Who Are Your Design Mentors?

Lynn von Kersting

 What do Lynn von Kersting, Penelope Bianchi, Charlotte Moss, Bunny Williams, Charles Faudree and Mary Emmerling all have in common?

Penelope Bianchi

 Well, for starters, they have been a major design influence on me, some of them going way back to the early days when I  was young and trying to decorate our home on a tight budget.

Charlotte Moss

Their interiors are classic, colorful and collected.

And they're pretty!

Bunny Williams

Each one has influenced me in a certain way, whether it be their fearless use of color and pattern, or how they live with their collections that they love.

Bunny Williams calls it "an affair with a house."

My affair with our house is ongoing and I'm always looking for inspiration.

Charles Faudree

I remember when I first saw this room in a magazine. 

I love the red check fabric and the mantel with its cockscomb filled urns.

This room just make me happy then and now.  

Mary Emmerling

 I have over time developed my own design style.  I like to call it "romantic style," as Mary Emmerling writes about in her book of the same title.  

Ralph Lauren

And even though I didn't include Ralph Lauren in the above, he has probably been my biggest design mentor of all.

I still have some of these photos, torn out of magazines and stored in my design ideas binder.

Of course, now there's Pinterest for an endless resource of inspiration, but these are a few of my favorite designers, old and new that have been my design mentors through the years.

To see more of what I love and have pinned as inspiration, visit my Pinterest Boards here.

So what about you?

Who has been your design mentor or influenced you?