Tips for creating a mood board for your room makeover- what to include from flooring to hardware and how to pull it together to give direction in a remodel.
I love creating mood boards for room makeovers. It’s a practical way to pull together finishes, colours, textures, and anything else you’re considering to see how they look and feel together before taking the leap and doing the work to install and see if it looks the way you’d imagined. This is something I enjoy sharing on social media and have even been hired to create design boards for companies to have for their own social media. It’s fun and so satisfying.
So today I wanted to share some tips for creating a beautiful design board that actually helps you envision how a space will come together as you’re in the planning process.
I’m excited to team up with Flooring Canada as part of their 2021 Style Watch Influencer Campaign for this post. They sent me a beautiful box full of flooring samples and some decor pieces for me to use to pull together these design boards.
So instead of creating just one design board, I created four that I love- It would be fun to know which you like best! But for now- let’s go through some tips to help you pull together a design board for yourself! I wanted to make these really practical to help you pull a design board for a space in your home together.
Set an Intention for the Space
Planning a room makeover?
Make budgeting a part of your planning.
Check out all my tips for creating a DIY room makeover budget so you can focus on the DIY not on the dollars.
I’m not sure about you, but the word intention gets thrown around a lot. All I mean by this is decide the purpose of this space and how you want it to feel. Do you want a bedroom to feel dark, moody and cozy? Do you love airy bright, white kitchens? Or maybe textured neutral tones with a welcoming pop of colour for a living room makeover?
Deciding how you want the space to feel will help give you a little direction as you pull together your design board.
What are you working with?
Be realistic about what in your space has to stay. If you’re doing a kitchen and you want to keep the original wood cabinets, great! Bring a sample of your cabinet doors to the table (literally, they unscrew!). Or if you’re open to painting your cabinets but that countertop will be staying… let’s make sure to include that! If flooring is the same throughout the main floor, well… it looks like that’s what you’re working with! Grab a sample and bring it to the table. It’s so fun to play with all the options, the tone of one large element can change how the other colours and samples look together, so using what you will actually have in your space is super helpful.
Big Decisions First
I really like to start with the big pieces first. And most of the time? That’s the flooring. For exteriors, maybe that’s the siding. But let’s focus on interiors. Flooring often runs through more than one room. Bathrooms usually get their own special flooring, but other rooms? When we choose flooring, it’s often for a full main floor or the full basement.
Designing a mood board like this can help you choose flooring, but that flooring will help you decide on everything else. In this design board, I’ve chosen a beautifully neutral wood toned vinyl tile Downs H20 Millbourne in Moss. You can see how it plays so beautifully with the warm and cool colours of accessories I’ve chosen in this mood board.
Since this is a pretty neutral design board colour wise, I thought I’d pull in a playful pattern in the carpet, still sticking with the neutral colour palette. This carpet is Tigressà Cherish Why Me in Wind Swept.
Get your deal breakers in there
Okay, if you’re anything like me, I’m sure you have a fixture, piece of furniture, or colour you absolutely want to feature in your space. A little detail (or a big one!) that’s non-negotiable for you. For me, in my living room it’s my leather couch. In my bathroom, it’s black hardware. If you have a cane bookcase your grandma handed down to you, get a piece of cane in this design board! Anything to help you envision how all the elements will work together.
Pull together all your options
At this point, I like to pull together all the options, anything that I might consider including. I try to think of anything that might make it’s way into the room. If it’s a living room, what kind of fabric on the chairs? Can you pull in a fabric swatch? If it’s a bedroom, what about bedding?
How about hardware? Door knobs, cabinet pulls, heck- even faucets if you have them! Lighting? You can bring ANYTHING in at this point. If you don’t have those items yet, pull in similar finishes. Like this brass candlestick- now you know brass lighting will work great!
Pull all the paint chips in at this point too. Lay them out and don’t be overly picky at this point. This blue design board I used the same Tigressà Cherish Why Me in Wind Swept carpet and balanced it with a more grey toned Laminate- Floorcraft Maysville Laminate Ash Grove Oak in Granite.
You can even add decor if it’s feeling like it’s lacking character. Dried grasses and baskets if you want to add lots of neutral texture. Plants to add some life and greenery.
Edit, Edit, Edit
Now that you have your big things (flooring!), your deal breakers, and all of your options together… it’s time to edit. Anything that isn’t a ‘heck yes!’ At this point, you can start pulling out. Does a certain paint colour change the look of the flooring? Does it make you like it more or less? If less, this probably isn’t the paint colour for you!
Keep editing until you’re really happy with all the things left in your mood board. Here, I’ve used the Broadloom Resista 3.0 Life of the Party carpet in Corporate. After adding in my other elements, I decided on the light and bright Vinyl Tile Galvanite Paramount Plank in Scree. I love how it balances the darker carpet!
Does it make you feel what you’d hoped? Cozy? Airy? If you feel like there’s something missing, try identify what… more white? How about some white fabric (throw pillows!). Missing come contrast? Maybe add a small corner of printed art.
Rearrange
Last but not least, try playing with how it’s all arranged to get it looking amazing. All the finishes can look great together, but playing around with having it square and all lined up, or overlapping with playful angles will help bring your design board to life.
Bonus tip!
I wanted to pull one last design board together using the same flooring as the first example. I love this flooring, but I wanted to show how different colours and elements can totally change the feel of a space (and mood board!) without changing the big elements. So if you love a flooring, or a countertop or whatever… you can work with it and you can change things up down the road too!
I hope that this was helpful for you! If you do make a design board with these tips, you know I would so love to see it! Tag me @colleenpastoor or shoot me an email [email protected].
Big thank you again to Flooring Canada for sending over these samples for me to play with for this post! These flooring samples are all from their 2021 Style Watch picks- they chose them based on style, durability, and so many more factors, so you know they’re great ones!
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FLOORING FEATURED IN THIS POST:
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