How to Create a Design Board in 3 Easy Steps!

When we signed the contract on our first home I was so excited to finally have more space to be creative and make a space our own. Moving from two rooms to six rooms immediately spiked my enthusiasm to start creating ideas for each room.

I started by making Pinterest room boards and also made design boards on Wayfair.com brainstorming ideas of which items I wanted for each room in the house.

However, I started to have a problem, I didn’t know which items to choose and which items would go together. I realized ‘matching’ may not have been a skill set I had fully acquired and I desperately wanted a way to make planning out my rooms easier.

Thankfully I came across the amazing Brooke and her Instagram account @nestingwithgrace. In her highlights section she taught how to create your own design board with picmonkey.com.

Thanks to Brooke’s tutorial I started playing around with PicMonkey and I found the process quite easy and very rewarding. I started to see my ideas come together in a beautiful way.

I also tried Canva.com but I found the Pro features in PicMonkey were more user friendly for myself. So feel free to try out both because one site may work out better for you than the other. For now I’ll go over the steps below on how to use PicMonkey.

(If you’d prefer to watch a video tutorial, you may watch that here.)

Step 1: Start by collecting furniture ideas for your preferred space. Check out your favorite stores and start saving photos to your desktop or phone.

Step 2: On Picmonkey, create a blank canvas of a custom pixel size of 2000 x 2000. You can always ‘smart resize’ your canvas to another format later(such as an Instagram post, Facebook Cover, Pinterest Pin, etc.)

Step 3: This step is where you let your imagination take control. Go wild! Add the images you saved onto the blank canvas. If you have the pro feature you will see an option where you can choose to remove the background of the image so that you can get a better idea of what the furniture will look like side by side other items on the board. (The pro feature is nice to have, but is not necessary.) You’ll be surprised by which items match better than others.

When creating your boards here are some things to consider adding to give it the ultimate WOW factor:

Flooring Options: tiles, wood, rugs. See the difference a simple rug could make or even how varying color options bring attention to different types of furniture.
Paint Colors!! You can grab the exact paint color samples online that you plan to be using for your rooms and add it onto the top corner in your dream board (as seen in my opening image on this post). Having colored walls in your dream board will help you see what kinds of furniture compliments or clashes with the color of your choosing.
Foliage. Oh what a bit of greenery can do to a room. Not only does it add some flare, but it adds a sense of welcoming and warmth to any room you’re in.
Lighting! Wall lights, ceiling lights, table or floor lamps. Don’t forget the light! Do you want a cozier feel?? Less lights may work best. Want a bright and airy feel?? Add more lights!
Personal Home Decor: You know that family portrait you currently have in your living room, or that vase you got from your grandma that you can never part with? Incorporate it! Those objects that are so close to our hearts NEED to be shown in the home. Those items are what create your home. Home is where the heart is and any item that is close to your heart in a personal way should be displayed! Take a picture of it and upload it to the dream board. (Ex: In my dream boards above I incorporated our wall map decor and our Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints temple print that I currently have hung up in our room.)

Repeat all steps and HAVE FUN! You will be amazed at how creating a simple dream board can really expand your imagination for creativity. You’ll start with a basic vision and stop with something better! If you end up creating a dream board of your home, share it and tag @ourfamilymaison, we’d love to see what you’ve created!