How to Use A Mood board to Get Results for DIY Projects

Thanks Mary; the floor plan helps a lot! I hope I'm not too late to give my two cents worth :) I'm going to give you advice on space planning. Despite the small size of the room and the multitude of purposes, your bedroom should still be a sanctuary. But to achieve that, you will have to compromise on some of the pieces your already own. Between the mid century sideboard, the side table and dresser, would you be willing to sell any of those pieces to reinvest the money elsewhere? If so, you can sell them as-is or make them over to sell to get the best price. Here's what I suggest. Remove the closet; you said it was too small to function so take down the walls and open up the room. Move your desk into the corner. I would get rid of the shelf above your desk and replace it with closed storage cabinets - or you could even cut down the bookcases (to make them fit better if necessary) and mount them horizontally above the desk as cubby storage ON THE WALL. The door swings into the room so takes up valuable floor space. Can you reverse it so it swings out into the hall? If not, remove it and replace it either with a sliding door or pocket door so it doesn't encroach on the space. Beside the desk, you can put the side table with the printer on it. Hopefully it fits between the desk and end of the door entrance. If it doesn't, and you're willing to sell it, replace it with another piece that will fit and hold your printer. Alternatively, you could start from scratch and custom-build a new longer desk from the wall where the closet used to be to the edge of the door and hide the printer in a drawer underneath the new desk. Move the bed to the middle of the long wall opposite the window (where the closet used to be). Now the bed is centred on the longest wall and there's plenty of space around it. You could wall mount two small shelves to act as side tables so you both have somewhere to place a glass of water and reading lamp etc. On the window wall where the bed used to be, purchase two narrow wardrobe cabinets to place either side of the window. This will replace your lost closet space and be way more functional. Ikea has some great ones; maximize the storage by purchasing ones that reach the ceiling. Below the window, in between the two wardrobes, place either the mid century sideboard or the dresser. Hopefully one of those will span the gap and fit under the window. I'm going to e-mail you pictures of a new layout so you can see what I'm talking about. If you really want to hold onto all your furniture, feel free to send me the dimensions of each piece of furniture, including the bed. I have a 3D program that I can plug it all into to see if we can make it work better for you.

I live in a mobile home and sleep in the smallest bedroom myself so I understand all about small rooms. To reduce the look of "clutter and to much furniture" in a room I go with painting furniture all the same color when ever possible.. and many times painting it the same as the wall color so it blends in. Then one piece can have some stencil work like that dresser you showed us. As long as that same accent design is included in other parts of the room in small amounts (such as on the inside back of the bookshelves and a small pillow on the bed...) you are good to go without making things look over cluttered.

I like the idea of painting the shelves white and decoupaging the paper to the back. Is all of this furniture in one room? I would make it basically all one/two colors to be cohesive! If you add stenciling to the dresser also add it to the two dressers that are stacked. It would help to see the whole room and what you have in it and if you are fitting all the above in it.

Individually you have some great furniture pieces but they are all different styles. So to pull them together I would suggest painting them all the same color. Maybe whitewash the tabletop and cabinet doors instead of solid white.

Hi Mary - what are the dimensions of the room? Do you have a floor plan you can share us that shows where everything is placed now? I feel like this is just as much an exercise in space planning as it is decor so it's helpful to get an overall picture before I can weigh in on an opinion :)