When you start decorating your home, it’s easy to get lost in different ideas and sometimes your home can end up a little disjointed.  Sometimes it’s quite hard to pinpoint your exact style and once you do, how to reflect that in your home.

That’s why putting a mood board together can be a really good idea. This is something that a lot of designers do before they start a project, and once you do it yourself you can really see why.  It may seem strange when you first start to be so analytical about your home, but sometimes it just takes a step back to take a massive leap forward to a beautiful home!

Where to start?

1. The best way to start is by getting together home style magazines, they don’t even need to purchased new, quite often you might have family and friends that are happy to give some away or you can buy them at op shops. Cut out ideas of what you like and what you would like your home to look like.  It doesn’t have to be photos of a whole room, it could be just one item that captures your attention. Or a colour on a wall, or a feature that they have added. It’s also a good idea to buy some DIY magazines to get some clever decorating ideas.
2. Visit a paint shop/Bunnings etc and get some colour swatches – don’t think too much about it, just pick out the colours that you are naturally drawn to -  you can eliminate the ones that won’t suit your home later in the project.
3. Next visit a fabric/upholstery store and get swatches of material that you like – again just let yourself be naturally drawn to a fabric – don’t over think it at this stage, leave the thinking for later!
4. The other source of ideas of course is the internet. Go to google images, and do a search of ‘clever home decorating’, or ‘decorating kids room’ or if you have a particular theme in mind look for “asian interior decorating” or “shabby chic” or “african homewares” etc.. this way you could see something you would never think of.. however there will be a lot of trawling through photos to really see what catches your heart! Print out the photos you really like and attach them to the mood board.
   
5. Use a cork board, or cardboard to place all your inspiratal pieces together.  Once you see the different photos and colours together you’ll see what works and what doesn’t – let your eye wander over the board and see what doesn’t fit and remove it. This is a lot less expensive than painting a wall and realising it clashes with your lounge. Or buying a piece of furniture that sticks out like a sore thumb!
6. You can either do a mood board for every room, or do your whole house. In a way it would be good to do the whole house so you can get an overall feel, then do separate rooms later to piece together the more intricate elements of your design.
7. You can do all this on your computer of course in photoshop or similar. Although, the only negative in doing so, is you won’t have that inspiration for design on your wall as a constant reminder not to buy anything that doesn’t work with the aesthetics that you are trying to create.

Once you have finished, you will really have a clear and set idea of what design direction you want to move into.
WARNING! Please be aware that you might get addicted to mood boards and you might fill  your home with mood boards on what type of holiday you want, or goals you want to achieve – it’s such a positive visual feast that you will hunger for more! So just go for it!