Mockups & Drawings vs. The Finished Rooms

The first mockup I did for our house was way back in 2014. I did this drawing to work out my plans for the main wall of cabinets.

The final look of that wall was pretty darn close to the drawing. In fact, in the original kitchen, I added the corbels, so the only change that I made was eliminating the area at the top for the storage baskets. That’s one of those things that looked good on paper, but when I started building the kitchen, I realized that there really wasn’t enough room up there for baskets. So I enclosed the whole area with a top header and trim on the cabinets. And I also started out with glass front doors, which I had for a few years before I swapped out the glass for the metal grids. And finally, the original center cabinets on the bottom did have one door each, but at some point, I ordered new doors to make those double doors on the cabinets.

The next drawings I did were for my studio. I can’t find my original drawings, which I did in 2017. But over time, I began to tweak the drawings before the building started. I edited the drawings using my photo editing software, and before I began building, this is what I had decided on for the desk area of the studio.

And then I tweaked that idea just a little bit by adding the bridge to connect the two side cabinets.

And that final drawing was the one I went with. Here’s how the real thing turned out…

The drawing I did for the mural wall changed the most. Again, I can’t find the original drawing that I did in 2017, but here’s what I had in mind after I tweaked that design a couple of years later using my photo editing software. I had planned to make the two areas under the windows desk areas with room for chairs. And I had also planned on adding upper storage next to the side walls.

I kept tweaking this design using my photo editing software, and this was the final design I came up with before I started building.

But as I started building out this wall, I changed the design even further and eliminated the upper storage because I didn’t want to cover up so much of the mural. I also decided to add some cabinets instead of having drawers all the way across the wall. But overall, it’s pretty close that final mockup.

The drawing that I did for our bathroom is probably the closest one I’ve ever done to the final outcome. I did this drawing in 2022.

And that final wall of our bathroom looks almost exactly like the drawing.

When I did the mockup for my walk-in closet, I was a bit limited because I decided to use the Pax wardrobe designer from IKEA. It was very useful in helping me determine how I wanted each wall to be organized, but there are limitations with that planner since IKEA only offers specific sizes of Pax wardrobes, and with limited options for how to arrange each section. So I did the main design using the IKEA design tool, and then I added in other things (mirror, wallpaper, dryer, upper cabinet) using my photo editing software.

Since I ended up building the cabinets from scratch, I didn’t have any limitations as far as sizes and organization, so I was able to do quite a bit of customization on each section. I’m so glad I built my own because I was able to add my glass-top jewelry drawer and customized necklace organizer. But overall, that mockup helped me get my thoughts and plans in order for how I wanted the overall room to be arranged and organized.

For our bedroom, I did the whole mockup using my photo editing software, and I just copied and pasted each individual item onto a new image that I created from scratch. I like doing mockups this way because it gives a more realistic view of what the room will look like than drawing the design with a Sharpie marker on graph paper. And it’s a whole lot easier to make tweaks to the design and swap out items when I change my mind, or when I want to test out different ideas.

And because doing a mockup that way allows me to use the actual items that I used in the room, like the headboard fabric, rug, drapery fabric, etc., it gives a much more realistic view of what the room will look like in the end.

But as you know, most of the mockups that I’ve done over the last few years have been very quick and easy mockups where I copy and paste an idea onto a real photo of the room. I did this with the studio bathroom when I was testing out different wall design ideas and vanity colors. These mockups are never perfect or polished. But because they are quick and easy, I can test out a lot of different colors and ideas without taking up too much time. And that makes them really fun to do. So here’s the one I did of the bathroom wall design and vanity color that I ended up going with. I took an actual photo of the room, and then copied and pasted the striped design on top of that photo, along with the mirror that I had selected. And then I very quicky dropped a new vanity color on top of the old color. Again, these quick and easy mockups are never perfect, but they’re very helpful.

And seeing that mockup also helped me make my decision to rearrange the colors on the wall design so that like colors were grouped together rather than having the colors in a random order.