Decorating 101- How to Create a Mood Board

Hello!  I hope you had a great week!  This week I’ve started putting together an inspiration board (or mood board) for my upcoming laundry room makeover.

If you aren’t familiar with what a mood board is– it is basically pulling pictures, paint colors, flooring samples, tile samples, furniture pieces etc. together in one spot to see how they all look in unison and to gain a clear vision for where your space is going.

You can do this with actual physical materials or you can use the computer to get a virtual representation.

Here are some examples of both kinds of mood boards

 

Real Life

via Studio Mcgee

via Studio Mcgee

 

Virtual

via Young House Love

via Young House Love

Mood boards are fairly simple to make.

3 Steps to Creating a Mood Board

1. Search for Inspiration.  Pinterest and Houzz are great free resources for decorating inspiration.  I have Pinterest boards for each type of room in the house and when I find a space I like I pin it to that particular board.   Even if I”m not planning a makeover on a specific room I will still pin any photos I come across that I love.

Pinning (or saving to your ideabooks on Houzz) will help you define your personal style and will come in handy down the road when you are planning a makeover or refresh of a room.

I am currently working  on a makeover for my friend’s 13 year old (going on 26) daughter’s room.  Her daughter had been pinning rooms and decor ideas for her bedroom for awhile.  It helped me SO much to be able to see rooms she loved when planning her room.

A picture truly is worth a thousand words when creating a clear vision for your space.

If you are someone who subscribes to home decor magazines or catalogs (House & Home is my favorite one right now)(affiliate link) I would suggest pulling out pages in the magazine that make you happy and create a binder of these inspirational magazine or catalog pages (added bonus –then you can throw out the catalog/magazine and have less clutter).

 

Here are 4 ripped out magazine pages I am using as inspiration for the vibe I’m going for in my laundry room.

 

2. Add actual fabric, tile, flooring, paint color samples, etc..  In this step you are choosing actual samples that you are considering for the space.  If you like a few different kinds of flooring options bring all of them together with the rest of the samples for the room and you will find that it is easier to decide when viewed with the other selections.

Don’t be afraid to try out all options as you are gathering and playing around with these samples for the room.

If you are really struggling to get a direction for the room just try picking one item you love (like a rug, picture, fabric for a pillow, or cool chair).  You will often find that choosing one item will then lead you to selecting other items for the room (as demonstrated in THIS video by one of my favorite designers, Studio Mcgee).

 

It may seem like this step takes too much effort (acquiring samples and what not) but in the long run it helps prevent mistakes which will save you time and money.  It’s what the professional designers do so you know if must be important.:-)

 

3.  Creating an actual physical or virtual mood board.  It doesn’t matter which kind of mood board you create just that you create one.  A physical one might take more time in step 2 but for this step it is a breeze!  Once you’ve narrowed down all your choices just put them up together on a bulletin board  (affiliate link) or display board.

Putting a moodboard together on the computer is a faster process in step 2 because you are not having to go collect samples by hand.  The disadvantage is not being able to see the items you’ve pick in person though so that is something to consider.  But it is a great way to start!

Don’t know how to use a computer to make a mood board?  No worries, I’ve got you covered!

The easiest way is to use Pinterest.  In your account click on “Create Board”.  You will have a choice as to whether you want to keep the board private or not.  And to give it a name (you can see below that I named mine “Laundry Room Mood Board”.

Now locate Pinterest’s search engine at the top of the screen and type in the specific items or paint colors you have selected online for the room and save it to your room’s Mood Board.

Now you have place where you can see all of your selections together which allows you to visualize the direction for the room and make changes if necessary!

If you don’t want to use Pinterest there is a website called www.gomoodboard.com where you can create mood boards for free.  I haven’t used it much but it looks pretty straight forward to use!

It is easy to get stuck when decorating your home but when you start with a mood board (and asking these two questions) it will happen a lot less often!  I hope you found this post helpful and that you have a great rest of your weekend!!