Does finding the inspiration for decorating the rooms in your home take you more time than actually decorating the room? It's not uncommon to put off decorating because you don't know where to start. The problem is you haven't found the inspiration.

Finding decorating inspiration doesn't need to be as difficult as it seems. Inspiration is all around you. The key to this kind of decorating is finding an item that you really love and using it as your inspiration. Here are some ways to use an inspiration piece in your home decorating.

Draw Decorating Inspiration from the Colors in the Piece

If you have a piece that you really love such as old china, start with the colors in that piece as your dining room decorating inspiration. If your china has a colorful print, pick one of the colors as your wall color. This accomplishes two things. It will complement your china and draw attention to it. It will also give the room its basic color and you can begin to decorate the rest of the room around that color.

If you need to, use a color wheel to find your wall color's complements. That way, if for example you choose green as your wall color, you won't be tempted to use green for everything else in the room. By using the colors in your decorating inspiration piece, you will be pleased with how quickly choosing the rest of the items for the room will be.

Draw Decorating Inspiration from Framed Art

This idea works great in any room, but it especially works well in decorating a child's bedroom. If you have some prints of cars, boats, and airplanes, it's easy to find decorating inspiration in those prints. You can plan a whole room around a transportation theme.

Get a throw rug shaped like a car, paint some stoplights and yield signs on the walls, and change out the knobs on the furniture to car, boats and airplanes.

A word of caution, too much of a good theme can be a bad thing. Don't overdo it. You want the theme of the room to be fun, but not overwhelming. Try choosing a solid color comforter or curtains in a color from your original decorating inspiration print to complement your theme.

The inspiration for decorating your home is probably already within its walls. You can take your favorite comforter and build your bedroom around it. Have you gone on vacation and brought home some interesting souvenirs that can be used as inspiration in decorating your home? Perhaps you've brought home some southwestern pottery that can be used as decorating inspiration. Perhaps you've brought home some pieces from a trip to Europe that can really inspire you.

Your inspiration may already be in the room it's waiting to inspire or it may be burred in a basement or attic. Spend some time going through your old treasures and see if there is any inspiration there. Once you find your home decorating inspiration, doing the actual decorating should follow easily.