10 Creative Ways To Find Inspiration For Your New Home

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If you’re in the market for a new home you’ve likely just begun thinking about the endless different possibilities of features, inclusions and finishes that you can have included with your new construction project.

This is it: your opportunity to delve back into your old, creative childhood ways. Go out there, pick up some architecture and interior design magazines, and explore the nicest suburbs you can find to generate some creative ideas. Then, take everything you’ve collected, choose only the most appealing finishes and inclusions that you love the most, and apply them to your new home.

With that said, what are 9 creative ways to get inspiration for a new home?

Some examples you might like to try:

1. Explore the fancy suburbs near your home
2. Visit display homes built by new home builders
3. Reading books & magazines on architecture, homes, and interior design
4. Visit Home show exhibits
5. Google image search
6. Realestate.com.au & Property.com.au home listings
7. Ask Friends & Family
8. Search Pinterest
9. Use Artificial Intelligence (AI) services like Chat GPT, DALL-E or Midjourney
10. Participate in the Foresight Home Planning HomeVision program

With that said, let’s dig a little deeper into each of these ideas mentioned above so you can really get the most out of them. And when you begin finding all sorts of inspiration you love, save it to your free IdeaDrop account.

Explore the Fancy Suburbs Near Your Home

We’ve all driven through that local expensive suburb at least once in our lives, I’m sure you know where it is and if you don’t, you only need to ask some friends or parents in which direction to head.

For me, I live in QLD Australia which means I’m lucky enough to be only a short distance away from some of the nicest homes in the state which are located on Sovereign islands within the suburb Paradise Point.

Occasionally what I’ll do is pop out there for a bit of an explore, driving each of the streets slowly (probably annoying the locals) just observing the beautiful homes and really taking in the creativity that these homes radiate.

I always make sure to grab a quick photo of any homes that I really love as that’s some perfect inspiration that I can use when I’m ready to build my next home.

Here’s one in particular built over several blocks of land in Runaway Bay that I just can’t get enough of.

Also, if you’re wondering where you can store all the inspirational photos you gather that you’d like to use for your new home, you might like to check out our free IdeaDrop tool which allows you to save all of your new home inspirational notes and images in one easy to access location.

Visit Display Homes Built By New Home Builders

Another option for you to consider is tracking down your local display home village and then exploring each of the individual homes.  

These homes are typically great for finding inspiration, as the builders spend a bucket load of time planning these homes before they’re built. This helps to ensure they include many great ideas and quirky features throughout, as they aim to create a point of difference from their competitors.

Remember to take your phone, and don’t hesitate to pull it out at any moment to capture anything you like that you would love to include in your new home when it’s built.

Display homes are one of the best ways to find inspiration for your new home as they really help to get those creative juices flowing.

While you’re exploring the display village homes make it your duty to capture at least one picture for each of the following categories to ensure you have a comprehensive collection of inspo images stored for later on:

• Kitchen benchtops, sink & cabinetry
• Floor tiles
• Something quirky (try to find 4 different quirky things)
• Facade
• Bathroom cabinetry, basin & mixer tap
• Shower screen
• Front door
• Feature internal door
• Laundry
• Feature Window
• Ceiling fan
• Feature ceiling
• Mudroom
• Alfresco

Remember, only take pics when you love what you see and want to have it included in your new home. We’ll store these pics in your IdeaDrop so they’re easy to access when you begin speaking with a builder.

Reading Books & Magazines On Architecture, Homes, and Interior Design

The opportunities within this section really are endless, with just a quick Google search for ‘Architecture books’ I’m provided with 2,310,000,000 results…. 😬

Yep, that’s 2.3 billion, lucky for us we don’t need to sift through all of these.

All we really want to do here is find two or so books about various different subjects relating to new homes and order them. Try to find books with lots of images so you can visualise what interesting ideas others have come up with.

Let’s start with two about architecture and two about interior design.

Order these, have them delivered and take the time to slowly work your way through each book looking for inspiration that you can bake into your new home.

Remember to take notes! (IdeaDrop can help with this).

The other option here is to shoot down your local news agency and look for some magazines that relate to new homes in some form or another.

Make sure to pick up two to four magazines as you never know which one is going to have the next great piece of inspiration for your new home.

Don’t worry about the cost, set a budget of $150 for this exercise because you never know when one little idea might prompt an idea that you end up loving about your new home when it’s built.

The idea here is to see what other people are doing and then put your own spin on it and add it to the recipe that goes into making your new home. Save everything neat you find within your IdeaDrop account so it’s ready to share with your builder when the time is right.

Visit Home Show Exhibits

At least once a year there’s a Home Show hosted at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, which has an array of different home-related businesses displaying their various products and services.

If you currently live in one of the other Australian states you’ll find that there’s a home show just for you as per the following list:

Victoria (VIC) – Melbourne Home Show

New South Wales (NSW) – Sydney home Show

South Australia (SA) – Home Show + Outdoor Living & Master Builders Home Show

Tasmania (TAS) – Tassie Build Expo

Western Australia (WA) – Perth Home Show

Northern Territory (NT) – Sorry couldn’t find details for a show in this state, happy to update this article if there’s an active home show in the NT.

Australian Capital Territory (ACT) – The ShowRoom Canberra

Queensland (QLD) – Brisbane Home Show

While visiting your local home show remember to take photos of anything you’d like to have your builder include in your new home. Remember, you don’t need a builder yet, at this point in your journey you are just gathering ideas and storing them in your IdeaDrop account for later on when you have a builder to share all of this information with.

Google Image Search

We all use Google basically every day to answer the variety of curious questions our brains conjure up so why not also ask it to show us all of the different images it has relating to home designs and home inclusions?

You’re sure to find a handful of different ideas for your new home, and after a quick look myself you don’t even need to come up with any tricky search queries to be presented with some really nice examples.

Here are a few search terms you might like to try out for yourself:

• Kitchens
• Bathrooms
• Powder Rooms
• Lounge Rooms
• Dining Rooms
• Home Offices
• Fire Places
• Facade’s
• Alfresco’s
• Robes
• Timber Flooring
• Floor Tiles
• Internal Home Lighting
• External Home Lighting

What you can also do is further refine these home-related search terms mentioned above by adding an adjective first, try some of the following examples to further refine the new home inspiration results that Google provides you:

• Modern
• Unique
• Relaxing
• Large
• Small
• Opulent
• Feature

Now we’re getting somewhere, and now you’re on track to really craft a new home that’s tailored to your individual taste. Keep adding your favourite findings to your IdeaDrop so its all neat and tidy in one easy-to-find location.

Realestate.com.au & Property.com.au Home Listings

Fancy yourself as a bit of an online sleuth?

Ever see a home out in the wild and wonder what it looks like inside?

Oh, what’s that… no you don’t ever do that….

Oops must be just me.

But guess what, it’s actually a really cool way that you can use to find inspiration for your new home.

What I do when I’ve seen a home out and about that I like is, I’ll snap a picture of it there and then so I can look into it later.

When I get home I open Google Maps and find the house in question, Google will then tell me what the address is and from there I can drop the address into Property.com.au.

If the home has been listed for sale at some point in the past, all of the images from those previous for-sale listings can still be readily accessed for anyone to review.

The alternative option that you can do here which ties into my comments above about driving through Sovereign Island looking at all the insane custom homes is that I can also just type ‘Sovereign Island Homes’ into Google and that first link will show me all the homes on the island that are currently for sale.

From there I can look at each individual listing and find some inspiration for my new home that way too.

WARNING: It’s super easy to waste a good hour drooling over some really nice homes so only browse these homes on Sovereign Island when you’ve got some spare time to burn.

I wanted to insert the ‘3 hours later’ meme here but I think it might be copyright protected. 😑

Ask Friends & Family

Who best to turn to for advice than those you know closely who have built a new home in the past?

You’re effectively walking down a road for the first time that those friends have already walked. So not only will these people be able to give you some cool ideas for your new home, but they’ll also be able to tell you about their regrets and the variables they overlooked which you can then use to make sure you don’t experience the same post build pains as they’ve experienced.

Some questions you might ask these friends and family members might be:

• What are three things that bug you about your new home that you could have prevented if you were aware of them while planning your home?
• What were the three hardest things you had to deal with while building a new home?
• What three tips could you give me regarding ideas and inspiration for my new home?
• Looking back on the experience of building your new home, is there anything you’d do differently?

Now the most important thing to do once you’ve collected that critical feedback from your friends and family is to ensure you’ve got it documented somewhere so you don’t forget about it. If you haven’t got yourself a free Foresight Home Planning account yet, go get one so you get started saving ideas and learning about new homes by beginning to make progress through our free Preliminary Education content which was designed to get you ready for your journey of planning and building your new home.

Search Pinterest

Well, if it isn’t the pièce de resistance.

The ultimate place you can go searching for new home inspo with what seems to be a never-ending ability to scroll.

You can use Pinterest to create folders that house all of your favourite images however, just like the rest of us, you’ll soon find these folders contain so many images it’s no longer feasible to do anything with them.

This is why I believe it’s time to start thinking of Pinterest as more of a “this is everything I think is cool” image storage location. Then, you’ll need a separate space to narrow those images down to your top three to five ideas for each part of your home. These are the ideas you truly want a builder to incorporate into your new home contract.

There’s no point saving eighty great Kitchen images and then asking your builder to interpret them into your new home quote.

You need to take those eighty images and boil it right down to just the broth (your favourites).

The broth is what’s left when you’ve culled all the images you can’t actually see being a part of the home that you live your day to day in.

The broth is what you show your builder, this is what they use to replicate your dream inspiration into your own personal home.

And the place to store the broth is in your personal IdeaDrop account.

I’ve created some example Pinterest folders to help get the ball rolling, all you need to do is figure out which folders connect with you the most and then transfer your favourite images across to your free IdeaDrop account so they’re ready to share with your builder.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Services Like Chat GPT, DALL-E or Midjourney

Let’s dive into how you can harness the power of AI to draw inspiration for your new home, even if you’re not familiar with these innovative tools.

Firstly, there’s Chat GPT, an intelligent chatbot that you can converse with as if you were talking to a friend. You simply type in questions or describe what you’re looking for in your dream home and then wait a few seconds for the response. For example, you might say, “I want a kitchen that’s modern but feels warm, how can I achieve this?,” and then Chat GPT will use its vast knowledge base to help you determine what you need to achieve your goal. It acts like a brainstorming partner, helping you to define and expand upon your ideas.

Next, we have DALL-E, an AI that can create images from text descriptions. Imagine you’ve got an idea for a cozy reading nook with a bay window and a view of the mountains. You describe this scene to DALL-E: “a reading nook with a plush armchair, a bay window, and mountain views at sunset.” DALL-E then generates an image for you, providing a visual starting point that you can show to a builder or architect.

Midjourney stands as a more advanced iteration of DALL-E, equipped to handle complex and specific creative prompts. Unlike DALL-E, which can spin up a range of creative visuals from simple descriptions, Midjourney shines when you ask it to detail the entire scene. For example, you can say, “Design a home office that merges a minimalist aesthetic with avant-garde art, featuring a geometric desk, abstract paintings, ambient lighting, and a panoramic window overlooking a Zen garden.” With the right recipe of prompts, Midjourney can take this detailed request and craft photo-realistic images, providing you with precise and tangible visualizations of potential spaces in your home.

By leveraging the nuanced capabilities of Midjourney, you are empowered to move beyond general concepts to a well-defined vision. This level of detail enables you to communicate with builders and designers with a clarity that ensures your new home truly reflects your unique style and preferences. The journey from the seed of an idea to a photo-realistic image of your future home is seamless, providing a visual blueprint for the reality you’re looking to create. With such powerful tools at your disposal, you’re not just planning a home; you’re previewing the future of your living space.

By using Chat GPT for idea development, DALL-E for visual representation, and Midjourney for exploring highly detailed photo-realistic imagery, you’re equipped with a suite of tools to inspire your new home’s design before you even speak with a builder.

As always, you can then take these images and save them to your IdeaDrop account so they’re readily accessible whenever you need them.

Participate In The Foresight Home Planning HomeVision Program

As the founder of Foresight Home Planning, I am excited to lead you through our HomeVision Program, an essential and transformative tool designed to unlock the full potential of your new home. Stage 1 of the program is meticulously crafted to prepare you for the road ahead. We delve into the essentials of dealing with builders, understanding how variations work, and navigating the intricacies of the building process. This stage is about empowering you with knowledge and confidence, ensuring you’re well-prepared for the conversations and decisions to come.

Stage 2 is where we capture the essence of what you truly need and desire in your new home. Here, we ask the right questions at the right times, presenting you with options for your home that are often overlooked. It’s about discovering those unique elements that transform a house into your home. This stage is thoughtfully designed to explore possibilities you might not have considered, ensuring that your final plan overlooks nothing. With each step, you’ll find yourself better equipped to articulate your vision, making sure nothing important is missed. By completing the HomeVision Program, you’ll not only have defined a vision for your new home but also a deeper understanding of how to make it a reality.

After completing our HomeVision Program and meeting the financial and land ownership prerequisites, you’re ready to step into our BuilderConnect program. This is where your vision starts to materialize. BuilderConnect links you with a local builder who is not only highly skilled but also perfectly suited to bring your dream home to life. We carefully select a builder who is most suitable for your project, based on your specific requirements and the unique details outlined in your HomeVision summary. This ensures that the builder we match you with is not only of the highest quality but also perfectly attuned to your vision and needs.

In BuilderConnect, the detailed summary you created in HomeVision links with your IdeaDrop content and becomes the foundation for the builder’s work. This ensures a seamless transition from concept to construction, with a builder who understands and aligns with your vision. It’s a crucial phase where your ideas begin to take physical shape, guided by masters of their trade. At Foresight Home Planning, we strive to make this journey smooth and rewarding, and BuilderConnect is a key part of that journey.

Signing Off: Dream Homes Await

So there you have it, ten diverse ways to spark inspiration for your new home. If you found this guide helpful, please share it on your socials – it could be just the nudge someone else in your situation needs to discover us too.

If you’re seeking a space to organize and nurture your new home inspirations, our IdeaDrop tool is tailor-made for this very purpose. And remember, at Foresight Home Planning, we’re not just about tools; we’re here to actively participate in your journey. We’d be thrilled to play a role in helping you discover and craft the vision of your dream home.

That wraps it up for me. I wish you all the best in creating your new home. May your journey be fulfilling and lead you to the dream home you envision.

**Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is based on publicly available information. While we strive to ensure the accuracy of this content, Foresight Home Planning Pty Ltd does not guarantee the completeness or reliability of the information. This article is intended for entertainment purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. Foresight Home Planning does not accept liability for any loss, expenses or damage incurred as a result of reliance on the information contained herein. Readers are advised to conduct their own research and seek professional advice before making any decisions related to property purchases, contracts with builders or investments.

*¹: Terms and conditions apply. Registered users of our service must complete our HomeVision program and subsequently join our BuilderConnect program to be eligible for Foresight Home Planning to find you a builder in your local area. Please read our FAQ page for further details.