Retail Inspiration: Window and Floor Displays

I always have my phone on me and I'm always snapping pictures of inspirations I see while out and about. One of the most common places that I found inspiration is at the shopping mall. Window displays can host a number of great decorative ideas, DIY art projects and other inspirations for the home. I first mentioned this back in December when I saw lots of great DIY holiday decorations while shopping at Gap.

Below is the current Anthropologie window display at our mall.
I love the idea of using paint and canvases to recreate the wall art. I even really like the aqua blue wall, although I don't have a place in my house to paint a wall that color. I need some wall art in our upstairs hallway between the guest bath and laundry room and I have two decent sized canvases just ready and waiting to be painted.

Anthropologie has always been where I find some of my best inspiration, however it's not always the most budget-friendly. Because of that I try my best to find alternative solutions or create my own 'look for less' based on my favorite Anthro pieces. Anthro definitely has some great, innovative ideas for home decor and styling. I rely on them mainly to purchase decorative accents in our home, and use their store displays and other larger pieces as inspiration for DIY home projects. The floor displays at Anthro are some of the coolest, most innovative displays and I always wish my home looked like an Anthro store.

I mentioned once before how I wanted to replicate the fabric rope canopy in the below picture. My sewing machine and I have yet to make friends, so that project is on hold for a bit. With the right colors, the other fabric display would be a great holiday decor accent piece as well.

This ladder shows a very cool way to display dishes in a rustic dining room. This idea cold even be used to store and display liquor, glasses and barware accessories. Lots of estate sales actually have old vintage ladders (I've seen them at Goodeals, too) along with other miscellaenous old tools. The shelves are simply made of scrap wood.

Of course, you would need to make sure that your ladder wasn't so vintage that it's shaky or uneven. And the plywood needs to be substantial so that it doesn't bend under the weight of the dishes. The last thing you would want is for your good dishes, glasses or even (yikes) booze to come crashing to the floor. The wood would definitely need to be secured to the ladder rungs.

This vintage mirrored wall art could be super easy to duplicate by simply picking up some various sized mirrors from thrift stores or estate sales. I'm trying to find a place in our house to recreate this fun mirror collage.

An inexpensive Ikea TV stand could be used to recreate this awesome storage piece.

The drawers could be reused from old furniture or built out of scrap wood. The different sized cubbies could be created with some wood built into the existing shelving and stained or painted to match. I think this would be a fun storage piece for a play room and may need to keep this one in mind once we move into a bigger house and have the space for a 'kid's room.'

Not necessarily something easy to duplicate, but I loved the idea of this chair made from an old radiator. Definitely needs a cushion before sitting!

Of course, we've all seen vintage crates reused and refinished as storage pieces.

I still can't get enough of them, though. Love the idea of storing colorful linens like this.

This is the current window display at our J. Crew. I was immediately attracted to the pinwheels made from magazines and colored scrapbook paper.

These are antoher fun, whimsical idea for a nursery, kid's room, or even made for holiday decor.

After all this great inspiration I have two Anthro inspired 'look for less' projects that I plan to recreate in the next few weeks: one for our master bedroom and the other for the guest room.

What inspires you?