Bobby Berk's Top Tips For Creating An Inspired Decor Mood Board

Before you jump into a home renovation or redecorating project, it's important to have a clear idea of your goals and how you plan to achieve them. This involves considering the colors, materials, style, architectural elements, and furniture pieces you want to include in the space. "The most important thing to do before designing your space is to plan ahead," Bobby Berk, design expert on Netflix's "Queer Eye," wrote on his blog. "Taking time to really think about your room, how you will use it, and what makes sense for the space will ensure it's cohesive [and] the process goes smoothly."

One of the best ways to plan ahead before taking on an extensive home project is to make an online mood board. "Start saving images of the furniture, lighting, rugs, paint colors, and accessories," Berk recommended. He suggests starting your search on Pinterest, which has countless images of beautifully-decorated rooms. "From there, you can pull everything into a mood board and review the overall design of the space." In other words, pick and choose what you love about each image and lay them out on one page. Then, if desired, you can gather paint swatches and material samples to see how all the elements look in real life.  

Once you start gathering inspiration, you may come across a problem. Perhaps many of your images don't seem to match, and there's no clear style or order to them. If so, you may want to go back to the drawing board and decide upon a distinct style from which you can work to create your mood board. This will give your project a clear direction while also making it much easier to decide upon the right elements, as they need to fit within your style's guidelines. 

This is what Bobby Berk does when designing his home office. Before searching for inspiration pictures, he first establishes that he's going for an organic modern style. He decides upon this aesthetic because it's the style he naturally gravitates towards, and it also goes well with the architecture and time period of the home. "Since the home also has a Spanish feel, we knew we wanted to incorporate elements that would complement and connect with that aesthetic, like a plaster fireplace, handmade glazed tiles, and rustic wood beams," Berk explained on his blog. "When all combined together, the space is really a balance: of light and dark, earthy and clean."

Perhaps you're wondering how you could actually take pieces of images and create beautifully-organized mood boards online. The easiest way is by using apps that allow you to create a collage of all your elements in one place. Bobby Berk recommends using Morpholio Board. "The app allows you to create and edit custom mood boards for a project, utilizing products, photos, sketches (and any of your pins — it seamlessly connects to Pinterest)," Berk wrote on his blog. "It also sorts all the products you input into an organized shopping list, making purchasing even easier."

If you want help from an experienced interior designer, you could check out Havenly. "Through the app, you can work remotely with a designer to create a custom-designed room in your home," Berk noted. To do so, you'll choose which designer you want to work with, take a design quiz to narrow down your style, and share inspiration photos from Pinterest or another website. Then, your designer will create a mood board for you and allow you to make tweaks as desired. Once you're done, you'll have a shopping list of items you can buy to transform your space into exactly what you want.