If you are planning to build, renovate, or remodel your home, we think it’s an excellent idea to gather home design inspiration. We know how hard it can be to imagine all the details clearly in your mind. This can help you “see” your ideas so you can create a beautiful and functional home.
Design inspiration is truly everywhere! It’s in the details of everyday objects, in the beauty of nature or a breathtaking sunset, and in scenes from your favorite city. You can get ideas for your next home project from just about anywhere. However, you need a way to capture and gather them all into one place.
There are a number of tools you can use if you are thinking seriously about building, renovating, or remodeling your home. However, in this post, I will discuss two of the most popular options – Houzz vs Pinterest. I’ll give you an in-depth look at both of these tools so you can choose the best one for you!
What is Pinterest?
You’re probably familiar with Pinterest, but in case you haven’t heard of it or haven’t ever used it before, I will give you a mini introduction.
Pinterest is a very helpful tool to gather and organize ideas. Basically, it is a visual bookmarking platform. You can think of it as a search engine, like Google, but with fewer words and far more pictures.
Pinterest has become our mobile collection of visual inspiration with a bunch of room inspiration boards we have saved. We also use it to gather historical precedents and specific architects’ works that inspire us and motivate us. You can follow us there if you are looking for home inspiration.
Inside Pinterest, you can browse millions of images inside Pinterest (which are known as Pins). Do this by typing different keywords into Pinterest’s search feature. Then, save these images (Pins) onto Boards. You can also save images to Pinterest from other places, such as your favorite websites and blogs. By ‘pinning’ images into one place, you can create a collection of images on one topic (for example, your next residential project).
What is Houzz?
Houzz.com is a website and app dedicated to residential architecture. The platform helps you gather inspiration for your next house project, find pros, and discover home products. It generally doesn’t have other types of buildings, such as office spaces, retail, commercial buildings, etc. Houzz is focused exclusively on home renovation and design.
In our own experience, Houzz is a design inspiration tool we have used a lot as a way to discovery high-quality residential design content. Follow us there for more inspiration and project updates.
We like it best for its advanced search features. You can select your search criteria, and then browse photographs of completed projects. You can save these images into Houzz Ideabooks. Often, you can browse more photos or different angles of the same residential project, which can help give you a complete picture of the building project. Generally all of the photos in Houzz show built or planned projects.
A quick comparison of Houzz vs Pinterest:
Houzz and Pinterest are two of the fastest-growing platforms that offer a lot to homeowners and designers. Both websites have an app and web version, so you can seamlessly browse on your phone or computer. Both platforms are free to use, but you will need to create an account. You can save an unlimited number of images to your inspiration board. You can create multiple boards for different rooms or areas of your home project. Lastly, you can set your boards to be public or private (which are visible only to you when logged in). Whether your boards are public or private, you can share them with your designer.
“I can’t decide! Houzz vs Pinterest? Which one should I use?”
We do recommend sticking to ONE platform so that you can keep your ideas in one place. If you are trying to decide which one is the best for you, here’s our breakdown.
We recommend Pinterest for:
- You are inspired by all kinds of sources, from architecture and art, to food, typography, fabric materials, travel destinations, and more. Pinterest covers a wider range of topics. Thus, it is the ideal place to save images from all kinds of creative sources. The images you pin don’t necessarily need to show buildings, homes, or interior spaces. You can choose any image with an aesthetic that embodies how you’d like your home to look and feel. By contrast, on Houzz, you can’t save external images or source of inspiration from outside of Houzz.
- If you already use Pinterest for other purposes (to pin recipes, fashion, wedding, or travel ideas), then we recommend sticking with what you know and like!
- According to statistics, women are the biggest demographic of users on Pinterest; women tend to enjoy using Pinterest a bit more than Houzz. (But don’t let that stop you from using either site!)
- Pinterest is best for gathering big picture ideas, future DIY projects, home decor inspo, and educational posts.
We recommend Houzz for:
- Houzz is a more focused environment which is focused primarily on residential home design and remodeling. It is the perfect place for you if… you prefer looking at built residential spaces for ideas. In other words, you should use Houzz if you don’t want to be distracted by other types of images and you want photos directly related to residential architecture.
- You want to take advantage of the advanced search features inside Houzz to narrow down photos by room type, design style, room size, project budget, etc.. and then save them into Houzz ideabooks.
- You like to see different angles of a room or other photos from the same residential project. By contrast, on Pinterest, usually the images are standalone (or ‘deadend’), so if you like a space, you often can’t find more details about the project.
- Houzz is a place where home professionals post their work, including architects, builders, landscape architects, photographers, home stylists, artisans, and more. If you need to hire a local professional to assist with the project, you can consult reviews of a company or design professional and see their past work.
A Final Note!
As an architectural designer, I am constantly gathering inspiration for my own projects and for my clients’ projects while browsing books in the library, reading design blogs and online architecture news, and simply walking around my favorite European cities with my husband (who is also an architect!). Besides inspiration sources in my daily life, I have always tended to go to Houzz more often when in need of beautiful, functional residential design.
However, our clients seem to be evenly split – about 50% prefer to use Pinterest and about 50% turn to Houzz when coming up with examples of the homes, rooms, and ideas they like. You can’t go wrong with either choice! Both of these home design inspiration tools are popular among their respective user bases.
Our final opinion on Houzz vs Pinterest? Houzz is the best tool for homeowners when it comes to realistic, high-quality design solutions for specific situations, while Pinterest is ideal for big picture vision and design planning.
I’m an architectural designer passionate about residential design, classical architecture, & architectural history. Together with my husband Dmitriy, we help busy families and couples with residential designs, extensions, renovations, and new builds. My goal is to help you stop feeling overwhelmed about your home & start designing the life you’ve always wanted. Read our full story here!