Shelter mags have been a guilty pleasure, but lately - say past 5 yrs. - they seem to feature either extremes or bland same-same, in terms of style, as opposed to well thought out accessible designs for real life homes. I also look forward to local showhouse tours for inspiration. Because the architecture, furnishings and landscaping is mostly tailored for my locale, it's easier to incorporate ideas that work for my own home. GW kitchens/home decorating forums have helped a lot since we built one home and remodeled another. Funny thing - recently I was trying to find a kitchen from last year for someone with a cabinet color question. When I saw it again I realized I'd chosen similar counter stools for my new kitchen and had placed one at the end of my cab run with 2 framed pieces of art above it - just as had been done in that kitchen. While I've often picked up on a detail or storage idea and thought "I should do that", in this case it was not something I'd consciously noted. This tells me that even subliminally, I'm getting ideas from these forums.

I think that my biggest inspiration for my garden was a neighbor growing up. She had beautiful mixed borders with perennials, flowering trees, and shrubs. However, I was terrified of her since she didn't like kids and would yell at me for even stopping on the sidewalk to look, so I looked from a distance or as we drove by or walking slowly as a came home from school. I also have a friend that I met when I was 10 whose parents also had mixed borders with roses and crabapples and grapes and perennials. I loved their gardens as well. My grandfather, who we visited in the summer, had a rural garden of old-fashioned cottage garden plants - Hydrangeas, poppies, peonies, iris, sweet peas, violas, asparagus, quince, roses, and an apple tree. There were many more, but those are what remain in my memory, and a few remain in my garden from divisions taken after they had both died and the house was up for sale. My folks took us to the Holden Arboretum regularly and we often detoured through a cemetery with beautiful plantings, so much of what I saw trained my eye, even though I grew up in a house of non-gardeners. Now I get a lot of my inspiration from gardens I visit (I love the Open Days sponsored by the Garden Conservancy and other open garden fundraisers), on line from blogs and here on GW, and from eye candy books from the library.

It's the 'land of counterpane' for me. It's a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson involving books, and a bed. I love reading in bed, especially my decorating books, so will pile several on the bed and browse thru them for whatever inspiration I might need at the moment. I have several books written by Oklahoma designer Charles Faudree, who could make my heart sing from the very first page! His 'speciality' was French Country and since i'm also very drawn to the style, it was just a matter of time before I would 'meet' him thru his books. Unfortunately Mr. Faudree passed away a few years ago, but left us 'inspiration beyond belief' thru the pages of his books. Although he is my *very* favorite, I have a 'collection' of almost 200 books on everything from architecture to gardening, as well as eveything in between, aka, wallpaper, fabrics, hardware, antiques, landscaping, lighting, upholstery, draperies, etc. You can never have TOO many decorating books.....or magazines. ;)

See if you can find some friends or family to assist in return for assisting them with a project. Make a work date, plan on providing food and drinks and maybe put on some upbeat music. Just save the alcoholic beverages until after the power tools are put away! Sometimes it just helps to have some motivation from just watching projects get completed. Hire someone to assist or complete some tasks and take advantage of the positive energy. Some people are lots of fun to be around and they help everyone get going so if you know someone like that, figure out how to get them involved.