When designing a space, most of us wish our spaces could look like our favorite designers but going from concept in our brain to reality is really difficult. I’ve found a tool that has helped me design my vision with just a few text prompts, enter MidJourney. As someone who loved tools that streamline creativity, this tool is a game changer. This AI-powered gem transforms the abstract into the tangible, making it an ally in planning your own space or handing the vision off to an interior designer. I’ve put together a little guide on how to use midjourney for interior decoration.
What is MidJourney?
Midjourney is an AI program that takes your text prompts and turns them into beautiful images. Now, these tools were programmed by humans (most likely white men) so they come with their own set of biases that you have to iterate on.
If you want a guide to creating MidJourney prompts, here is my beginner’s guide to download. It’ll walk you through logging in, creating images, getting aspect ratios correct, and varying images so you can create your desired image.
This post is merely here to help you understand how to use Midjourney to inspire your interior design choices because it is a powerhouse on visualizing your creativity, you just have to tell it so.
How to Use MidJourney for Interior Inspiration
My journey with Midjourney began in December of 2023, I loved the rush of visualizing my creativity much like the rush I got when I joined Pinterest back in 2010. It was finally giving all my creativity a place to live, and now I could tell the computer what to make for me.
For example, I’m currently reimagining our foyer to bridge a traditional parlor and a modern craftsman dining room. It’s a space craving brightness and cohesion despite the windows lining the walls. I want to keep the foyer bright, light and inviting.
If you downloaded and read my free guide above, you’ll start seeing the keywords I’m picking out for my midjourney prompt, if not, you’ll see them in bold also.
The nice thing about Midjourney is that you don’t need a lot of details to get a great image, the bad thing about MidJourney is that you have to get really good about describing a space as succinctly as possible because when you try to force too many details, it gets confused on what you want the featured element to be.
This was my first prompt: a bright and inviting foyer of a historic craftsman home, soft pale aqua green walls, natural wood tone console chest with a big vase of white peonies, gold chanedlier, traditional style, color palette of soft greens, soft yellows, creams, and natural wood tones –ar 3:4
And here was the output:
While these are all too zoomed in for me, it does start giving me ideas like
- Keeping the trim white and painting the door the same color as the walls for a continual color pop
- Adding wall panel moulding to make the color seem more dynamic and interesting
- When updating the rug, look for something with rust color to compliment the green in the paint
I wanted another revision of this, so I had Midjourney refresh the images and it reiterated the same sentiment: I should probably paint the door & trim a high gloss version of the color on the walls.
My second attempt, featuring a yellow and green striped entryway, was decent but not as impactful. It led me to the realization that stripes might not be the best choice for this space. Even after refining the design to a point where I found it somewhat appealing, it never excited me as much as the idea of incorporating green more broadly.
Now in my attempts at revising my favorite images from the first two prompts, I’ve gotten to a good place where I love these two images and both have similar qualities:
Abstract art, soft aqua green paint, natural wood tone furniture, high gloss trim, and while the rug never really got quite right, that is a detail that I wouldn’t expect it to nail upon revisions.
In summary, using Midjourney to inspire your interior design choices boils down to:
- Identifying Key Elements: Selecting keywords is crucial. For my foyer, keywords like “bright,” “inviting,” and “pale powder” from Farrow & Ball paint color guide my prompt. It’s about being descriptive yet concise to avoid overwhelming the AI.
- Crafting the Prompt: My initial prompt described a foyer with a soft, aqua-green palette, complemented by natural wood tones and a hint of gold from a flush mount chandelier. The result yielding something I hadn’t thought of yet: painting the door to match.
- Iterating for Perfection: After a few tweaks and focusing more on the desired ambiance than overcrowding details, the outputs suggested adding wall panel molding and opting for a rug with rust tones to complement the green.
- Realizing the Vision: With these AI-generated visuals, I’m now poised to start sourcing the elements that will transform our foyer, staying true to my vision.
Look, your first few prompts will probably be trash, mine were too. But it put me on the path to understanding the tool and learning how to use it to create spaces that I could see around my house. It’s the perfect place to let your wordsmithery run loose and see what you can conjure up. The possibilities are endless!
