If you’ve been following along, you know the back family room is slowly coming together We painted the final coats on the walls, the antique pine cabinet is in, and the foundation of the room is starting to come together. The space is starting to feel like a real room and not just a project site. Now I’m ready to create mood boards to work through the design decisions that remain.
We did deviate from our original plan though and are pivoting from the sofa we originally reupholstered for the room. Wondering how we got here? I go into all the details in last week’s post.
TL:DR: Mike came to me and told me he didn’t love the sofa we picked out for the back room. It’s not deep enough for him and it’s a bit too small width wise. So we’re back to square one and I’m back on the hunt for something roughly 78″ wide and at least 36-41″ deep.
Once we regrouped on what we actually needed, I started building mood boards to test out different options.
Over the years I’ve learned how to use mood boards to work through a room when I’m not quite sure where it’s headed yet
How I Use Mood Boards to Make Design Decisions
When I’m feeling stuck on a room design, my first instinct is usually to start making mood boards.
Not to find the exact sofa or necessarily plan the final room design. Just to play. For me, it’s a way to test different color combinations and play with pattern.
The goal is to get a better idea of the overall color palette for the room. Like for example seeing where I prefer a solid versus a pattern, and finding the balance.
Testing a Patterned Sofa
Because I am who I am, the first mood board I made was with a patterned sofa. I’ve had my eye on the Hadley from GreenRow for a while now. It’s actually the very first sofa I ever pitched to Mike, back when I wanted it in a yellow plaid. This time I tested it in a brown floral scallop print and although I love the sofa, it’s not the one.
I loved it on their website. But once I put it in the room with those deep green walls, I could see pretty quickly it wasn’t right. The colors weren’t clicking the way I wanted them to. I kept going though and tried a few other color and pattern combinations with it, but nothing was landing. At that point I decided to stop focusing on the sofa for a moment. Instead, I started looking at the room as a whole.
Using Mood Boards to Explore Color Palettes
I pulled in an ottoman I found while browsing Anthropologie and started layering in some of the colors and patterns I had in my head. It’s a bit chaotic and definitely needs refined, but that’s kind of the point. You have to get the bad designs out before you land on something you like.
With the patterned sofa out of the running, I started paying less attention to the sofa itself and more attention to the overall color palette of the room.
Blue is a through line in our home. It’s one of the things that helps connect our rooms together and it is a favorite color of ours.
I knew I wanted some blue in the space; I just wasn’t sure how much. I love how our blue and white pottery and the garden stool play against those deep green walls but I wasn’t sure if I wanted it to be just an accent color or to play a bigger role. So, I tried a couple of different blue sofas to see how that would feel.
It’s not bad but it still didn’t feel like the one. A large blue sofa in the room is creating a cooler color palette than I want. I want something warmer in feel. I keep coming back to the idea of a caramel or pecan solid colored sofa. Something grounding and cozy that could be a warm base for everything else to build on. So that’s what I tested next.
Refining the Patterns
Once I landed on a caramel/pecan sofa shade I loved, it immediately felt right. From there I wanted to test out some other colors and patterns I had in my head to see if I still liked them and what worked with the sofa.
Up until this point, I was pretty sure I wanted our roman shades in a small-scale chocolate brown gingham. It’s a classic pattern I love and it feels cozy, cottage-y, and very English. It’s also a pattern Mike wouldn’t mind. But once I started building the boards I found myself equally drawn to a muted mustard stripe. I also tried a faded red and white stripe. But once I played with the overall color palette a bit more, I realized the red I was drawn too was a bit different than what was used on the roman shade. I like the earthiness of the gingham and the mustard better.
Besides color, the other thing I’m trying to work out is whether I’m drawn to the smaller scale of the gingham or the larger scale of the stripe for the roman shade. I like both mixed with different things and I think it will be easier to decide once I have a better idea of what we’re doing on the chairs and ottoman.
Layering in Supporting Colors
Once I decided against a blue sofa, the question became how to work blue into the room in a smaller way. I also love the idea of bringing in a bit of mustard. So, I started testing both as supporting colors rather than dominant ones.
In the end I really loved the idea of a pleated blue lampshade and a pillow or two. I also really liked a blue floral striped ottoman I found on Anthropologie. For the mustard, a couple of velvet throw pillows might be the way to go.
The Unexpected Discovery
I wasn’t quite ready to make any decisions on chairs, but I had been using slipper chairs in my mood boards as placeholders so I could get a better sense of where solids and patterns might work in the room.
While I was scrolling Anthropologie I came across a chair I absolutely loved. I knew Mike would hate it and the style and size wasn’t what I was thinking for the room, but I loved the pattern and the color palette so much I decided to pop them in just to see. At the time I genuinely wasn’t thinking about them as an option.
What I didn’t expect was to love it as much as I did. It’s the moody colors of the pattern that got me. The dusty mauvy pink of the flowers mixed with small pops of a brighter crimson red, a dirty earthy olive green, and muddy brown. The pewter gray grounds everything and elevates the palette so it doesn’t feel too girly or sweet. Just classic, warm, rich, and vintage feeling.
So whatever chairs we land on, I want them upholstered in a print with that same vibe and a similar color palette. Those moody, earthy colors feel like the missing piece I’ve been searching for.
If Mike gets the sofa he wants, I’m going to see if he’ll go for some patterned slipper chairs. Maybe not those exact chairs, but something that captures the same feeling.
(I may have also just gone and measured the room to see if they’d actually fit. Stay tuned.)
What the Mood Boards Taught Me
None of these mood boards are final. In fact, there are things I love and dislike about every single one. But that’s exactly why I create them. The goal isn’t to get the room right on the first try. It’s to uncover patterns, test ideas, and learn what I’m consistently drawn to before spending money.
In this case, the mood boards helped me realize that I was less interested in finding the perfect sofa and more interested in understanding the overall direction of the room. They helped me narrow in on a warmer palette, think through where pattern might make the most impact, and get a clearer picture of what I want the space to feel like.
After creating the mood boards and testing out different options, I feel more confident in where we are headed with the design.
Next steps are getting Mike into some stores to actually sit on a few sofas so we can make sure we get the fit right this time. I did order some samples from West Elm and GreenRow. I’ll keep the ones I love in my purse to reference when we’re out shopping.
I feel ready to pull the trigger on a sofa if Mike can find one he loves in a fabric or leather we can agree on. There will probably be a bit of a lead time so I’d like to get this ordered sooner rather than later.
The room is still evolving, but I finally feel like it’s headed in the right direction.
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