One of the most useful tools I’ve found online in the past year has been Houzz.com.
Although I can’t say I like the double “zz” in the name, the information accessible on the site and the tools it provides are really fantastic.
The site is a photo sharing site for interior design professionals to showcase their work. It is indexed by city, by room type, and by style, so for instance in the picture at left – I picked “Kitchen” and “Vancouver” in the menus and very quickly get some great looking photos to help me with ideas for a new design. It’s a great way to get a sense for what’s possible, and what elements I might like to use in a particular design. If you take the trouble to create an account on the site (this is mine) you can even save the pictures you like to an “ideabook” so you can look at them again later, or email a link to share with others. Here is an ideabook about bamboo cabinets: magazine clipping for the 21st century!
You can bring up a live version of the picture above using this link:
http://www.houzz.com/photos/kitchen/vancouver
Also – if you’ve got an iPad, Houzz.com offers a free app for browsing all of the photos from the site, as well as your ideabooks, and wow the pictures look stunning on an iPad.