Mood Boards help people see your vision.

I can walk into any room and have a vision in my mind of how the room should look and function – it is one of my superpowers. But, to help explain this to Leon, friends and family and help them see my vision, that is where creating a room’s mood board comes in.

I believe rooms should represent the people that live in them. If they didn’t, they truly wouldn’t feel like home. Mood Boards help to gather your ideas visually so that the room you are designing, or decorating, has the look that you are trying to achieve and still feels like home – meaning you really want to spend time there … and it feel like a comfortable hug.

I have created mood boards for years. They go along with the space planning of a room, but are one of the first steps to that space plan. A mood board is a process, so I thought it might be helpful to explain the why and how I get what is floating around in my head … and might be floating around in your head … and put into a mood board.

What is a mood board?

But first, before I begin to explain how to create a mood board, I should start off with explaining what a mood board is. A mood board is something a designer or decorator uses to set a mood for a room – the look and feel. Think of it as a collage of room items that express the colors and item styles that you would like for your room.

A mood board is something that is flexible to start out leading you to see the vision of a room. I say flexible, because just like your mood, things can change from one moment to the next helping you get to your “best mood”.

Where to start?

Back when I first started creating mood boards for both professional and personal spaces, I would do this by going through magazines and clipping pictures of room decor that I liked. Clipping pictures was also called Tear Sheets named for tearing the pages from magazines. Fast forward to today, mood boards are (mostly) created digitally. And, discovering different decor that you like for the mood of the space you are creating is available to more than just designers and decorators by going online.

To start putting together a mood board, go to social media. The two biggest social media platforms that I find inspiration are Pinterest and Instagram. If you don’t already have accounts on these platforms, I highly suggest creating one. It will make collecting your ideas a bit easier.

Gather Inspiration

Did you know that Pinterest is not only a social platform, it is also a search engine for creative ideas? And did you also know that Instagram is one of the most visual social media platforms because it was started as a collection of images – a visual first social platform?

To come up with the rooms mood that you are wanting to create and feel like home, start with Pinterest and Instagram and create “Boards” in Pinterest and “Collections” in Instagram for each room that you are wanting to create a mood board for. Another way you can gather items you like is with the camera on your phone and placing those snapped photos into a photos folder labeled for each room. Creating these Boards, Collections and Folders will help you organize your thoughts … especially if you are like Leon and I and are designing/decorating multiple rooms in your home.

Assembling Your Mood Board

Once you have collected images that you like in your social media platforms, it is time to take a look through them. Are there specific items such as lighting, rugs, furniture, wallpaper, etc, that you see in the inspiration pictures that you would like to have in your room? Those are the items you will want to place in a digital mood board.

To begin creating your room’s Mood Board, you will want to use a online program such as Canva or Adobe Spark. You can also use a program like Adobe Photoshop (although this is not a common program to use unless you are a designer).

You will want to create a copy of each item by cropping or deleting the background around that item in each image and place it into the mood board you have set up in your chosen online program (Canva, Adobe Spark, Photoshop, etc.) by creating a collage of items that you would like to be placed in your room. By doing this you can see if the rug goes with the sofa, if the light style matches the room’s feeling and look you are desiring – do all of these items look good together or do they look like a mishmash of items? That is where the flexible part of the mood board that I mentioned above comes in – you will add or remove items until you create a board that absolutely visually expresses the room’s decor and design feeling you would like for your home.

The flexibility of the mood board will also come in when you create your room’s space plan (making sure the room’s dimensions and layout will fit the items on your board) and start sourcing each piece or fabric options of that piece as your budget and the space plan may determine which items will stay and which items you will want to update on the board.

Enjoy The Results

Remember to have fun with this process. You might find that you switch out items on your mood board for a few reasons but ultimately, you will create a board of items that not only look well together but fit into your budget.

When everything for the room is decided on the final step is ordering these pieces and see your mood vision come to life when the items you have selected are installed and you walk into your room feels like home.