How to create your own moodboard

Tips for budding interior designers:

How to create your own moodboard.

Be your own interior designer, make a moodboard. It’s fun, interesting and will help you formulate your ideas. Interior designers create moodboards to display ideas visually so that it’s easy to see what needs to be tweaked.

What should you put on your mood board?

Everything!  Your dream sofa, your favourite colours, fabrics, wallpaper, floor finish, worktop and furniture.  Grab a magazine, a pair of scissors and away you go.

This display will help you refine your ideas and see what will work together in the room. It's also a reminder of what you need and don't need and what colours you want to work with. It's easy to get carried away and start buying all sorts when you're redecorating, only to find it doesn't work when it's all put together. A moodboard helps you sort this process out.

You can start with just one idea, a piece of wallpaper you love, for example.  Then build the rest of the room around it. You can experiment with styles and colours and textures before you start spending money.

Next step? Sample board.

When you are happy with your moodboard ideas your next step is to make a sample board. It is a board that has small samples of each of your selected finishes displayed on it for your reference of what is going where.

Need inspiration? Pinterest.

Pinterest is a great resource for ideas and it’s full of moodboards from budding interior designers.
And take a look at our gallery photos from our new homes at Chesterhill Wood, the show home is now open and the rooms are looking great!

Elbow grease and expertise - Richmond Homes gives CHAS fundraising office a facelift

Last month we received a DIY SOS from the Children’s Hospice Association Scotland’s fundraising office in Kinross. Their front garden and office entrance was on its last legs and needed one big makeover.

Never one to turn down a challenge, Bill Bonnar, our Construction Manager, surveyed the damage and set a four-day target to get the job done, organizing machinery and enlisting an army of skilled labour made up of Richmond Homes colleagues and local business associates.

With news of blizzards and artic conditions on the way, the undeterred construction team got cracking. Everyone had a clear role - we were in charge of coordinating and supplying the labour and machinery to create the new garden, front fence and rebuilding of the wall at the entrance of the building to give wider access. Bill approached Purvis Plant Hire at Lochgelly to supply the machinery for the work, to which they kindly agreed and Realm Construction, who are part of the Purvis Group, provided the manpower to create the mono-block design of the project. Fife based Beatsons Building Supplies, long-term supporters of CHAS, provided the stylish design and the materials along with Long Rake Spar, Kilsarn Paving, Pattersons of Greenoakhill Limited and Hanson Cement. Scotwaste supplied a skip for removal spoil that had to go off site, and Scotloo loaned a very handy and much needed portable toilet. Finally, Bill also contacted Scott and Simpson Painters in Glenrothes to re-paint the front of the building.

Richmond Homes first got on board with CHAS back in 2012 when we visited their hospice, Rachel House at Kinross. It’s a truly inspiring place and a vital resource for children and teenagers with life-shortening illnesses and their families who need much care and support. Children’s Hospice Association Scotland is the only charity in Scotland that provides hospice services for children and young people with these conditions. Their office on the High Street in Kinross does much valuable work to raise funds for the charity to support over 300 families across their two hospices at Kinross and Balloch, as well as their homecare service.

A whole lot of elbow grease and expertise later, Bill and the team hit their target of completing the job in four days. The end result is one happy fundraising office with a streamlined, tidy and professional looking front garden entrance. It’s now much easier to get into their office with offers of funds and support for their very important work – what’s stopping you?

A Return To Traditional Building Materials and the Eco-Revolution

A report this month by a Washington based market research consultancy predicts that the global market for green construction materials will more than double by the year 2020. Navigant Research provides in-depth analysis of global clean technology markets. Their latest study points to a buoyant green buildings market that, despite the recession and general worldwide property downturn of the last few years, remains strong.