I love the crate & barrell and west elm catalogs.

I am completely addicted to the website houzz.com
they have a huge amount of amazing images of all styles and all types of rooms even exteriors. It's great because you can create your own albums and save images that you like for future reference. I've gotten TONS of great inspiration from there.

I also love Candace Olsen! She is amazing.

Here is a link that might be useful: houzz.com

I would have to say I get the most from This forum right here. I do watch HGTV a little . Never seem to find Candice any more when I am able to watch.WWWAAAHHHHH I like her work. I do not take or like any magazines. I buy one just once in awhile.

We are too far to go shop any where. I freaked out when I went into Bed Bath and Beyond and almost got sick before I could get out. Not sure why. I just remember feeling smothered in there.That was the end of my shopping day.

I do look at some websites and just started to look at some blogs but do not really follow any but The Brass Petal which is Emily that just won the HGTV Design Star. And Capsule which is Dan and he won the online HGTV part of Design Star.

So you all better not quit me or our house will become a shambles.

Chris

I agree, this forum and the decorating forum are where I get most of my inspiration. I guess my style is too practical for most other websites and blogs.

That said, I do like the blog, Small Place Style. I don't always like it, but when I do, I really do.

I'm a book hoarder. I've got all the Sunset books, books on crafts, collectibles, you name it. Amazon.com kills me with the "if you like this book, here's five more that are cool too." And Borders with their $4.99 bargain book tables.

Since my focus lately has been decorating the outdoors, I've been getting lots of great ideas from the people on the Garden Junk forum and the Stained Glass and Mosaics forum (and there's probably 3 more great ones I haven't found yet!). So many people around here with really creative ideas. One of my favorite things is to see how each person brings their own style to a project. I would love to set everyone out on a mission, like, "make a concrete mushroom" and see what each person comes back with. That's what's fun for me. People come up with things I'd never think about!

Loribee I peeked at your mushroom and it is darling. Very shroomie. You have to watch out for that garden junk bunch. LOL They are a fun bunch. Had to quit there as they had too many ideas and I got nothing done I needed to get done.I just wanted to play. I wanted to do everything at once and collected too many things to do it all with. Heheheh

Scott Mcgillavray is definitely handsome!

I get most of my motivation/inspiration from my mind. I know it sounds silly but I just look around me and try to figure out what will look best. It's like a little circus in my head and when I figure everything out it looks pretty good, usually.

For the outside of the house I look around at the neighborhood a lot because it's a historical neighborhood.

I have trouble understanding the interior designs on tv and magazines...they always look so unrealistic and un-lived in.

Other than "real" houses, most of the photos we see are stages. Where is the 4th wall? Plus they use wide angle for shots which skews our view of real. Or the rooms are huge and would never work. I still get a lot of ideas though, transferring them to reality of living is another subject. Some of the monster rooms will have a small corner that can be translated. Our small homes are unique and have to work with what I love and live comfortably in. If it doesn't work, then I just let it go.

Maybe there should be a resource on how to scale down for us when we see those big rooms.

My favorite mag is Handyman. Not decorating, but great ideas for storage, changes, ect. I get mags from the library, they are getting way too expensive to buy and usually I can only find one or two pages of interest. Use the camera for a page shot if I want to hang on to the idea. Also the Readers Digest site has many DIY projects.

I do like to go thrugh the Decorator's forum Gallery. A lot of work putting that together and have found some great ideas for small which I've used.

There are so many good blogs out there now, but I would be on the computer all day going through them.

Thanks, Chris! It was a lot of fun to make. (Too fun, because I'll probably end up with a yard full before the year's out LOL)

And tell me about magazines. Some of them cost upwards of $10! I can buy a book for that!

Gryane, I am subscribing to the RSS feed for HOUZZ now. You are right, it is inspirational.

Loribee, I do like your mushrooms. I was a frequent visitor at Garden Junk for a long time, but had to give it up when everything I owned turned into a trash dump. That was what Katrina did to us. It was too overwhelming to hang on to things that held such traumatic memories. So I stopped junking. Making something useful out of discarded or second hand items is still something I appreciate, but I am cautious about letting it take over my storage space.

The A & E show HOARDERS and the TLC show BURIED IN TREASURES have made such an impact on me. Good intentions to save something can wind up consuming your life before you know it. I have a neighbor with that issue, and so it is close to home for me. And I had to clean out my mother's house after she died, and I don't want anyone to have to do that for me.

I know you are not even remotely thinking of those eventualities, but such visions have taken much of the fun out of "repurposing" found items for me.

Oh, I've seen Hoarders and some early Discovery Channel programs on the topic. It's unreal what some people suffer from. I'm afraid I'm on the other end of the spectrum--I'm a throw-awayer. LOL I can't tell you how many times I've had to re-buy something because I was cleaning out a closet one day and decided everything needed to go. It's true what you say about garden junk, though. A person can get a little crazy with it if they're not careful. I am hanging onto a few things I plan to make something out of some day, and so far they've just been fodder for spider webs.

My inspirations? Well, GW, of course.

I like to look at old things and houses for inspiration, too. I think I should have lived in the 1930's or something. Everywhere we go, I take pictures of old houses, and I love antiques. I grew up in a 200 y/o house, full of antiques, so it's in my blood.

I've bought several cottage books, and my favorite magazine is Cottages and Bungalows.

Jay, never heard of COTTAGES AND BUNGALOWS. It makes me curious, because by their very nature, those two house styles are generally smaller.

"Gryane, I am subscribing to the RSS feed for HOUZZ now. You are right, it is inspirational."

ML How does a person do this RSS feed? thanks

"The A & E show HOARDERS and the TLC show BURIED IN TREASURES have made such an impact on me. Good intentions to save something can wind up consuming your life before you know it. I have a neighbor with that issue, and so it is close to home for me. And I had to clean out my mother's house after she died, and I don't want anyone to have to do that for me."

Yep Yep. I am just in the house resting after spending the day sorting my storage loft of all those projects I had plans for but never did nor will I ever get to because then what would I do with them once done??? Well I need to rest my back for a few more minutes and then I am going back out to load up the car with all I purged. We are taking it to one of those places that makes things of these treasures. I already contacted them about my stuff. Some of it is wonderful some of it is junk. they have to take it all. THEN I have a small load to go to the dump and THEN I can clean up my loft so when I do want something stored up there I can get my hands on it with out having to dig for it.

I feel such a sense of relief to be having this stuff go away and to some one that will use it. Like a burden is unloaded off my brain. Fairly often I am stopped in my tracks from starting a new project because of so many in the loft that never got done. Now they will be gone and on some one else's to do list. LOL

Sorry sort of drifted off topic. I did keep some things up there to work on to be inspired by. So there back on topic. LOL

Chris

Krycek- I totally get what you're saying. Sometimes, you just know it looks right to you :)

As for me, I like to look at magazines for kitchens and gardens, but I seem to like the same style, no matter how much I look. I don't know what you'd call it, but I'll give it a try. English cottage meets farmhouse with some European accents and a little Disney's Snow White thrown in. LOL

The same is probably true of my garden spaces. I like simple designs (kind of a 1920s look I recently discovered) with old-fashioned plants and some metal arbors and arches...with lots of roses, especially fluffy pink and single petalled white roses. I also like lots of shrubs mixed in, but I wasn't sure why, until I was reading Snow White to my nieces, recently (I saw that movie when I was about 4 years old) and if you flip back and forth between the wishing well and the woods, it looks a lot like my gardens...at least to me :)

Cottages and Bungalows is available at Lowe's and other places. They now offer subscriptions, too. Some of the houses in there are too big, but there are some real gems, and they fit right into where we're headed with our next house.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cottages and Bungalows

If all else fails, read the directions! Duhhhh, sometimes I forget to look before I blurt it out. Sorry.
Jay, followed your link and read that I might find a copy of the magazine at Lowes, Target, WalMart, or CVS among others.
Before I consider a subscription, I will pick up a copy to read.

Shades, I am amazed that you have kept after it as diligently as you have. That will give you so much more space, and I think boost your positive attitude as well. Good for you!

Truly one of the things which boosts my morale is getting things picked up and the floors vacuumed, the dishes washed, and nothing out of place. Once that is tended to, it doesn't look half bad, you know.

And the RSS feeds can be found on each page...usually a website or a blog....which has one. I have MyYahoo set as my home page, and the updates to my favorite blogs are shown on my home page....when I subscribe to their RSS feeds.

I use Firefox as my browser. I have IE8 loaded on the computer too. Regardless of which one I decide to use, my home page opens and shows all the RSS feeds that I subscribe to. Some have been there for a long time. Like you might want to read the news on NYTimes or your regional newspaper, you can subscribe to the RSS feed. My DH has the Boston Globe, and the Lowell Sun (although he says that one is worthless). He also reads AL.com which is for Alabama. He usually knows more about the oil spill than I do.

Does that help?

I feel such a sense of relief to be having this stuff go away and to some one that will use it. Like a burden is unloaded off my brain.

That's me, too. I'm the opposite of a hoarder--clutter makes me nervous and uncomfortable. When we scaled down to a smaller home, I felt an amazing sense of freedom. It's hard to explain because most people don't really understand it.

This forum has been a HUGE inspiration to me. I'm new to the smaller home world, and still pretty scared by downsizing this much. At the same time, you all are a source of encouragement. You make it all sound so nice and wonderful. I hope I am able to downsize and enjoy living small the way all of you do.

Welcome, Kiki! I'm pretty new here too, though I've lived in my scaled-down home for almost 3 years now. I love the freedom of not being tied to so much stuff and so much responsibility. I think the only time I feel the crunch is when we have house guests. It's only a couple weekends a year, but I admit it is tighter than it was in our old house. On the plus side, they don't stay as long. LOL

Aside from that, I wouldn't trade back up for anything. My Dh and I talk about what we'd do if we won the lottery. I'd for sure move (I'd love something lakeside with a dock and a boat) but the house itself wouldn't be much bigger than what we've got now.

I hope your experience ends up as positive.

Yeppers Loribee, I am glad the stuff is gone. We took it down the mountain yesterday.Treasures for some one else to hoard and create with. Hoping to clean up the mess I left behind today. I used to be a hoarder. Not like a person sees on TV. But I had enough stuff to last three lifetimes. Just in this last year I bet I have hauled at least three truck loads out of this place and the house is feeling pretty good now. When I got over the hoarding bug I was over it. And talking about inspiration. Each time our ML mentions hoarding it makes me want to just clear out more. So keep it up my friend you are inspiring me in ways you probably did not even know. It is all GOOD!! VERY GOOD!!

Chris

FANtastic, Shades! Watching the HOARDERS type shows keeps me pushing the envelope too.

When someone new looks at the stash you've grown comfortable with, like when I got married and DH saw my "things," he naturally assumed it would disappear. Which it did. Gradually. We've been married four years now, which does not count the two years we waited for the nullification to my previous marriage to allow us a sacramental marriage in the church. That was important to me and to him.

And then of course, we had the same issues about HIS house. And it was really worse than mine, because he'd lived there for over 40 years and his three kids had used the place for their don't-needs but too-good-to-toss stuff. Now, he is so proud that not only is the old furniture gone, but there is only a desktop computer and 3 boxes of newspaper clippings/photos in the attic. My fabric and sewing supplies which come home with us this fall, will empty out the last storage closet too.

I find it helpful to make a list of THINGS TO DO. Have a big heading, and then under that, itemize the steps to completion. To me, it is inspirational to have markers to show how far you've come, not just the one at the end of the road.

Are any of you familiar with a recording group called CELESTIAL NAVIGATIONS? On one of the four CDs I had, there was a piece (half stories half musical moods) about feeling the lightness of being after cutting loose the anchors holding you to the earth. I'll have to replace those one day, another treasure lost in Katrina.

Katrina is almost five years gone, but I still make discoveries like this, of what it took from me. I was not ready to let that music go. Like my books. Instead of rebuilding the old, we are trying to create a new world for ourselves, my blessed DH and I.

And totally off subject, but I was watching on HBO a part of Spike Lee's filming re Katrina and New Orleans. No where else have I seen, in all the film footage on the news, so prevalent following the storm, and in the years after....NO where was shown the footage of the bodies floating in the water. Like so much trash, so much debris left by the storm. Forgotten people. Mostly unknown people. Who were they. Some covered by white plastic tarps, others not, and it was shocking to me.

There, but for the Grace of God, go I. It inspires me to remember just how fragile and precious that life is.

ML I watched little bits and pieces of the Katrina aftermath. so sad.I did not see the parts you speak of. Glad. I was so devastated for all of you then. I cried many times even though I was not there. My own flood experience was flashing back and the hopelessness of it for awhile until we pulled on our boots and gloves and got to work.

I did buckle in and finish cleaning up in the loft this morning. I even swept and labeled the boxes left so when I want something I kept I can read what is in each box with out having to paw through all of it. Most things left are for garden, mosaic substrate projects, the last of the dog grooming things and not getting rid of them but using the old towels up. I saved some rugs to use for the porch kitties and when they are too used up I will gladly toss them. The rugs not the kitties.

And then the Christmas things for outside. Then there is the set of chairs for my grandmothers table that I have in the house. The kitty transport kennels. So it is a needed storage space. It is cleaned up and things easily accessible. Woo Hoo.

Still need to finish up in my studio. THEN I will allow myself to start another mosaic project. I put a ban on fun until this loft was cleaned out. It helped to find a place that prides them selves in re-using things. The owner was not there yesterday when we delivered the load of stuff but she wrote me a nice email thanking me for all the treasures. And honestly this stuff had already made many cuts in clearing out my hoard. This was good stuff.LOL Now don't I sound like the typical hoarder. It is all good stuff.

I think now I can truly say my hoard is gone.Smiles. That was the last of it. What is left I do use. All people that sew have a fabric stash. Mine is not large at all. I already gave most of it away. And then my mosaic tess. Even so that is not over the top compared to many that do mosaics. I keep what I use.

Chris

That Hoarders show scares me to death. I see both my mother and myself in a few years. I watch a few minutes of it and have to jump up and go through some of my "hoard". Can't tell that it's helping much though.

Hoarders, or just collectors lacking adequate display space? That was my grandma and we spent years helping her sort through all of her treasures.

Seriously, it does feel good to simplify. I think when you get any collection pared down to your very favorite pieces, it means so much more to you. It also becomes a very nice accent to a living area, rather than an exhibit in a museum :)

My half sister is a full blown hoarder. The trashy kind and my Mom has the tendency. I think my younger sister might too. So there certainly is a gene in the family for it. And the weird thing is I have been this way since WAY before I found my Mom. Part of my problem was stress and lack and I am just not going deeper into it. But I am healed now so over it. I probably still have too much crap. Don't most of us? For the most part I now have a place for everything to go with out having to dig for something. Everything is organized. So I feel I am in good shape. I was never to the point I could not let some one in. My house was alwasy really clean. I am a virgo and things have to be in order. Even the hoarded things were in order. I just had too many of them in order. LOL

Funny Marti watching hoarders makes me want to sort through things too. And what really cracks me up is I can remember things filled up and even went to my garden shed sure the trunk out there had stuff to go away. NO it was cleared out already. I had already been there but had forgotten. So I was laughing at myself over that. Shocked to open it and see almost nothing in it.

Chris

lavender lass, my mom is an over collector right now, but I can see where it can turn into hoarding. She renovated her house a few years ago and got rid of lots of stuff, but slowly has added it all back, plus more. She likes baskets and ceramic animals in all her corners to the point that it's hard to walk through the rooms.

She has so many collections that it is hard to find a place to anything down on the kitchen cabinet, which makes it hard to cook. And she has so much on the table that it's hard to find a clear spot to eat. Not that I eat anything that came from her house. Her refrigerator is stuffed full of all kinds of condiments and treats, most of them outdated or white with freezer burn.

The weird thing is that her house is clean. She even has a housekeeper come in once a week. That woman must be a saint to clean around such clutter.

After a visit with her, I want absolutely nothing on my kitchen cabinets, tables, or tops of furniture, and minimal pictures on the walls. But it starts building up again. Right now I have a pretty good pile in the dump zone by the back door.

Well, true hoarding is a real illness. Something about becoming attached to even the most unlikely things, such as McDonalds bags, or stale french fries, used Coke cups.

When my mother was alive, I told her that next time she went into the hospital, I was cleaning out her house. And I did that a couple of times, sorting piles of mail and clearing off things, and getting rid of bags and bags of old Harlequin romances, putting her laundry away. For months afterward, she'd call me irate in the middle of the night, WHERE DID YOU PUT THIS? DID YOU THROW IT OUT? And I'd tell her what I did with it. Usually she'd call back a little later and tell me she found it.

But I could not tackle the big issues or figure out what was really wrong with her. When she died of cancer in December 2001, it was up to me to dispose of her possessions. I'd tried very hard to get her to give things to people BEFORE she passed, so they could say THANK YOU in person. But I was left to sort through things. It was a daunting task that took me over a year to do. And I was retired, no daily job to go to. It depressed me to see what she had held on to and treasured.

The thought of putting folks I love through this final cleanup makes me aware of the condition of my personal space. No one should have to do what I had to do....and I don't want my family to remember me as a dotty old lady.

Shades, congrats on cleaning & organizing! While it's a lot of work, I always feel a great sense of satisfaction when I look around at tidy spaces. Like you, mosaic is one of my hobbies and that's where it's so hard to keep the clutter down. I mean, we need supplies, and when a project's done, I have leftovers that I'll for sure use on something some day. For me, that's where the discipline comes in. I've currently got half-finished projects and supplies for other projects I haven't even started, and yesterday I went shopping for tile! I vowed to myself this morning that before I bought one more piece of tile, I was going to finish all the projects I've got going. No more shopping for new tiles until I've used up at least a good chunk of the ones I have. But the temptation is always there!

My heart goes out to hoarders. It's a condition that can really get debilitating for some, and I know how hard it can be to part with things we think we need. When we were moving and scaling down from our big house, what helped me the most was designating the new space first. Then I would decide which pieces to keep based on how much room I had designated for myself.

The best example of this was my sewing desk. In the old house, I had a desk with 7 good sized drawers where I kept all my sewing, quilting and embroidery supplies. In the same room I also had 4 large Rubbermaid containers full of fabric scraps, partially-completed projects, etc. That was the spare room we were losing in the new house so most of it was going to have to go, and since I don't do as much sewing as I used to it wasn't a planned space in the new house. So, I bought myself a sewing box--one of those containers you buy at the fabric store that has compartments, etc. That sewing box was my new designated "space" and I only allowed myself to keep what fit in that box. It was hard having to part with some things, but honestly, I've been in the new house 3 years and have only really *needed* the things I put in that sewing box.

As for my Rubbermaid containers in the closet, I decided I had room in the new house for one of them. So out of the five, I picked out the things I really wanted the most. The rest had to go. And honestly, I think that's a container I haven't even opened once since I've been here!

For me, that was the best way to go through a space and make decisions, as it can be overwhelming trying to decide what can stay/go if you don't have concrete parameters to work with. I don't know if that would work for everyone, but it was one trick that made clearing the clutter easier for me.

loribee, I did it the same way as you. When I moved here the plan was to have all my craft stuff including sewing in the same room ,my studio. I even had the fabric storage all settled and it all worked . That is until I did not have a place to sew in there. Sound of screeching brakes. LOL change of plan. After living here over a year I decided to change to have sewing room shared with guest room . Since we rarely have guests it is not like I have to constantly make the switch. All I have to do now is let down the futon and make it into a bed. No biggie.

But like you I only have so much storage space in my sewing china cabinet. Two big drawers and two small drawers. I also have a tiny 12 deep by 20 wide chest of drawers. I keep notions in it. I robbed a nice sewing machine box/case from another sewing machine I am going to get rid of and will some day do a fun mosaic on the wooden top.Picturing a quilt pattern in glass. I have case sitting on little table in corner so to put machine away takes about one minute.

I also have two of the vintage suitcases stored under the futon with some larger pieces of fabric. I know I will use it some day. I have gotten pieces out to use.

I do think it is all about using what you have and letting the rest go.So glad to see some one else purges and sorts like I did. There is still more I could get rid of but for now it is all manageable. I keep hoping when I quit work and do not have a new yard to try to establish I will have more time to do fun things.

ML That is so sad about your mom. My Mom did the same when other siblings went to clean her out to help when she was in the hospital. It was the comments of anger from her when she thought the sibs dared to move something she can not find now and she keeps harping on it that keeps me away. I do have a collection of deer figurines I love and some other animals all in glass cases. I will hang onto them. In reality to pack them up is one box for the deer and ont for the others. I sometimes think if I had to go into one of those homes which probably will not happen$$$$$ Most let you keep some personal stuff. The little deer cabinet would be the thing I would keep. Funny how something of no real value can mean so much some times. I will load a picture of it up.

I must do something with that bottom shelf. ICK. There are a few deer here that can go away.

Chris

Here is a link that might be useful: Deer Cabinet

I'm the opposite of a hoarder. I want everything as sparse as possible. A little dream of mine is to only own the things that I use every day, and nothing else!

As luck would have it, I'm married to a hoarder. He still has every coffee can, every pencil stub, every piece of paper, every little piece of anything that he has ever owned. I think about all of his stuff all the time and it freaks me out. I want it all gone!

A couple of times a year he goes through it all and arranges it differently so it looks better and within a month or two, it's one big giant mess again.

My in-laws weren't hoarders, but just held onto things longer than they probably should have. When they passed, it took their 5 grown children several months and 2 dumpsters to clean out a small two bedroom bungalow in a retirement community.

Most of the work fell to their daughter and youngest son because they lived closer than the others. It broke my heart to see the emotional toll all this sorting took on them.

I have one surviving son and that experience made me vow to spare him and my DIL that kind of angst when my husband and I are gone. I started paring down our small house almost immediately.

Now I keep the house, garage, attic and shed 'lean and mean.' I don't bring anything in without considering where it will go and do I REALLY need/love it. I discard/recycle/pass on/repair things right away.

It's amazing how little psychic energy I waste on possessions now. Very liberating. I think it's an age-related attitude. I don't think I could ever think this way when I was younger.

Anyone agree?

Oh yes, Dian57! I agree a lot.
As time went by, and especially after my mother passed and I had to dismantle her treasures, it took hold of me.

I think we older folks have a greater sense of our mortality. Life is beautiful, but it is not endless. I learned that my possessions are not the legacy I wish to leave when I'm gone.

"I think it's an age-related attitude. I don't think I could ever think this way when I was younger."

Definitely!

I think I understand a little about hoarder mentality. I don't keep real trash, like used napkins or food wrappers, but I have found myself before keeping cardboard from cereal boxes (to make craft items), cardboard carriers that glass sodas come in (again crafts), paper sacks with handles, etc. I finally threw a stack of that stuff away because I know it will be a long time before I make the crafts I had planned for the stuff, and it's not like they are going to quit making it.

Dh has started several projects and never finished them. The stuff sat around here for years before I could talk him into throwing it away.

I heard an advertisement for an ADD treatment center. It said something like: "Do you have trouble paying attention for more than 5 minutes, give up on a project before it is completed, can't find where you put something ..." It listed a lot of ADD symptoms, and I thought Yes, to each one. But I don't have ADD, I am overwhelmed with the clutter.