The Interiorista: Mood Boards

When you are decorating a room, it's easy to fall for the current trends, what stands out in the store, or what your decorating mood is at a the moment. However, if you don't have and follow a plan, your design might not come together well once all the parts and pieces are in place. This is why I recommend using a decorating board. A Mood board is a useful tool that will allow you to visualize all the elements of your design to ensure they are cohesive. It's an arrangement of imagines, materials, pieces of texts, etc., intended to evoke or project a particular style or concept. Basically, it's a collage, made manually or virtually, that includes several images of the following items:

• Furniture pieces you wish to include in that particular room.
• Arrangement of furnishings.
• Fabric swatches, floor samples...
• Accessories.

Here is an example of my first Mood board. You just need to print the pictures, cut them and glue them. Not hard at all!

If you choose to make your board by hand, check this video out first to have a general idea and get you started:

You can display your items on a foam board, cork or a simple piece of paper. Whatever works for you. You don't need to get fancy if it is just for your personal use!

Take advantage of the Pottery barn room planner application fixture that you can use for free on the Pottery Barn website. Just type "room planner" on the search bar and explore through it. It is very self explanatory and easy to use. This will allow you to add a visual image of the furniture placement to your design.

Another way to do your Mood board is creating an album on Pinterest where you can collect the pictures of your design plan:

Lastly, you could make your decorating board digitally. This is a bit more complicated and elaborated but you can totally do it! Create an account with Olioboard.com and have fun with it!

So, there you have it! Choose whatever way you prefer. And once you are done, pay close attention to all the elements in your design. Are the colors working with each other? Do you have too many items? Not enough pieces? Does the furniture flow in the room? Are you allowing enough space for traffic lines? Is your design lacking texture or punch? Evaluate what you have created and make the necessary adjustments. Once your mood board is finalized, stick to it and use it to make your beautiful room come alive.

In the following weeks, I'd like to chat with you about accessories. Nothing will speak loudly about your personality like decorative accessories. Beauty is in the details, and accessories will add visual interest, charisma and spark to your design.

Thank you for sticking around. I'd love for you to share pictures of your mood boards! Can't wait to see what you've done!

 XOXO,

              Angelica