Category — Home Decorating Ideas

Creating a mood board online is a great way to quickly create a sample of the decoration style you would like to achieve. It is particularly useful if you’re planning to do most of your home decor shopping on the internet and you don’t tend to buy many decorating magazines. It is also very practical because, unlike traditional mood boards (the ones that you can create on a poster boards using samples, printouts and cuttings from magazines) it does not require any preparation and it doesn’t cost a penny!

I have been doing some digging and I have found 3 fantastic free online tools that easily let you create a mood board in a couple of clicks.
If you decide to give them a try too, it’d be great if you could let me know your thoughts and show me your curious creations too!

Mydeco

Mydeco has got to be one of my favourite sites as it packed full of quirky home decorating ideas and inspiration.
You can start experimenting with this tool straight away without registering. However, if you don’t register you will only be able to add Mydeco recommended products to your board and you will not be able to include your own items (ie pictures that you have seen on other sites and saved on your computer). Also, you won’t be allowed to save your creations so taking 2 minutes to register to the site is well worth it. Click here if you fancy giving it a try!

Olioboard

Olioboard works in a very similar way to the Mydeco tool but you will be required to register before you can create your first mood board.
You can simply drag and drop items from their library of accessories or upload your own.
The downside is that the site is based in the US and only offers products available from American stores.  You can register here.

ImageSpark

ImageSpark hasn’t specifically be designed for home decorating mood boards but it’s still a great and useful little tool. Unlike Mydeco and Olioboard, it does not have a preset library of home accessories so you will have to start collecting inspiring images and products from elsewhere on the web, save them on your computer and then upload them to the site. Register here to try it out.

The bedroom is one of the rooms I intend to redecorate in the next few months and after seeing this on a few websites and magazines I’ve been toying with the idea of adding a shelf above the bed.

Image source: Decorology and The Daily Bed

These are the reasons why I have fallen in love with this little feature:

Practical and inexpensive
My bedroom is not the biggest in the world and the bedside tables are not that big either. I sometimes find I have little room to store items such as the books I’m reading at the moment, a few DVDs and they all eventually end up stocked on the window sill or on my chest of drawers with another thousand things! I’m thinking that a shelf above the bed would be the perfect solution to help me keep the room tidier by providing that little extra storage space.
The other reason why I’m considering the idea is the fact that it’ll cost me next to nothing! I’m still not sure what kind of shelf I’m going to go for (I still need to make up my mind about the whole feel I want to give to the room!) but I’m thinking it could be a good idea to buy a plain wood shelf and paint it myself. I have recently developed a real obsession with painting things and this would be a great opportunity for some DIY.
However, if DIY is not your cup of tea, shelves in all colours are available at many different stores and online so that finding exacltly what you want shouldn’t be a problem.

A touch of colour
One of the reasons why I prefer the idea of having a shelf rather than a picture above the bed is the fact that it’ll give me more scope to play with different colours and textures. I have excluded the idea of having a feature wall as I want to give the room a simple and relaxing feel but I reckon the shelf will give my bedroom more character and a splash of colour…without necessarily being “too much”.

Displaying decorative items
I find that bedrooms normally provide little or no room for decorative items. I have seen some beautiful and very inspiring ideas online and the best thing of all is that you can really make it work whatever your bedroom style. I particularly like picture frames simply rested on the shelf, wooden letters and curious bookends.