How to create a moodboard
Take the stress out of creating a new look, with a little help from the experts
Make your makeover extra special by pinning down your ideas
We’ve all been there, full of big ideas for a makeover. But when we get to the nitty-gritty, problems start to appear. One brand’s ‘Forest Green’ may be another’s ‘Olive’. Creating a moodboard is the best way to get a true sense of how all the di erent elements of your new look will come together.
WHY MAKE A MOODBOARD ?
Moodboards take your ideas and make them tangible. You might have an inkling that blue velvet will look great with mustard walls, but seeing fabric samples and paint swatches together on a moodboard will let you know for sure. It’ll also help you to share your vision with the other people in your home and the contractors you need to bring your project to life.
Collecting samples for your moodboard is a great way of discovering what’s out there. You might nd a paint supplier you didn’t know about, which might lead you to a new fabric you love. When you go down these rabbit holes, a moodboard will help to keep you on the straight and narrow.
It’s also a good way to keep track of your budget. Note down how many square metres of ooring or rolls of wallpaper you’ll need and recalculate costs when you add new samples to the board. A few pence di erence between tiles may feel small when you’re looking at individual tiles, but over a whole oor it’ll quickly add up. A moodboard will give you an idea of how well elements match and whether the cost di erence really is worth it. In the long run, it’ll help you avoid making costly mistakes.
If it takes a while to buy everything you need, the moodboard will help you hold on to your original idea. Don’t be afraid of adding to the board as the work progresses – it shouldn’t feel like strict set of rules.
HOW TO GET STARTED
Begin by choosing a board. It can be anything from a noticeboard to an old wooden panel and some thumb tacks. Just make sure that whatever you use will stay reasonably rigid. Tiles and carpet samples can be heavy and a bendy moodboard will be hard to work with.
You can paint your board with your base colour or, cover it with a plain fabric you want to use. But skip this step if you don’t feel ready to make those decisions yet. If your room has items you can’t change, or want to keep, take photos of them and add them to the moodboard rst. It can help to cut them out if you can see a lot of the room’s original decoration around them.
Don’t worry about making the board look pretty. Perfect composition isn’t important and trying to achieve it can knock your con dence. Your moodboard is a tool, rather than a presentation. It’s the recipe, not the cake! It can be handy to have a couple of images of perfectly styled rooms on the board for inspiration, but don’t rely on them too much. As you work on the moodboard you’ll begin to learn more about your own colour preferences and stylistic choices, and its these instincts that you want to develop. The clearer your vision of your future room is now, the closer to it the end result will be.
Its best to work on your moodboard in the room you plan to decorate. The light in the room will a ect how the samples look and you’ll see the colours change slightly during the day. If it’s not practical to work in the room, place your board in the room and go in to take a look at intervals.
USING THE COLOUR WHEEL
The colour wheel is the designer’s secret weapon for creating beautiful schemes. The three primary colours (red, blue and yellow) are equally spaced around the wheel, with blended hues in between. The top half of the wheel can loosely be called ‘warm’ and the bottom half ‘cool’. Red is the warmest colour and blue the coolest, so you can work out a colour’s ‘temperature’ by how close it is to them on the wheel. Warm colours will balance the coldness of the light in a north-facing room and cool colours will create a sense of freshness and space. If you’re looking for real contrasts, pair colours on the opposite sides of the wheel. These are ‘complementary’ colours and placing them together will create a look that pops.
You can also use ‘split complementary’ colours to create an impactful scheme by choosing a base colour and selecting the colours next to its complementary colour.
But if you want a more subtle scheme, choose colours that sit next to each other. These are ‘harmonious’ or ‘analogous’ colours and will gently blend into one another.
Another way to work with colour is to use a monochromatic scheme. Monochrome literally means ‘one colour’, so your whole look will be made up of light and dark shades of the same hue. This works particularly well with neutral or earthy tones.
If you’d like to nd a neutral for your scheme (when choosing a colour for carpet or woodwork, for example) use your main colour’s undertone to help you get a good match. Red or orange will suit a warm cream best, whereas blue and green will sit best with cool grey.
Another important thing to remember while using the colour wheel is to go with your gut. If you like a combination that doesn’t seem to follow any of the rules, but you love how it works on your moodboard, trust your instincts.
HOW TO USE YOUR MOODBOARD
When you have a rough idea of the colours you want, use them to guide your sample choices. If you didn’t paint or cover your moodboard with your base colour or fabric at the start, do so before you begin looking for samples.
Collect paint sample charts in your preferred colour scheme. Cards that show gradations of tone are helpful at these early stages. A graduated chart will show you the lightest and darkest tones of a chosen colour and as you start to build up samples you can match patterns to these tones to create a cohesive look. If you can’t nd a graduated chart for a colour you want to use, nd a large sample and cover parts of it with layers of white tissue paper. This will give you an idea of paler versions you might want to match to. These pale tones will be useful when you’re looking for paint for woodwork or coving.
Once you’ve chosen your base colour, it’s time to think about patterns, accent colours and ways to add texture to the look. Start with large textiles, such as curtains or blinds. Because these will hang next to the walls, it’s important to make these a good match to your base colour.
To give your look a balanced texture, mix and match patterns of the same colours in di erent sizes. Many brands produce collections of patterns like this, so they’ll have options for you to choose from. Even if you aren’t interested in using pattern, you’ll still need to think about texture, or your scheme will look at. Consider ne textures, for example a chalk paint or silk, as a very small pattern and build up larger textures – carpets and bricks – to balance the look.
Take a picture of your board so you can take it around with you. When you’re shopping and spot something you love, take a look at your board to see if it’ll suit your theme. If you’re still not sure, take a photograph in the shop or ask for a sample and add it to your board later.
Keep going back and forth, adding and subtracting samples as you go along. Take your time and have fun working out what you like and don’t like. As you make these choices, you’ll nd your con dence beginning to grow. If you get stuck and can’t make a decision, move on to a di erent section of the board. Making a choice about something else might help you to get unstuck. The most important thing to remember though, is to have fun!