad, but I fell in love with it 25 years ago when I found it at a local antique mall. So this piece I must think about making presentable for our master bath. Not paint it. But the grime of a century should be removed to let its beautiful wood shine through.
    It isn't fine furniture, but then we are not fanciers of such things. I like to see the hand of the worker in my house.

    When I get a chance to take a photo of it, I'll put it up. It's been raining all afternoon, and I've been painting the 14 drawer chest. Once it is done and sitting in its permanent spot center stage of the walkin closet, THEN I do the ceiling of the master bedroom. To make it bounce a lot of light around the room, it will be the Behr UltraPure White in a semigloss latex enamel.

  • TxMarti
    13 years ago

    I don't get magazines or catalogs anymore either. I do sometimes look through the websites of furniture stores just to see what they put together.

  • Shades_of_idaho
    13 years ago

    I learned a very time consuming lesson years ago about keeping ideas from magazines. I read them then pulled what I thought was wonderful ideas and filed them. I almost made it a second job for myself. Spent hours and hours weeks months doing this over many years. I bought file folders and file cabinets. Remember I was the hoarder. Organized but still the hoarder. I moved all that crap around from house to house and one day I realized it was insane of me to keep doing this.

    So I sorted through it all again and purged it down to one file drawer. Hauled that around through several more moves. And then I really looked at the stuff I thought was wonderful and it was so creepy outdated it made me do palm to forehead move. WHAT WAS I THINKING?? Oh yes it went way back to my hippy days and yes that look has come and gone more than once.

    I saved the file folders and the rest went to the dump.

    I do think it is a good thing to keep a few ideas at hand and I keep them on my computer now and even on a thumb drive so I can find them easily. Thumb drives are so inexpensive now. I have a small drawer beside my chair I keep the drives in.

    I really do not like any kind of visual things hanging up other than pictures. Took me two years to hang a calendar in my office and I really need one every time I an in the office. I kept it in a drawer. LOL

    ML Can't wait to see your little table stand. I am all for using the furniture I have and making it work. I have bought a few shelf pieces and the love seat new but most of my things are just old stuff no one else wanted.

  • User
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    Shades, you are spot on with reducing the number of catalogs. It makes a holy mess to get rid of. I suppose I could do without the print version of my favorites. Their products are of course on their websites. But I like to remove pages and pictures, and have a really wide area behind my desk where I tape them up so I can think about it for a while. I tend to lose my links, and at my age, forgetfulness is a problem.

    I also tape to the wall the pending projects, outstanding orders, or what I am actively looking for. Once it is attended to,, it comes down and is filed or tossed. For instance, I'm looking at a square wooden 36" tall nice bathroom storage cabinet from Pottery Barn. I'm not thinking of buying it. I am thinking of the 100 year old homemade solid walnut cabinet (no doors of course) which DH put in the storage shed a couple of years ago. The top was apparently hand planed, because it is so totally unlevel, but it has one small drawer with a finger hole to pull it open, and then the legs are gracefully tapered from about 2.5 inches at the top to a little less than two at the bottom. It needs cleaning so bad, but I fell in love with it 25 years ago when I found it at a local antique mall. So this piece I must think about making presentable for our master bath. Not paint it. But the grime of a century should be removed to let its beautiful wood shine through.
    It isn't fine furniture, but then we are not fanciers of such things. I like to see the hand of the worker in my house.

    When I get a chance to take a photo of it, I'll put it up. It's been raining all afternoon, and I've been painting the 14 drawer chest. Once it is done and sitting in its permanent spot center stage of the walkin closet, THEN I do the ceiling of the master bedroom. To make it bounce a lot of light around the room, it will be the Behr UltraPure White in a semigloss latex enamel.

  • User
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    Hmmm, I took a look at that last post above, and had deja vu all over again. Where did it come from....AGAIN? I don't think I sent it off TWICE?

    But suddenly, there it is. I apologize, folks.

    Shades, you give very good advice. One reason I keep those things up on the wall in front of me is so I won't keep them in my drawers. If I put them on the thumb drive, I will soon forget what I filed them under. So I have this area that keeps nudging me to do something, because I don't like it to be ugly or untidy, and it has a pretty quick turnover. I might wind up with a bulletin/cork board but for now, this is working for me. Too many irons in the fire, and this is the way I deal with that.

    When it comes to hoarding, I am traumatized by the thought of becoming like my neighbor, who at 85 cannot have anyone come in her house to repair the plumbing because they cannot get to it. She has taken up all the flooring and is down to plywood over her slab foundation. Every week a friend of hers comes to spend the day and sort through the stuff. But where she needs a dump truck to get a handle on it, she puts one small box to the curb each week. Not enough to even fill the trash can supplied by the city. It is a sad affair. She was beginning to "give" me things, and so I told her that I appreciated the thought, but I was throwing stuff away all the time as we remodelled the house. That put a stop to it, because hoarders never want anything thrown away.

    Shades, as a result of your good example, I will do something about my "wall of shame." But not today, I have to finish painting the big chest and move it into the closet.

  • Shades_of_idaho
    13 years ago

    ML You should not consider your idea wall a wall of shame right now. You are in the middle of a total remodel in several rooms of your house and yard. Not to mention you have another house to deal with up north.

    I am just saying for me I will not gather paper again for ideas. I learned a painful lesson. I do not even keep my utilities or credit card bills more then one month. I have gone extreme the other way from hoarding. Like you it terrifies me.My mother and sister live in a hoard house like your neighbor. Sad.

  • TxMarti
    13 years ago

    Chris, I used to have files of pictures too. Still have a few too, but now when I come across something, I scan it, put it on photobucket, and toss the picture.

    ML, I think there are bugs in the system still. Today is the first time I've been able to log in and post on the first thread I read. Usually I log in and have to find another thread to post in before I can post in the one I was reading when I logged in. That double post doesn't look like anything you could have done.

  • jessicaml
    13 years ago

    I try to keep print catalogs to a minimum & toss them into the recycle bin as soon as the new ones arrive. It's nice to look at things online, but sometimes it just can't replace the catalog experience. Online usually has chopped up views zooming in on one item, rather than the picturesque, inspiring rooms laid out in print. And some websites (Ballard Designs, IKEA) aren't user friendly and I lose patience (and I'm under 30, so not an old luddite quite yet!). ;)

    My favorites are Pottery Barn and Plow & Hearth.

    Check out the "Functional Furniture" and "Kitchen Furniture" sections of P&H:

    Functional Furnishings

    Kitchen Furniture

    I'm coveting a table like the Extending Cabinet, the Expandable All-Wood Kitchen Cart, or the Expandable Console Table. It's like this catalog was made for small homes!

  • User
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    I'd overlooked P&H, but you are so right. And what I'd been looking for is the fold-up sleeper ottoman. No longer available there, but at least now I have the terms I need to Google for one. It might be perfect for my small loft.

  • jessicaml
    13 years ago

    Moccassinlanding, does this help?

    Here is a link that might be useful: Ottoman Bed

  • TxMarti
    13 years ago

    I haven't seen a Plow & hearth in a long time. Thanks for posting the link Jessica.

  • User
    Original Author
    13 years ago

    JessicaMI, oh yeah, thank you for the link. It has a video which shows how it works, how it's built. I'm wondering if my DH could build me one which is on casters so I can move it around w/o scratching the floor.

    Glad to note that the idea is one available from other sources.

  • pjtexgirl
    13 years ago

    Internet saved file only, fairly paperless here for clutter reasons as well. I have several close relatives who hoard. As much as I was blessed to have a concept of what I consider to be "design savvy", I learned the concept from a hoarder. 10 zillion AD magazines stacked in a room is my secret nightmare. I do take ideas from other folk's ideas ( online catalog pics,interior design pics, and stuff I see on GW etc...,) I try not to go with the "catalog look". I'm more eclectic and less cluttered than most of what I've seen. In fact, I like livable pictures from GWers than the a-bit-too-polished-perfect overdone stuff from pro stagers. It's kind of humorous. A person will post a pro picture and state how they wished their space could look just like it. More often than not the spaces they've done themselves look a lot better.