Hey Y’all! Hope your weekend was great – mine was wonderfully family-filled and I am sad to see it go.
I thought I’d start the week off by sharing my mood board for the craft studio. After a floor plan, this is my next major step in planning out a space. It may seem a little silly, or even tedious, but it is a really easy way to make sure that your colors and key pieces are heading in the direction you want. Sometimes I will shoot pictures of the walls and do a full Photoshop rendering (I did with the master bedroom – to be featured at a later date), but that is not always necessary. Especially if the room you are doing happens to be a disaster zone and shooting pictures of blank walls is pretty much a pipe dream.
I think of mood boards as an ultra-focused pinterest board – a place where you put all your ideas together so you can look at them as a whole and make sure they all work together. In fact, if you don’t want to muck around with photoshop, you can do just that – make a pinterest board just for your room, and pin away! The only catch is that it helps to be very selective in your pins if you take this approach. For example, if you were doing a bedroom, only pin one bed. Make sure that bed is one you a) love and b) can actually find (or at least get close) and put in the space. Pinning 8 beds doesn’t really help – it is better to pin one bed, one dresser, one wall color, etc. so you can see the room at a glance as close to its final form as possible.
That being said, I generally stick to Photoshop, because it is familiar to me and because I can make the background my wall color and/or rug. Doing this really helps me make sure every accessory and piece of furniture works with those two anchoring factors, which helps assure me that the final product will be harmonious.
For the craft studio, I decided to go with a neutral light gray-blue on the walls. Specifically, Valspar’s “Seashore Fog.” I originally planned to paint the walls a deep navy, but have since moved that idea to the master bedroom. Frankly, this makes more sense since the master is ginormous and the craft studio is the size of a shoebox. Additionally, I am a big enough girl to admit that I chickened out – what can I say, I was nervous about defying the old rule of small space = light walls. Sometimes (usually) taking a risk is worth it, but I think the light walls will really make the room feel bigger, and I will just use the navy in smaller doses. I am still toying with doing a navy accent wall or ceiling…you’ll just have to wait for the reveal to see what I choose!
I also chose to go neutral for the rug in the studio – gray and ivory. One, because it was on sale (and y’all know the Doctor and I love saving money), and two, because this way I can change the accent colors in the room without being bound by the flooring color. I tend to get bored with things after a year or so, so rather than fight that I try to make sure the foundation (ie, bigger or more expensive pieces) of the room are something I know will work with a variety of colors and design styles. The Doctor doesn’t mind me changing up the pillows or picture frames in a space every once in awhile, but if I tried to replace all the rugs and furniture in our house on an annual basis he might not be so happy!
Other things to consider placing on the board are major pieces of furniture (the dresser and the desk in this case), as well as a few accents to represent the entirety of you planned color scheme. Note that I said “a few” – it is super rare that I will put everything that is ultimately going in the room on the mood board. It is just too visually confusing! Imagine if your favorite restaurant put all the ingredients and recipes under every item on the menu – it would be too much to slog through. In my experience, the mood board works best as a tool if you limit it to major, key pieces of information. Of course, you don’t have to be as narrow-minded focused as me – anything that evokes the feel you are going for is a candidate to be added. I know some bloggers who add song lyrics or fashion spreads to their home decor mood boards – it’s all up to you and what will help you envision the space. I am pretty literal and focused when it comes to mine, so I tend to stick to the actual things going in the room.
In this space I knew I wanted navy and gray with gold elements and one additional color for “pop.” I considered yellow, green, aqua, and red, but ultimately settled on pink. I love the preppy, feminine feel that navy, gold, and pink create when used together, and the reality is the Doctor would be less than thrilled if I tried to put pink as a major player in the main parts of the house. Since this is my office, and the spousal veto exception applies, I decided to dive headfirst into preppy, girly, and glam. Of course, I will be sure to throw in some warm wood as well to keep it in balance with the rest of the house, and I will try to avoid glitter overload.
So here it is…
…my mood board for the craft studio – feel free to let me know what you think by commenting below!
Till next time,
Sarah