ISO Facebook Group/Message Board for Home Decor and Home Improvements?

[Melaine]

I will probably post this here but I'm wondering if anyone has a great resource for style and home improvement questions (like the BBB for home decor?). We are going to be repainting and re-flooring and I have decision paralysis and am unable to picture new colors. It's SOOOOO hard for me to make decisions like this. DH has better color-sense but he is clueless on trends and I would like to get others to weigh in on our colors and flooring pics before we start. Like I would love for someone to tell me color to paint, colors to use as accents, etc. Anyone part of a group like this?

[georgiegirl]

Houzz has message boards

[twowhat?]

The problem with these is that they're almost like Pinterest - an overwhelming amount of info, options, and opinions. If you can afford it, I would totally look into getting an interior designer to help you! It makes a big difference when an unbiased person sees your actual space and lighting and can talk to you about what styles you are drawn to, and then perhaps most importantly, narrow down options based on style and budget and present to you a curated set of options. Otherwise, unless you have a little design blood in you, you will spend HOURS looking at all this and fighting indecision!

We hired a designer who did just that - only the design - and paid an hourly rate. TOTALLY WORTH IT! With her design suggestions, I did my own sourcing/purchasing (though she did help with a couple of tile purchases using her designer discount) and generally worked with my own local contractors. A designer will also help you to pull together whole rooms at a time and make sure they flow into each other well. I've learned so much from our designer that now I can do it on my own (and my designer did tell me I have design blood and could totally do it myself which is what inspired me to plow ahead and manage the guest and kids bathroom myself). I just had 3 tweens/teens (10, 11, and 16) walk into our house over the past week and say "your house is so pretty" and I'm like yup...totally worth paying the designer Flooring is an especially BIG DECISION that I really would consider getting a professional opinion on, and then choosing a wall color to complement it. We narrowed our choices down to two floors, and our designer walked in the house one day, pointed to the sample on the right and said "That's the one" and I am ever so glad!

What I WOULD do is go ahead and start Pinterest boards for each room - it helps you learn your own sense of style and puts everything on one page where you can kind of see how one thing works with another. I maintain a Pinterest board for each room and add/delete from them pretty frequently.

eta: check your local FB groups for designer recommendations! You might be surprised at how inexpensive it can be to just pay for a couple of hours of consulting. And post here too! I know there are a few of us who love to chime in on design stuff

[lurksalot]

I really like the HOUZZ message boards, especially design dilemmas. They are really helpful, I've posted questions and have gotten great input. You can make your own Pinterest type boards and share then with people so they can see your style and preferences.
https://www.houzz.com/discussions/design-dilemma