4 minute read 
Aug 7th, 2023 Where are you in your kitchen design journey? Give your creativity a boost with this top design industry method.
With so much to choose from, especially with our ever-growing range here at Granite & TREND Transformations, we appreciate it can be hard to settle on exactly how your new kitchen might look. After all, this is a big decision and a significant investment, and you’re going to be living with your choices for many years to come. So, why settle for anything less than absolute perfection?
If you’re struggling to know where to start, we recommend taking a leaf out of top designers’ books and using a simple, but very effective, technique for organising your ideas: a mood board!
A mood board is a collage of your ideas, made either on a physical board, in a scrap book, or online. It is a place for you to collect all your inspiration in one place and discover exactly what works for you. Here are our 3 steps to creating a mood board which can help you define the overall aesthetic you want to achieve in your kitchen:
1) Gather some inspiration
Begin by collecting images, magazine clippings, and online photos that showcase kitchen designs you find appealing. Basically, any time you spot something you like, cut it out or save it for later. Look for a variety of colours or styles so you can work with a few different ideas. These could be actual kitchen photos or designs, or just interesting colours and themes you see anywhere, from magazines, social media platforms, and even personal photographs.
At the beginning, just take your time and gather as much as you can. You can narrow down your options some more later, but casting a wide net now means you can play around with all sorts of different ideas and even discover things you may not have thought of before.
2) Start with a base colour and work your way out
You might have several key colours in mind, but choose one base colour to form the centrepiece of your mood board. Choosing your colour scheme should be your first, and most important, design decision – even ahead of materials or special features. Ideally, this should be one of the colours you plan for your worktops. Our experience has taught us that it is these surfaces, rather than your walls or cupboards, that dominate the eye line in your kitchen, so start with them and build out from there.
If you’re still experimenting, by all means go ahead and make several mood boards, or divide it up into sections, but make one large colour the starting focal point of each display. From there, you can easily see how other colour and design choices play into it.
3) Add in different colours, layers and contrasts
With your primary colour in place, you can work out from the centre by placing secondary colour choices around it and see how they combine. Look for colour combinations that evoke the mood and atmosphere you desire in your kitchen, whether it’s warm and cozy, sleek and modern, or bright and vibrant.
For example, do you want your worktops and cupboard doors to match, or are you looking for a combination which uses more bold colours? This method allows you to try out a few different layers
of samples and swatches and also start working in any other special fixtures or accents you have in mind, such as a glass mosaic feature wall.
From design to reality
You might get the perfect design from just one mood board, or have to work through several to nail down your vision, but take your time and enjoy it. There’s no need to rush, and you want to be sure it is just right. You might also want to make use of our 3D Kitchen Design Tool to experiment with some different colour combos quickly and easily.
Once you’ve managed to narrow down your vision, this is a good time to share your ideas with us so that we can help you see how they will work in practice. Our teams are always happy to discuss your design plans in more detail, but we can also arrange a free, no obligation home consultation and bring some samples with us. This way, you can see exactly how certainly colours and materials work in situ, rather than just on screen or in a book. Get in touch with your local showroom to find out more.
