Lots of people write in for ideas. They want ideas on what to paint their walls. What color they should paint their cabinets. What to paint in their dining room. While we LOVE helping people it’s really hard to tell someone else what to paint on their walls for a number of reasons.
#1 – We aren’t THERE. We can’t see your home and get a feel for your tastes and likes and how the light comes in the windows and what the accessories look like. Those are all things you consider when you’re going to paint a room. We often look for colors in the things in the room. The bedspread, the couch, the paintings…
And #2 – If someone writes in and says, “Hey – I want to paint my son’s room. ” I can easily shoot back an answer. Let’s say….PURPLE! But what if the boy’s room is decorated with denim and southwestern style furniture. ?! Purple isn’t really gonna end up looking right. And YOU won’t be real happy with us. Lol! We really dislike it when people aren’t real happy with us. Really…dislike. 
So…where do you get inspired? Friends houses? Your mom? Magazines? Do you need inspiration? Don’t hesitate to ask, but it would help if you include pictures. So we can see what’s going on in the room…near the room…around the room. But we aren’t you’re only source of inspiration. Nope…there are lots of places WE go to for inspiration. Yes, even we need to be inspired now and then. 
What do we do? We almost ALWAYS go to book stores and look through the books on painting rooms. Design books, kids rooms, faux finishing books, mural books, trompe l’oeil books. They are all CHALK FULL of GREAT ideas!
Another place is in your kids books. You love ‘em. They love ‘em. Why not look to them for inspiration? Debra chose a kids room mural that she painted for the local woman’s shelter by looking through books and combining ideas. It’s really such a great way to get inspired. Don’t you think that giraffe is adorable? She found it in a book! Here’s part of her story:
“I stripped wallpaper for a few days before I could paint. They originally couldn’t get the wallpaper to stick on the walls at the shelter, so the gals used Super Glue to paste up the wallpaper. You might think that was a good idea until it needed to be stripped. The wallpaper came of in tiny little bits. What a mess! Horrible horrible mess…”
Can you imagine? Gads…
It was a cool job… click on Giraffe Mural to see all the pictures of this room that Debra painted at the shelter as one of her annual volunteer/donation jobs. They’re fun and one of them you might recognize!
Where do you go for inspiration?
