The Corian Moodboard Maker – Planning for design success

This is a paid partnership with Corian Design

When I look back at each and every room in this house, I feel pretty darn pleased with myself, the colours, textures and pattern all make my heart sing except for one area. My room of doom… the kitchen-diner. This room also happens to be the one that used up the biggest part of the budget. I made quick decisions and totally played it safe, it’s all just a bit vanilla and I’m way more of a mint-choc-chip-with-crushed-nuts-sprinkles-and-a-fancy-wafer kinda gal.

So how did I get it so wrong? It was mostly down to time and the complete lack of it. With previous rooms I had spent hours painstakingly compiling helpful moodboards. They enable you to visualise how a room will work together and to understand how your choices will compliment each other. They will also just give you a feeling if they are right. I genuinely just couldn’t find the spare time to pin, edit, cut and layer so when I learned about the new Moodboard Maker from Corian I got more than a little excited to know more.

Why Corian Design?

4 words…….not just a worktop! Corian is a design brand that manufactures contemporary solid surfaces which have no limits. Any shape, any size and in over 100 different colours and patterns, it inspires architects, designers and homeowners around the world. Thankfully, Corian was already on our radar, choosing our Corian work surface was the only mistake that we didn’t make.

The Moodboard Maker

Corian designed this online tool as a quick and simple way to create and inspiration board, a way to reference different surfaces, textures, materials and patterns to create a design story. The moodboard maker tool is incredibly quick and easy to use: there are seven styles for you to choose from, each with a corresponding unique mosaic shape.

You start with choosing the style that you feel represents you and the space you want to create. Organic, Minimal, Relaxed, Modern, Refined, Bohemian or Edgy. Each mosaic has several segments to fill, the first one being taken up by whichever Corian swatch inspires you the most. The remaining segments are for you to fill up with any of the pre-loaded images, patterns or textures of your choice. You can also upload your own photos to personalise the experience. The beauty about this kind of moodboard maker, is that you aren’t restricted to a product, your images can be from anything that inspires you, your travels, a memory, a texture, the idea is to tell a story of your design goal.

My moodboard creation

So where do I start with my creation? As a mum juggling a few jobs and being a general mopper-upper, problem-fixer, bum-wiper and all round dogsbody, I don’t often get to do anything for myself. Design decisions are often made with ‘wipe cleanability’ coming very high on the priority list, I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to tell the story of MY perfect room. One that has to meet no requirements of the dependants…………..here we go. I’m telling the story of my perfect flavour packed and not so vanilla kitchen diner.

Let’s pretend that I don’t have 4 sticky fingered kids, let’s pretend that I can keep plants alive for more than 5 minutes and let’s also pretend that there is no chance of the floor being constantly covered in rice krispies and lego. If we can ignore that, I can get on with planning my dream room.

So here is what is worthy of filling my moodboard special spaces:

The all important Corian! As I’ve mentioned, we cleverly chose Corian for our worktops, mainly because it can be adapted to form any shape. I wanted a HUGE island/bar and I wanted smooth rounded edges to balance out the exposed stone in this area.

BUT, Error 1:

I went safe, I opted for Antarctica white. I love it but given my time again I would choose something with more oomph. Something patterned and deliciously decadent. Corian’s Solid Smoke Drift Prima ticks all of those boxes.

A bit of brass:

Error number 2 was not taking the plunge with the taps that I really loved, playing it safe with chrome. Well it turns out I’m a prize idiot because there isn’t a day that I don’t regret that decision. Whilst changing the hot water tap isn’t an option, I would do my best to brass it up in other areas. There isn’t much that says metallics better than a disco ball.

Greenery:

I’d have it trailing from every shelf, table and bookcase around. I just need to give up my medal as number one plant killer to make this a reality.

Some wood:

The more rustic the better. I dream of a huge dining table baring the marks of a thousand family meals. Obviously I will only remember the good times and not the fistful of peas being flung at my face and the absolute refusal to eat anything that isn’t beige!

Lighting:

There isn’t a room that can’t be improved with some fabulous lighting and it doesn’t get much more fabulous than neon. Just a little pop.

Final touches:

All topped off with a huge scoop of something pink.

I slotted my slices of inspiration into the ‘Edgy’ moodboard maker mosaic. Ironically, I’m about as edgy as my grandma but this is the one that felt right. I have to say, I’m pretty pleased with the result.

Moodboard maker – the finished result

I may have to wait a little while until I can create my dream room but plans are in place people, watch this space. Until then I get to print and frame this beauty.

Have a go yourself here – I’d love to see your story through #CorianMoodboardMaker

If you like this, you might like to read my post about hexagonal interiors.