Create a mood board to find your perfect design style
Planning how to decorate a room in your home can be an exciting project but knowing where to start isn’t always easy. There are so
many choices available and keeping track of all the styles, fabrics, furniture and flooring options that you see can be intimidating. We
recommend creating a mood board, which is a visual collection of the different elements that you want in your room, so that you can
see everything at once and compare how they look alongside one another.
If you’re a person who likes to touch and feel the textures and samples of the items you’re considering for your space, then go old-school using a piece of card or a pinboard tobuild your mood board. Alternatively, create your mood board on a digital platform like Pinterest, where you can bookmark, collate and store images of the design ideas that speak to you.
Use resources for ideas such a décor magazines, internet sites and inspirational blogs and seewhich type of look sparks your imagination. Do you love the industrial feel of an urban home, or the rustic warmth of wood? If you feel overwhelmed by the choices, then try our style quiz to narrow the options down and see which of our curated collection suits your personal style best. You can use this as your starting point and begin to collect all the pictures and samples that fall within that style. For traditional boards, include samples of fabrics, paint swatches and tiles from hardware, tiling and fabric stores to compare and add to your mood board
Start with the one central item or themethat you absolutely adore and can’t live without. This could be a specic colour that you want in the room, a treasured piece of furniture or a much-loved artwork. Build your design around this so that everything else in the room adds to this focal item. You will change your mind about a lot of things during the process, and make compromises on others, so be sure to have it clear in your head what is non-negotiable.
Start putting the samples, pictures and swatches that you’ve gathered together, placing them next to each other to see if they look right together. Use this opportunity to decide between the velvet or the leather couch for example. Getting the right look for your room is all about having everything that inspires you, and putting it together in a way that makes sense to you and feels right for your space. Play around with the different items you’ve collected until you nd the right collection of colours, textures, furniture and flooring that sit well together on your mood board.
When in doubt, ask for advice but in the end, the design should reflect your personal aesthetic. Once you’ve got your final selection, take
a photo of your mood board, or print it out if it’s digital, and keep it with you when you go shopping for paint, tiles, furniture or object d'art
for your space. This way you’ll have a visual reference guide to keep you focussed and help you bring your vision to life.
Enjoy the process and have fun!