TIPS FOR MAKING A MOODBOARD FOR AN INTERIOR SCHEME

A couple of weeks ago I did an Instagram takeover for Earthborn Paints, all about how to pull together a moodboard for an interiors scheme. By all means, go check it out on their Instagram highlights, but I thought I’d make a post on here too in case you’re interested.

Should I make a physical moodboard?

So the first question is do you really need to make a physical moodboard? Yes we’ve got Pinterest, but I still do it, and in my process it’s still a really important step to achieving something to plan, which often means it ends up a much more coherent and cohesive design. 

I do use Pinterest and it’s great, but it’s more of an ideas generator than a place where you can really refine and define a room scheme. So I think it’s good to get the Pinterest phase over early in the design process and refer back to it when working on a physical moodboard. 

One exercise I like to do with Pinterest, when you’re designing a space for more than one person, whether we’re doing a room in our own home, for a client or a collaboration, is to each make a board separately, but make sure you write in the caption of your pin what exactly it is about that room that you like. When you come to show each other then, it’s a lot easier to focus in on the positives and not the negatives of an image and make sure what you actually like doesn’t get lost in the process. 

Start with a single point of inspiration

So the start of any room scheme for me is usually a single object. That might be something you already own - and I’d always aim for that to be something you love, rather than something you’re just trying to work around. Could be a bit of furniture, a wallpaper you’ve seen maybe, or a wall colour - anything really. 

The little stack of candle votives was the starting point of my whole living room scheme. We’ve got curves, we’ve got warm neutrals, and we’ve got this matt, earthy, rustic texture going on - actually loads to go off from such a small thing. 

Order samples

Once I’ve got an idea of where I’m heading, I then take my general concept, pair that with my Pinterest board and think about what that’s physically going to be made up from. Basically get ordering samples. You can get paint samples, you can get carpet, flooring, tiles, fabrics for sofas, chairs and window treatments. There shouldn’t be much in your way of completely mapping out a room full of finishes, and if there is, improvise with something similar. This marble tile on my mood board represents my table, for example. 

Keep it loose

I think doing a physical moodboard is important so you can see colours next to each other, and also work on textures too. Especially in a scheme where you’re not relying on colour to do all of the talking, texture is what stops the whole thing falling flat.

I personally don’t think you need to actually stick things down and create a physical moodboard, it’s more about just having that collection of materials you can refer too. I like to have them loose and move them around to see how the individual materials interact.

It means you can use it to experiment then too. If you have all those samples to hand, you can throw something into the mix and see what happens – you might find an accent that you hadn’t even considered before.

We were kind of designing around our sofa in our living room scheme, as it’s grey and we were moving more towards taupe tones, but when we made the moodboard and included the sofa fabric on there, we could see it made sense to add a mellower, slightly colder neutral in there for the overall balance. 

If you can, it’s worth thinking about how things are proportioned on a board though. For example, instead of having just a small swatch painted of your main wall colour, paint a spare bit of board or a bit of lining paper and use this as the background for the whole thing.

There’s no point having a the hugest swatch of yellow velvet on your moodboard if that’s just going to be one cushion or else you’re not going to get an accurate feel for the scheme. 

Any questions about moodboards you’d like me to answer? Leave a comment below.