Pinterest can be one of the most useful tools at the beginning of an architecture or interior design project. It can also become completely overwhelming.
A board containing 600 beautiful kitchens, Mediterranean villas, Japanese bathrooms, Palm Springs houses and English cottages may tell us a lot about what you enjoy looking at — but not necessarily what you want your own home to become.
The most useful Pinterest boards are not the biggest. They are the most focused.
When used properly, Pinterest helps you communicate things that can be surprisingly difficult to put into words: how light you like a room to feel, whether you prefer warm or cool materials, how relaxed or refined you want a house to be, how much colour feels right, or the kind of indoor-outdoor connection you are drawn to.
Here is how we recommend using Pinterest as part of the design process.
Pinterest Is a Communication Tool, Not a Design Brief
The first thing to understand is that your Pinterest board does not need to contain your future house. In fact, it probably won't.
You might love the timber ceiling from one house, the window proportions from another, the landscaping from another and the relaxed atmosphere of a fourth. That is useful.
An architect or interior designer is not necessarily looking at a reference image and thinking: “We should copy this room.”
We are asking: What is it about this image that the client is responding to?
It might be:
- the amount of natural light
- the relationship to the garden
- the ceiling height
- the warm timber
- the simplicity
- the level of colour
- the joinery
- the texture
- the feeling of privacy
- the way the kitchen connects to the living room
- the landscaping
- the level of formality
That distinction is important. Pinterest should help us identify your design preferences and priorities, rather than provide a catalogue of rooms to reproduce.
Step 1: Create One Board Specifically for Your Project
Start by creating a dedicated Pinterest board for your renovation, new home or interiors project.
Give it a clear name such as Smith House — Design Inspiration or Our Lake Macquarie Renovation.
Avoid mixing the project with your general Pinterest account containing recipes, fashion, holidays and the dream house you saved eight years ago.
At Residential Studio, we generally recommend keeping the project board private while the design develops.
Step 2: Create Sections Before You Start Pinning
Don't create one enormous visual dumping ground. Create sections.
Useful sections might include:
Overall Architecture
Houses that communicate the general architectural direction you are drawn to. Think building form, roof shape, scale, material character and relationship to the landscape.
Kitchen
Cabinetry, islands, splashbacks, lighting, storage ideas and spatial arrangements.
Bathrooms
Tiles, vanities, lighting, showers, baths, tapware and overall atmosphere.
Living Spaces
Fireplaces, shelving, window arrangements, furniture relationships and material combinations.
Bedrooms
Joinery, wardrobes, window treatments, lighting and softer material references.
Exterior Materials
Cladding, brick, stone, timber, roofing and colour combinations.
Landscape + Outdoor Living
Pools, planting, courtyards, decks, outdoor kitchens, screening and connections between the house and garden.
Details
Handles, lighting, stairs, balustrades, joinery details and smaller elements you particularly like.
Colour + Material Palette
Images that communicate an overall feeling rather than a specific room. A landscape, piece of furniture or artwork can sometimes communicate your preferred combination of colours and textures more clearly than an interior photograph.
Step 3: Start Broad — Then Edit
At the beginning, give yourself permission to explore. Save things instinctively. Don't analyse every Pin. You are looking for patterns.
After a week or two, go back through the board. This is where the useful work begins.
Remove the images that no longer feel relevant.
You might discover that although you initially thought you wanted a very minimal white house, most of your saved images contain timber, stone, textured walls and substantial planting.
Or perhaps you thought you loved dark dramatic interiors, but nearly every kitchen you saved is bright, pale and connected to a garden.
The collection starts telling you something.
Step 4: Keep It Project-Specific
This is probably the most important rule.
Do not Pin everything you like. Pin things that might actually help explain this project.
You may absolutely love a six-metre-high concrete living room overlooking the Mediterranean. If you are renovating a compact suburban house in Newcastle on a realistic family budget, that image may not be particularly useful unless there is one specific aspect of it you want your designer to understand.
Perhaps it is the concrete floor. Perhaps it is the large opening to the garden. Perhaps it is the simplicity of the material palette.
Save it for that reason.
A good question to ask before saving something is: “What am I trying to show my designer with this image?”
If you cannot answer that question, you probably don't need it.
How Many Pins Do You Actually Need?
There is no magic number, but more is definitely not always better.
For an initial design discussion, approximately 30–60 well-chosen references across the entire project can communicate far more than hundreds of random images.
You might have:
- 5–10 overall architecture references
- 5 kitchen references
- 4 bathroom references
- 5 exterior material references
- 5 landscaping references
- several images for colours, details and atmosphere
The aim is not to create an exhaustive specification. It is to reveal preferences.
Your architect still needs space to interpret those preferences in response to your actual site, budget, orientation and brief.
Step 5: Pin the Feeling, Not Just the Products
Homeowners often start Pinterest by saving individual products: a tap, a pendant light, a chair, a tile.
These can certainly be useful later. But early in the architectural design process, we are often more interested in spaces and relationships.
Light
Do you like bright interiors flooded with daylight? Filtered light? Soft, calm spaces? Strong shafts of sunlight?
Connection to Landscape
Are the best rooms opening directly onto gardens? Do you like courtyards, large sliding doors, framed views or deep verandahs?
Spatial Character
Do you prefer open-plan spaces or more defined rooms? High ceilings or intimate rooms? Long views through the house? Built-in seating? Window seats?
Material Character
Do your favourite rooms contain timber, stone, brick, polished concrete, natural plaster, crisp painted walls or colourful tiles?
Mood
Does the house feel relaxed, playful, restrained, warm, colourful, coastal, earthy, minimal or highly detailed?
Those observations are often far more useful than identifying a particular sofa.
Step 6: Include Things You Don't Like
This can be surprisingly useful.
Create a small section called Not For Us.
You don't need dozens of examples. Five or six strong references can be enough.
For example:
- Too grey.
- Too minimal.
- Too much black.
- Feels too formal.
- Too much exposed timber.
- Kitchen feels too commercial.
- Don't like large expanses of glossy stone.
Understanding what a client strongly dislikes can sometimes be just as useful as understanding what they love.
Step 7: Tell Your Designer WHY You Saved Something
This is where Pinterest becomes genuinely valuable.
Don't assume your designer will interpret an image in the same way you do.
You might save a kitchen because you love the pendant lights. We might think you saved it because you love the green cabinetry. Those are two completely different conversations.
Where possible, add a brief note or discuss your strongest Pins during the design meeting.
Something as simple as:
- Love the warm timber + white combination.
- Love how this window frames the garden.
- Like the layout, not the colours.
- Love the relaxed feeling but would want lighter materials.
- Like this type of island seating.
- Too dark overall, but love the stone.
This helps us understand which part of the image matters.
Step 8: Choose Your Top 10
Before your first major design discussion, select approximately ten images that best represent the direction you want to explore.
These are your priority references.
If you and your partner are designing together, this exercise can be particularly revealing. Each person should choose their favourite five or ten and compare them.
Where do they overlap? Where are they completely different?
That conversation is useful to have before significant design decisions are made.
Step 9: Share the Board With Your Architect or Interior Designer
There are two good ways to do this.
Option 1 — Send the Board Link
For a board that your designer simply needs to review, send them the board link. This is useful when you want the designer to review your inspiration without changing the board.
Option 2 — Invite Them as a Collaborator
For a more interactive design process, invite your architect or interior designer to collaborate.
This can turn Pinterest into a genuine two-way design conversation.
The client might Pin: “Love this kitchen.”
The designer might add: “This is similar to the material direction we discussed.”
Or the architect may save a courtyard precedent that responds particularly well to the site's orientation.
That exchange is much more valuable than Pinterest being a one-sided mood board.
Step 10: Let Your Designer Add References Too
This is where collaboration becomes particularly interesting.
Your architect or interior designer will usually see things in your inspiration board that you may not consciously recognise.
Perhaps almost every image contains warm-toned oak, creamy rather than pure-white walls, green landscapes outside the windows, natural stone, curved joinery and very few overhead cupboards.
Your designer can begin adding references that strengthen those emerging themes.
This also helps bridge the gap between inspiration and your actual project.
For example, a client may love a courtyard house from Melbourne. Their own block may not suit that exact configuration. However, the architect may identify that what they really love is the protected outdoor room at the centre of the house.
That principle might then be interpreted differently to suit a sloping Lake Macquarie site, a narrow Newcastle block or a family renovation on the Central Coast.
This is design. It is not copying the reference. It is understanding the idea behind it.
Pinterest Cannot Replace Your Site
A beautiful image does not know:
- where north is on your block
- where the afternoon summer sun comes from
- where your neighbour's windows are
- which direction the prevailing breeze arrives from
- where the best view is
- how steep the land is
- what planning controls apply
- where existing trees sit
- how your family moves through the house
- what you can realistically afford to build
Good residential design combines inspiration with these realities.
For example, you might Pin a living room with enormous west-facing glazing because the photograph looks beautiful. On your site, reproducing that idea without proper shading could create significant summer heat gain.
The architectural response might therefore preserve the large opening and relationship to the garden, while changing its orientation, depth, glazing specification or shading strategy.
Pinterest supplies inspiration. Architecture turns that inspiration into something that works.
Don't Try to Design the Whole House on Pinterest
One of the traps of design platforms is the temptation to assemble the project yourself: this kitchen + this bathroom + this façade + this staircase + this floor plan.
The result can easily become a collection of individually attractive ideas that don't form a coherent building.
A successful home needs a much stronger underlying structure. We need to think about orientation, circulation, room relationships, privacy, structure, ceiling heights, services, storage, views, landscaping, thermal comfort, budget, planning requirements and how materials transition from one space to another.
Pinterest is excellent for communicating preferences. It is less useful when it becomes a shopping list of unrelated design elements.
Pinterest Boards Should Evolve With the Project
Your inspiration board does not need to remain frozen after the first meeting. In fact, it shouldn't.
Early Design
Architecture, atmosphere, layout ideas, light and landscape.
Concept Design
Building materials, kitchen character, window treatments and key joinery ideas.
Design Development
Tiles, stone, joinery, lighting, fittings and details.
Interior Selection
Specific materials, colours, furniture, fixtures and styling.
The board gradually moves from broad emotional references toward more precise decisions.
A Simple Residential Studio Pinterest Structure
If you are starting a project tomorrow, we recommend creating:
- 01 — Architecture
- 02 — Kitchen
- 03 — Living + Dining
- 04 — Bathrooms
- 05 — Bedrooms + Joinery
- 06 — Materials + Colours
- 07 — Landscape + Outdoor Living
- 08 — Details
- 09 — Not For Us
- 10 — Top 10
That is enough.
You do not need separate boards for every tiny decision at the beginning.
Keep it simple. Keep it relevant. And keep asking: What am I trying to communicate with this image?
What This Means for Your Project
Before meeting with your architect or interior designer:
- Create one project-specific Pinterest board.
- Divide it into clear sections.
- Save approximately 30–60 useful references, rather than hundreds.
- Focus on spaces, light, materials, landscape and atmosphere — not just products.
- Add a small Not For Us section.
- Identify approximately 10 priority images.
- Write short notes explaining what you actually like about your strongest references.
- Share the board link or invite your designer to collaborate.
- Allow the board to evolve as the design becomes more detailed.
- Remember that the board communicates preferences — it does not replace the architectural design process.
Residential Studio Perspective
We like Pinterest because clients don't need architectural vocabulary to use it.
You don't need to know whether something is travertine, limewash, expressed structure or a clerestory window.
You can simply show us an image and say: “I like how this feels.”
Our job is then to understand why.
The most useful boards are often surprisingly consistent once you look at them carefully. Certain colours repeat. The same types of windows appear. Rooms open to gardens in similar ways. Materials recur.
Those patterns help us understand a client quickly.
The next step is translating them into a home that responds to the actual site, family, climate, budget and planning constraints.
That is where inspiration becomes architecture.
Planning a Renovation or New Home?
Start collecting the ideas that genuinely matter to you.
When we begin working together, Residential Studio can help translate those references into a clear architectural direction that works for your site, family and budget.
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SEO title: How to Use Pinterest With Your Architect
Meta description: Learn how to create, organise and share a useful Pinterest inspiration board with your architect or interior designer before your home project.
Primary keyword: how to use Pinterest with an architect
Secondary keywords: Pinterest board for home renovation; architect inspiration board; interior design Pinterest board; how to brief an architect; home design inspiration; Pinterest renovation ideas
Suggested URL slug: /how-to-use-pinterest-with-your-architect
Internal Link Opportunities
- What to Expect in Your First Meeting With an Architect
- How to Write a Brief for Your New Home
- Why Good Floor Plans Matter
- The Dream Home Starter Guide
- Residential Studio Design Consultation
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Three Image Concepts
Image 1 — Hero
An architect or homeowner sitting at a light timber kitchen table with a laptop open to a refined residential inspiration board, architectural drawings and material samples nearby. Natural Australian daylight, crisp whites, warm timber, stone, indoor planting and a calm contemporary interior.
Image 2 — Educational / Detail
A beautifully organised project inspiration composition showing individual architectural references grouped under themes such as Architecture, Kitchen, Materials, Landscape and Details. Include timber, natural stone, white finishes, muted green, landscape references and small architectural sketches.
Image 3 — Lifestyle / Spatial
A sophisticated Australian kitchen and living space opening to a densely planted garden. Warm timber joinery, natural stone, large openings, crisp neutral walls and subtle colour. The image should demonstrate light, materials, spatial relationship, landscape and atmosphere rather than decorative objects alone.
Content Cluster
Instagram Carousel
- Using Pinterest for your renovation? Don't just save everything you like.
- Create ONE board for your actual project.
- Create sections: Architecture / Kitchen / Bathrooms / Materials / Landscape / Details.
- Don't just Pin products. Pin how spaces feel — light, proportion, materials, openings, gardens and room relationships.
- Tell your designer WHY: “Love the window.” “Like the layout, not the colours.” “Love the timber + stone combination.”
- Create a Not For Us section.
- Choose your Top 10.
- Pinterest provides the inspiration. Good design translates it into something that works for your site, family, climate and budget.
Instagram Caption
Pinterest is incredibly useful when you're planning a renovation or new home — but only if you use it with some discipline.
A board with 600 completely unrelated houses doesn't necessarily give your architect a clear brief.
Instead, create one board specifically for your project. Organise it into Architecture, Kitchen, Bathrooms, Materials, Landscape and Details. Then start looking for patterns.
Are you constantly saving warm timber? Large openings to gardens? Pale stone? Smaller cosy spaces? High ceilings? Lots of planting?
And when an image really matters, tell your designer why.
“Love the windows.”
“Love the material combination, not the layout.”
“Too dark overall, but love the stone.”
That little bit of context can completely change how we interpret an image.
Finally, select your Top 10 references.
Pinterest doesn't need to design your house. It simply needs to help you communicate what you're drawn to.
The architect's job is to translate those ideas into something that works for your actual site, family, climate, planning constraints and budget.
Reel — 30–45 Seconds
Opening: “If you're starting a renovation, don't send your architect a Pinterest board with 700 random images.”
Show a fast scroll through an overwhelming inspiration board.
Then: “Instead, create one board specifically for your project.”
Show sections: Architecture. Kitchen. Materials. Landscape. Details.
“Don't just save pretty rooms. Look at light, materials, how rooms connect, windows, gardens and the overall feeling.”
Then: “Tell your architect what you actually like.”
On-screen examples: LOVE THE WINDOWS / LIKE THE MATERIALS, NOT THE COLOURS / THIS FEELS TOO DARK
Finish: “Pick your Top 10. That's usually far more useful than 500 Pins.”
End frame: Pinterest gives us the clues. Architecture turns them into your home.
Pinterest is often dismissed as a collection of pretty pictures, but used properly it can be an extremely effective architectural briefing tool.
The key is not the number of images a client collects. It is understanding the pattern behind them.
We may notice that almost every reference contains warm timber, indirect natural light, garden views and relatively restrained interiors — even when the client hasn't consciously identified those preferences.
The useful question isn't: “How can we reproduce this house?”
It is: “What is the client responding to in this image?”
That opens a much more productive design conversation.
The architect can then interpret those preferences against the real constraints of orientation, climate, topography, privacy, planning, structure and budget.
Angle: Before Your First Design Meeting, Try This
Pinterest can be a brilliant way to communicate what you want from your home — particularly when you don't know the architectural terminology for it.
But more Pins aren't necessarily better.
This guide shows how to create a project-specific board, what to save, how to organise it, what not to save and how to share it with your architect or interior designer.
The most important tip? When you really love an image, explain why.
That small piece of information can tell your designer far more than the picture itself.
Free Resource Opportunity
The Residential Studio Pinterest Starter Template
A one-page client checklist:
Create These Sections
Before Your Design Meeting
This could become a companion download to the Dream Home Starter Guide.
Related Future Blog Ideas
- How to Write a Really Useful Brief for Your Architect
- Your First Architect Meeting: What Should You Bring?
- How Architects Turn Inspiration Into an Original Home
- 10 Things to Notice When Looking at Houses Online
- How to Choose an Interior Style Without Locking Yourself Into a Trend
- Why Your Site Should Influence Your Interior Design
- How to Create a Material Palette That Works Throughout Your Home
- Renovating as a Couple: How to Agree on a Design Direction
- Mood Board vs Material Board vs Pinterest Board: What's the Difference?
- From Pinterest to Floor Plan: How an Architect Interprets Your Ideas
Planning a new home or renovation?
email us directly ✉️ hi@residentialstudiuo.com.au
