I like to consider -려고 하다 as "made as if to____", or "attempted to". The first thing I can think of is 방을 치우려고했는데 늦어서 그냥갔다 which would roughly be "I was going to clean my room, but since I was late, I just left" where left is "left the house" as opposed to "left it as is"

Also refer to http://www.italki.com/question/252963