I was digging through old posts looking for a link when I rediscovered a long-forgotten mood board I made about a month before we moved into our second house in 2010. At the time I captioned it, “we have no idea what our future living room will actually look like, but today this is what I’m loving.”
Looking back now, it’s funny how closely parts of that mood board match what our living room eventually became. Twenty months later—after I had completely forgotten the board existed—we ended up with a lot of the same gray and green elements: a large gray sectional, a green rug, and even the same zebra pillows (which I later found on clearance at West Elm, after having entirely forgotten them from the mood board).
Not everything turned out exactly as planned. We still haven’t replaced our old media cabinet (we’re hoping to find a thrifted dresser to repurpose), and we chose a padded ottoman instead of the two wicker tables I had pictured for the coffee table area. Our curtains also went with a subtle white-and-gray print rather than green—probably for the best, since a big green rug plus green curtains might have been a bit too much Kermit.
One of the strangest coincidences came when a reader reminded me about a DIY art project from 2008: I’d enlarged color copies of two graphic green wool rugs from a decorating magazine, cut the images into strips so both patterns appeared in each frame, and hung them as wall art. Four years later we bought a rug that looked almost identical to that homemade piece. I never would have tied the two together on my own, so it was hilarious to make that connection.
There are other little recurring motifs, too. The deer head on the mood board closely resembled “Ramsey,” a faux taxidermy piece that once lived in our bedroom until it met an unfortunate fate during a book photoshoot. We also kept another faux horned decoration I picked up from Hobby Lobby and hung it in the kitchen during renovations—noticeable from its slightly scratched paint. It’s practical as decor and, apparently, makes a decent fascinator in a pinch.
Just four days after moving into our current house in 2010, we shared inspiration images that included a page from House Beautiful. That spread featured a quatrefoil mirror strikingly similar to one we later found at a home improvement store and installed above the sink in the main bedroom. We only realized the likeness when a reader pointed it out—another case of inspiration turning into reality, almost without conscious effort.
That same inspiration page showed a dark teal accent wall, a color family that informed choices throughout our home. We ended up choosing Benjamin Moore’s Dragonfly for the backs of our dining room built-ins and a complementary teal for our guest room (Martha Stewart’s Plumage), so the mood-board influence clearly showed up in paint decisions as well.
Another quirky similarity involved landscaping. Two oak trees that stood in the left front quadrant of our first house turned out to be nearly in the same place at our current house. When we moved in, overgrown shrubs made the connection hard to see, but after clearing things away the matching placement became obvious—save for the large magnolia that’s unique to this yard.
So what do you think? Do photos, tear sheets, framed art, and mood boards you make before moving have a way of seeping into your later design decisions? You could say people just gravitate toward what they already like—so the images you clip and keep reflect enduring tastes—but it was still surprising to see how many elements from that forgotten mood board and old projects quietly resurfaced in our home.
Have you noticed similar echoes between different houses you’ve lived in? We have a theory that some people end up buying essentially the same house over and over, with only small tweaks for changing needs (more bathrooms, extra bedrooms). For example, a close friend and her husband looked at countless homes and ultimately chose another three-story layout nearly identical to their old townhouse, complete with a large media room in the basement. In our case, we seem to favor mid-century ranchers, and even the oak tree placement felt familiar—maybe we really are creatures of habit. Of course, many others actively seek something completely different when they move, and we’d love to hear those stories too.