Love where you live. Sign up for our newsletter

Decorator’s Folder

by on Sep 25, 2008

Martha has a ‘Doh! That’s-so-obvious-why-didn’t-I think-of-it’ idea
for keeping track of your decorating stuff. The decorator’s folder.
What you do is keep swatches of paint, fabric and carpet in a folder.
Revolutionary! Martha suggests a small accordion file but you could go
crazy and have a file for each room.

Two hands opening a small transparent cloth organizer on a tan desk.

Taking the idea and running with it I have added:

  • Window measurements in both metric and imperial (cause my maths is lousy)
  • Room measurements (ditto)
  • Pictures and dimensions of each major piece of furniture.
  • Pictures of the whole room from a few different angles… I know it’s a teeny bit obsessive.
  • LOTS of paint chips. if you don’t have sample’s of your upholstery
    fabric or you’re working with pre-existing carpet (and you can’t just
    chop a bit out!) Then you can match the colours with paint chips (make
    sure you match them in daylight).
  • ‘Aspirational’ images. As in, the stuff I want  but can’t afford;
    that way if I happen upon a near-as-dammit or something hackable I can
    snap it up. 

I update it fairly regularly so it doesn’t get so heavy that it
acquires it’s own gravity. The real trick is remembering to take it
with you when you’re shopping for house stuff.