The Change starts with a Mood Board

Have you ever find yourself being bored with the set up of your living room, or there is something wrong with the current bedroom style, or even more scarier: you are starting your new home from the scratch? Are you thinking of redecorating your home but don’t know where to start?

Designing a room in your home can be a daunting and difficult task when you don’t know where to start.
“I don’t know what I like.” or “I like soooo many things!”, or you might have an idea but don’t know how to achieve it. Many people find it difficult to articulate what they want.
When designing a room, one decision can change the whole mood of a room.

There are 2 questions you should ask yourself before starting:

1. How do you wish to feel in your home?
2. How are you going to use the space?

Look /Feel and Function are 2 key ingredients in the first step in Interior design.

Once you have that figured out start collecting pictures of what you like and do your Mood Board for each room. If you don’t know how to make a mood board, this will help get you started.

A mood board is simply a collage that contains images of: furnishings, color samples, patterns, materials and any inspirational examples of objects that you like. A good mood board can be a vital part of your design workflow. There are some excellent tools on web for free to help you convey your design ideas : collect images from: Pinterest or it’s alternative Matboard which is oriented more towards creatives, Designispiration, Houzz to name the few and then put it on a online board: Olioboard, or create Picasa collage.

This is an incredibly helpful way when you are trying to design a certain look as it helps you organize your ideas so you know exactly what you need and you don’t go over the top. Look at the characteristics that pop up again and again: the style of furnishings, the color palettes, the patterns, the materials, and the quantity of furniture in each room. Let those characteristics guide you.

Using a mood board can help you put your ideas in front of you and gather inspiration for a room. Take your time, things that you like today, might not be so appealing in a month.

Mood Board for client's entry (Feng Shui principle of Entry)

Mood Board for client's Open space Kitchen/Dining/Living (capturing elements of rustic and modern with a dash of industrial)

When you create a mood board however, you start to look for consistency between elements (think of yourself as a curator rather than a collector, and try to have meaning and threads from one image to the next). By laying everything together you can see what fits and what feels out of place. 

Notice the flow between those previous Mood boards captured in one

Our ability to identify things that are out of place is based on The Gestalt Principles of visual perception. In the 1920s, German psychologists noted that people tend to organize visual elements when certain principles are applied (shape, size, color, etc.) into groups or unified wholes. Items that don’t fit these characteristics, feel like they don’t belong.

This happens because every decision in one design element impacts how everything else feels.

 

Mood Board for client's minimalistic dining room

 

Transformation of an attic into the office in rustic/minimalist style with Pop Art accents

Decorating can be a challenging task, filled with costly decisions whose outcomes could haunt you for years. The old days-when we ripped magazine pages endlessly and was a messy process are gone, your mood board is now just few clicks away. Even if you’re going to hire an interior designer, this will help him or her interpret your taste easier. After collecting 20-25 images - there is a theme established and your design will feel more connected, coherent and complete - I promise you!



And yes, I almost forgot – as you are gathering your inspiration, don’t forget to include your better half. Because as soon as you start buying things, Mr. or Ms. No Opinion will suddenly have one.