How to Decorate a Room + My Top Tip!

This will help you learn how to decorate a room. Included is my top tip on finding your decorating style!

Let me guess.  You are frustrated, overwhelmed, and don’t know how to decorate a room or where to begin?

Using a mood board to help decorate a room can really set the stage for a successful space.  Want to know how to define your style?  My top tip is in this post so keep reading!

MOOD BOARD  n.   an arrangement of images, materials, pieces of text, etc.,

intended to evoke or project a particular style or concept.

What should a mood board include?  When using a mood board to decorate you should include pictures of furniture items that you like, flooring, art samples, decor accessories, fabric swatches, window treatments, paint swatches and lighting.

Now you are probably asking, “how do I make a mood board for home decorating?” and “what program do you use to make a mood board?”.

You don’t have to have anything fancy!

A really easy place to start is by taking a screenshot of your items and start adding them to a blank page. I like to use Canva for this. Canva is free and allows you to add graphics, etc. But you can also just use a blank document page on your computer.

If you have Canva Pro, you can remove the backgrounds from the photos and overlay them to create a true vision of your space. It is about $10/month.

To remove backgrounds from your screenshot items you can also use a program at www.clippingmagic.com.  It will also remove the backgrounds and is $4/month.

How do you create a mood board for home decorating?

The first place you should start is with an item that you have and love or would like to have.  Or one that inspires or evokes a feeling you want for the room.  That would be your jumping off point.

Find the item online or something very similar and screenshot it, adding it to your blank page. Then start to add items to the board that compliment the space.

Here is my mood board for my craft room.  My inspiration is this beautiful wallpaper!

You can decorate your space without spending a lot of money.  It’s easy to find inspiration online and then recreate it with items you own or find second-hand and transform them to fit your style.

See how I took an old, tired hutch and revived it here!

See 5 easy ways to transform furniture here!!

OK, that is all great! But how do I find my decorating style??

My top tip?  PINTEREST.  Here’s how.

Create a board called “my decor style”.

Start looking for rooms that inspire you. Start with “living room” or “dining room” in the search bar.  Add rooms that speak to you in any way.  Like a trend,? Pin it. Like a piece of art? Pin it.  Like a color of a room? Pin it. Like the flooring or rug? Pin it.

Like, maybe you like this modern slat wall.

Over time, which may be an afternoon or a week, you will have a collection on your board that inspires you.  If you have no idea of what your style is or what you like, doing this will help you discover it. Through this process you will also discover what you don’t love, as well.

Once you have a good collection of spaces saved to your board, go back through and start eliminating them.  Over time you will start to see a trend in the spaces you love.  Dark and moody? Light and bright? Farmhouse? Modern?

Guess what?!  You don’t have to love ONE style.  You can marry different styles together!

It is YOUR home and you need to create a space that YOU love.

Now what??

Now that you better know what decorating style you love, you can start to create your mood board.

Pick a space or item from your new decor board that evokes a feeling for the room you want.  If it is an art piece, look closely at the colors in that piece and use those as inspiration for a palette.

Find the item online and add it (or something similar) to your moodboard. You can do that by taking a screenshot and adding it to your document, etc.  Now keep going by adding more items that will complete your space.

Without spending a dime, you are on your way to achieving the design of a beautiful room.

Think about the room’s function and how you want to feel when you walk into the room. Consider what the person who may be living/working/playing in that room would want to feel when they are in the space.

If thoughtfully planned, rooms can be aesthetically pleasing to the eye AND have great function.

See how my son’s room turned out here!!

Make your own mood board and before you know it, you will have a space that you are excited about that YOU designed for YOU!

It may be a little overwhelming but by creating a mood board you can narrow all of the choices down and take out the fear! Have FUN!!