Even if you love the creativity that comes with decorating or renovating, it’s fair to say that the process can actually be quite stressful if you’re doing it alone. It’s one thing to decorate a table or small corner in your home with artwork, but to change up an entire room takes a more concerted effort and intention. Decorating can leave you in a cycle of analysis paralysis where you find things that you like but then worry about whether or not they look good.
How do you overcome this so that your intention for a beautiful room actually turns into a reality? Here are a few ways to spark creativity.
Start With the Mood
Decorating a home isn’t just about placing things in certain areas hoping that they look good, it’s about invoking a mood and an experience when someone enters the space, and when they actually spend time in it. This requires a fair amount of intentionality with decorating and a lot of planning beforehand, so that every piece and accent added in the room actually speaks to the mood you’re going for.
You can choose the kind of feeling you want to have in that room, from dark and moody and crisp and classic to energetic and colorful. Once you know the mood you’re going for, it will steer whatever direction you take. There are tons of moodboard apps you can use from free to paid, and each of them can be really instrumental to a successful design process.
Create a Moodboard
Many people think decorators just come up with gorgeous room designs out of the blue. The truth is, they spend a whole lot of time mocking up what they want to create. This is where moodboards come in. This is a way to create a digital version of the design to see how everything will come together. In this moodboard, you can test out furniture arrangements, and see how different accents and pieces look together.
The great thing is you can perfect your design before you even buy a single item. In fact, you can download photos of the pieces you want to buy on their online stores and then add that to your moodboard. Using a simple background remover app, you can take an idea in your brain and translate it to a digital page before you take on the huge task of buying and sourcing furniture and decor pieces.
Watch House Tours
A room that hasn’t been decorated is like a blank canvas, and that is equal parts overwhelming and exciting. External inspiration is a great way to get your creative engine running, and that’s aplenty on the internet. One of the best ways to get decorating ideas is to watch videos and tours about luxury homes for sale. There are many content creators who do an amazing job of walking you through an expensive property, showcasing the design choices and things decorators do to really set a home apart.
Now, you may not have the budget of a high-end designer, but you can certainly get ideas that you can incorporate in your own way. It also gives you a great way to think about the look you’re trying to achieve so that everything you do fits in with the vision you have. These house tours are also excellent crash courses for different types of styles and architecture, from mid-century modern to Spanish architecture. YouTube is a great place to find these home tours, so in a matter of minutes you can have all you need to start planning your design!
Go Shopping
Homeware and furniture stores display their furniture on their shop floors and you can borrow from their own creativity to decorate your own home. If you want to jumpstart the process of decorating, go to those stores, walk around, see how they arrange some items, and take photos. Seeing how their designers come up with stuff can definitely help you, and even if you don’t copy it like-for-like, you’ll have some ideas.
It’s very natural to feel a bit stuck when you’re taking on the task of remodeling or redecorating, but it doesn’t have to stop you from carrying out your vision. Even the most successful designers struggle sometimes, and when that happens, they have tools they can use to fire up their ideas. Getting inspiration from others is a great way to get started. So next time you feel frozen by the prospect of redesigning, lean into resources, and your amazing design will come to life.
