A few months ago I was chatting with my best friend and she mentioned that they finally have a new bed at home! This is quite an achievement since she and her hubby have been sleeping on a futon for quite a while… and since she has a new baby at home she really needed a good nights rest when it was possible.
She mentioned that she had been looking forward to sleeping on the new bed for over a week with no luck as she had been so busy there was no time to go to the store for sheets. Of course, that was not going to fly with me… I know Ashley and she would put this on the back burner for a long time as she took care of her baby, her house, her full time job… basically everything except herself.
So I set out to put together a relaxing master bedroom mood board for her and her hubby. She told me that she wanted blues and grays that her hubby wouldn’t mind but that she would love. We’ve been friends for 11 years (wow, really?!) so I know her style and what she likes… I’ve helped her decorate for years.
So instead of putting together a mood board for fun I thought I would walk y’all through putting together a mood board for someone else.
Bedding
I started big with the bed set and worked my way down from there. When decorating for someone else I think it’s important to get a feel of what exactly they want as sometimes what they say they want and what they actually want are two different things!
I sent Ashley a few different bedding options and she chose this beautiful blue, gray and white set which is the perfect base for what she was looking for. It has quite a bit of medium pattern so when working off the concept of big pattern, medium pattern, small pattern, solids we already have a medium pattern down!
Euro Sham
Ashley has been on bed rest for months on end in the last year and a half after complications with her sweet little baby, which means I wanted this bed to be a nice place to sleep but also comfortable when she’s on bed rest. Euro Shams are perfect for that because she can place them behind her and rest against them.
Since the bedding is already a busy pattern I went with a solid euro sham with just a bit of texture. A darker navy/gray will help anchor the bedding and gives it a little bit of a masculine touch since her hubby will be using the room as well. Although I’m not even sure if he knows we’re doing this…
Accent Pillow
Since Ash isn’t a big decorator I didn’t want to go crazy with accent pillows… as you may know I’m kind of a pillow hoarder. I love pillows but they aren’t her jam so instead of a whole host of pillows we went with one small accent pillow with a large pattern.
That way she still has a cute little pillow to toss on the bed but it won’t be a big hassle of pillows every day. So with one accent pillow we have a large pattern, one medium pattern, and one solid we only need a small pattern for the bedding… which can easily be added with sheets.
So far so good!
Curtain Rod
Alright y’all now it’s time for the windows. We already have quite a bit of gray and darker colors with the bedding so we are going to go lighter for the windows with white or cream window hardware. Hopefully new curtains will let Ashley get a bit of sleep when it’s still sunny outside and soften the room a little.
It’s worth a try!
Curtains
Ashley loves anything fancy so I picked curtains with a sheer overlay and a light blue color to pair nicely with the accent pillow. Since the bedding has quite a bit of pattern we went with a solid curtain to break up the room and soften the edges… curtains really take up quite a bit of visual space in a room so I like to use solid curtains with a patterned room or patterned curtains with a solid room.
That way you have a bit of variety and the pattern doesn’t get overwhelming.
Throw Blanket
Okay throw blankets are like accent pillows to me… I’m addicted. I may have four throw blankets on the chair next to my bed for cuddling in addition to the two weighted blankets I keep on my bed for sleeping with.
I picked up a throw blanket for Ashley in the same light blue color as the curtains to tie in that color on the bed. The solid texture will also break up the pattern on the bed a little bit while adding a fun soft texture. Texture lays completely outside of pattern but it’s so important to have different textures: woods, metals, blankets… it makes such a difference.
Table Lamps
Okay these were my one splurge for the room. Most of the products we ended up getting for Ash were on sale from Overstock.com which was perfect for this mini makeover… from start to finish we spent less than $500 on the entire makeover which was decent for everything we picked up!
When it came to table lamps for the bedside tables I wanted something a bit more elegant and thought about picking up a few silver mercury glass lamps like mine but the beautiful minty, seafoamy, blue color of these lamps was just too perfect. I knew they would make a statement in the room so I had to grab them.
When picking lamps think about height: do you need tall lamps to balance your head board or short? Weight: short fat lamps will look heavier than tall skinny lamps. Presence: do you want your lamps to make a statement or to blend into the background?
Flowers
Okay truth time… I picked one of these up at my local Pier One and absolutely loved it so I had to grab one for Ashley too. I usually hate faux flowers so when I see some that are pretty I jump on it… these are so soft and pretty in person and I knew they would lend a pretty feel to the room.
Plus flowers are an easy accessory when you’re picking out items for someone else and they’re always in style!
Do you see a hint of my new 55 gallon aquarium in the corner? That’s a little sneak peek for an upcoming post… shhh!
Alright so at this point I went ahead and created a mini mood board to see how all the patterns were playing together. With the curtains, euro shams, blanket and lamps providing solid colors and texture the patterns are playing beautifully together.
The seafoamy lamps and throw blanket are just the pop of color to the darker base colors and help the room feel a bit airy and feminine. When I’m creating a mood board I typically open up picmonkey and throw all of the photos in a collage as I go that way I can see how things are working together. It’s an easy way to switch out items until you find one you like… just save the pictures to your desktop and then change them out to see what works.
At this point I was very happy with how things were looking. I decided she still needed a rug and sheets to complete this mini makeover and then we’d call things done for the day… I still have to go through and order euro pillows and hardware for things since she’s basically starting from scratch.
Rug
Okay with the rug we wanted a neutral piece that would ground the room… but we already had enough light colors to make little pops of color around the room. So we went back to a pretty navy blue color to contrast with the lighter curtains and the light whites, blues and grays of the bedding.
Since the bedding already has a fairly busy pattern I didn’t want anything toooo busy for the rug and ended up picking this pretty blue and cream rug with a tight traditional pattern. It should read as mostly blue under the bed and give a nice contrast.
Plus it’ll be nice and soft on her tootsies.
Patterned Sheets
It’s time for sheets! Remember back at the beginning when I said we would look for a small pattern for our sheets? Well we found a few! A few different patterns are always nice to have and different color variations. With a navy, a light blue and a gray these sheets should coordinate with allllll the other things and be easy to switch out when laundry day comes.
Phew!
Alright y’all that’s it! That’s the entire mood board. All of these things reached Ashley’s house a couple weeks ago so she’s already enjoying them… hopefully I’ll be able to visit her and little Lizzie soon so I can snap pictures of everything in real life.
Plus I want to see how it all turned out!
Putting together a mood board for someone else is always challenging but by working off a large piece (the bedding) that she picked out herself it’s fairly simple to add complementary patterns and colors to achieve a look she’ll love.
Don’t forget to pin and comment below with how you think the mood board turned out.
