Weely workshop - Decorating your room, LOTR style

[Marieke]

This workshop is all about turning your room in a place that looks more like Middle-Earth.

Day 1: Introduction
Day 2: Colours
Day 3: Fourniture
Day 4: Decoration
Day 5: Some more ideas

Introduction: Before you start…

First of all, it’s your room, and it should represent who you are. You don’t have to make an exact copy of the scenery in the movie, you can add some things to make it more your style. For example: you like the race of Men, but you totally dislike white. In that case, you may not want to create a Minas Tirith room. There are other options, maybe you could make your room Rohirric.
Don’t forget the practical stuff. It’s obviously not a good idea to release a tarantula in your room to create Shelob’s lair, if you’re arachnaphobic. On the other hand, if you think practical, maybe you find some things that can make it easier (I have lots of horse stuff, when I was really into horses. I had a Rohirric room for years, and I didn’t even know it!).

Before you start, make sure that you have enough time to work on your room. If you need to paint something, you don’t want to do that while you’re in a hurry. Take your time for everything. Also, if you use paint, keep in mind that it has to be dry, before you continue. This could take a while, so make sure that can keep your stuff somewhere else, before you place your fourniture against the wall. If you don’t have time for a complete make-over of your room, maybe it’s better to start with some little things, which can add that Middle-Earth touch.

Of course, there are lots of different places and races in LOTR, so you can choose different styles. In this workshop, I’ll stick to the following:

Elvish: A graceful and elegant style, like the Elves. You can choose Rivendell or Lothlorien.
Dwarvish: A perfect style if you like dark colours and the Moria scenes from the Fellowship of the Ring. Caution: Dark colours can make your room look smaller!
Human: You can choose Rohirric or Gondorian. Especially Rohirric rooms are easy to create, but if you don’t like horses, you may want to try another style.
Hobbit: Very cozy! But you may think it looks a bit old fashioned.
Mordor: Not the most common style, but at least you’re original. And it’s not so bad if your room gets messy (in other words, not much cleaning! )

If none of the above match your personality, or if all do, and you can’t choose just one, or if you don’t want to change your entire room, but only want some little changes to make your room more LOTR-ish, you can just add some decoration to give your room that Middle-Earth touch, or you can use more than one of the above.

Tomorrow I will tell you how to start.

[Marieke]

Colours

It's best to use the colours you like, but you can copy from the movie as well. It's always good to watch it again, and to pay attention to the backgrounds. These colours can be used for the walls of your room, but also for fourniture or just details. Here's a list of the most common colours used in the styles I listed yesterday:

Elvish: As you know, Elves are really nature loving, so green is perfect. You can use different tinges, but if you want to make your complete room the same colour, it's best to choose light green.
There are different colours used for Rivendell and Lothlorien. In Rivendell, most colours remind you of autumn. It seems to have a golden glow, but there's also some warm red and dark green. In Lothlorien, everything seems to be more blue and silver.
Dwarvish: To create your own mine or cave, you have to use dark colours. It doesn't have to be black, actually, dark grey is even better. To create the immage of being underground, the ceiling can have the same colour as your walls. Be carefull though, it can make your room look really small.
If the dark is a bit depressing, you can add some silver or glittering touches. You can make it look like there are gems or even mithril.
Human: If you want your room to look like Minas Tirith, you need a lot of white (there's a reason why they call it "the White City" ). It doesn't have to be shiny and sparkling, remember that Minas Tirith is made of stone. You can add some silver or black details.
If you prefer a Rohirric room, you can use green and brown, maybe some white and gold.
Hobbit: Hobbits like bright colours. You can use a lot of yellow, but also green (I especially recommend green curtains and a green door). Some red and blue things are good to. TheShire is probably the most colourful location from the movies, so don't be afraid to use a lot of colours.
Mordor: Black is the colour of Mordor, so you obviously need a lot of black. However, it's not the only colour you can use. You need red, orange and some yellow, if you want to make thing look more "firey".

[Evenstar]

This is great, Marieke!!!

[Marieke]

Thanks, Evvie!

Fourniture

Of course, a room is nothing if it’s still empty. You need to find the right fourniture now. Don’t panic if you’re not that much of a carpenter, fourniture from the store will do. You may just find a perfect Hobbit desk or an Elven bed. But if you don’t, you can use nondescript stuff. With the right decoration and the right colour, it can look pretty LOTR-ish anyway.

Elven: In general, everything is good, as long as it looks elegant. The Elves love beautiful things, so it’s good if your fourniture has lots of decoration. Maybe you can paint some flower motive on things made of wood (I’ll post some motives tomorrow).
It’s good if your bed has a nice looking head. It might be hard to find a bed like that, but you can paint a field on the wall, and place your bed right there. It might be a good idea to paint it on cardboard, instead of your wall, if you want to change your room later. Finish your bed with sheets looking like silk. Light green and white will look perfect. To decorate other things, you can paste decorations made of card board or plywood on it.
Dwarven: The most important thing with Dwarven fourniture is that it blends with the rest. It’s best if you paint it the same colour as your walls. While Elvish fourniture looks elegant, Dwarven fourniture looks much more massive and heavy. To make your bed and your desk look heavy and massive, you can hammer or paste some plates on it, as high as it’s legs.
Human: A hall in Minas Tirith looks very spacious. To make your room look like that, it’s best if it’s not stuffed with all kind of little stuff. It’s best to keep only the fourniture you need (like a bed, a desk, a chair and a wardrobe. It’s not necessary to have all kinds of little tables and chairs you hardly use). The things you have in your room, however, can be very decorated. You can have black or white stuff, and paint some silver motives on it. Maybe you can paint a tree on the doors of your wardrobe. Like the Elven motives, I will post some human motives tomorrow.
In your Rohirric room, you can put a lot of wooden fourniture. If it looks natural, it will look good with the Rohirric colours green, brown and gold.
Hobbits: A Hobbit room can look pretty stuffed, so you can use every nice table or chair you like, as long as it looks Hobbit-ish. Like the Rohan room, everything made of wood will do. It would be great if you have something round (there are very few rooms which have indeed round doors and windows, so you need to have to think of something else to make it look like a Hobbit room). Round pillows on your bed will do the trick, and so will a round tablecloth.
To make your desk look like a Hobbit has been working there, you can put a little bottle of ink and a feather on it. Just like Bilbo had just been writing in his book.
Mordor: All kind of fourniture will do, but to make it look more like Mordor, you may want to paint it black (I know, very depressing). You can paste some spikes and pins on your stuff, but be careful! Only stick them on places where you can’t hurt yourself!

[Marieke]

Decoration

Now that you have the right colours and fourniture, it's time to finish your room. Use your imagination, and maybe some inspiration from the movies, and your roomwill look beautiful. (Note: I will post some examples of motifs, but I'm not sure if the quality will be like it should be.   Sorry about that!)

Elvish: To make a nice Elvish room, you can use some beautiful fabrics, to give your room a softer look. Transparant fabrics are very good, but it's best if it has a green (or blue for Lothlorien) shine. You can use it to make curtains or a mosquito-net.
You can decorate boring things with flowing lines, or you can paint some leaves on it. The Elves are very fond of nature, so motifs inspired by nature can't be wrong. Here are some examples, which will look good in a Shire room as well. Elvish letters are a good decoration too. You can use the inscription on the Ring, inscriptions from swords or daggers or anything you want.
In an Elvish room, water will add something as well. There are some nice indoor fountains available in stores. If you think that they are too expensive, you have to think of something else. Maybe you can fill a beautiful bowl with water, and you can add some stones or floating candles to it as well. This can also be a good substitute for Galadriel's mirror.
Dwarvish: Because your Dwarvish roomlooks very dark, you may want to add some colours. Jewels and gems will be perfect for the Dwarves. These are quite expensive, but if you find some genuine looking fake ones, no one will see the difference.
You can also write some runes on your stuff. An example of runes can be found on Balin's tomb in Moria.
You may want the gate of Moria on your door. Here is an example of the gate. You need a dark coloured door. First you have to draw the gate on your door. Do that in pencil, so you can erase the wrong lines. Believe me, it takes some practice to get it right, but it will look right eventually. It's easiest to start with the pillars, then the trees, and then the starts and the rest. When you're content, you have to paint these lines. You can use white or silver paint, but paint that glows in the dark is very good as well.
Human: In Minas Tirith, the tree symbol can be found almost everywhere. Here is a picture of the tree. You can paint it on everything. It's best to paint it on black or white things, with silver paint. If you have enough trees, you can also decorate things with starts, crowns or feathers. White feathers, like the ones the guardians have on there helmets, are really Gondorean.
For Gondor decorations, you need lots of horses. Here are some Rohirric horses, but you can also draw your own horses or use horse posters. Maybe you can even find some horse embrodery. There is some beautiful tapestry in the Golden Hall, and you can create something like that with embrodery. Another Rohirric symbol is the sun. Here are some suns.
Hobbit: You can use the same leaf motifs for Hobbit decorations as you used for the Elves. It's also good to have a lot of pictures, paintings and drawings, if it's possible in a round frame! It's not really important if you are a good artist, simple sketches are good too. It may sound a little weird, but children's drawings are very good as well. Hobbits are really fond of their family, so pictures of your relatives will look Hobbit-ish. Maybe you can even include your own family tree. Other good themes: nature and, of course, food.
Food is very important to Hobbits as well, so you may want to have food in your room: on your desk, on shelves, almost everywhere! Especially bread and fruit will look good. If you're planning to eat everything, you can use real food, but if you don't eat it, it will only attract flies, so in that case, fake food will be better.
Mordor: The most common symbols in Mordor are the Eye and the One Ring. It's not hard to make the One Ring, there are a lot of Ring posters. A lamb pointed at this poster will give the Ring all of the attention it needs.
The eye is more difficult. It is pretty hard to draw a firey eye, although it might look perfect if you make it in red and orange. It's easier to make some simplified eyes. I think these eyes will look pretty scary as well.

Here are some more motifs:

Orc banner
Elvish banner
Stars and crown

[Arwen Evenstar]

This is great, Marieke!!

[Marieke]

Thanks, Arwen!

Today, I will give you some more ideas for your room.

Illumination: Of course, there's no electric light in Middle Earth, so you shouldn't have lamps which attract the attention too much. In some stores, there are some sun-like covers to cover your light bulb, these look more natural. I can recommand you these covers for Rohirric or Elvish rooms, but they look a bit strange in Moria.
Candles are always good, as long as you don't leave the room while they are burning!
Some other lighting ideas: a simple chandelier (but be careful if a Wizard visits you ) or those little lights like the Hobbits used at Bilbo's party.

Keeping your room clean: Basically, it's the same as your old room (that's dissappointing, isn't it?). Not every roomhas to be perfectly clean, a Mordor room needs less cleaning than a Gondorean room.
Paper often makes your room look messy, so it's a good idea to bring it together. At first, get rid of the things you don't need anymore. If you keep everything, your room will become a Mathom House in no time (that's based on my own experience...). You could have a scrapbook for LOTR articles. Paste everything in your scrapbook. If you want to, you can write down the source or the date. Stick a nice picture on the cover, and give your scrapbook a title, for example: "There and back again, a Lord of the Rings collection by... (your name)".
Other paper should be brought together in boxes or files. You can decorate those the same way as I described in the last few days. Label the boxes, so you know what's in it. If you don't, it may take a while to find something you're looking for.

Budget tips: If you buy all of the LOTR stuff available, you will definately run out of money. Unfortunately, a lot is way too expensive. So you shouldn't buy everything, but you can try to make your own stuff.
Let all of your family and friends know that you collect LOTR items. If they will get something you can use, they know you want it and they can give it to you (except if they are LOTR fans too...). They can also give you some nice LOTR presents for your birthday or for other holidays.
A poster is very expensive, but you can buy 12 posters and spend less money. That's the case if you buy chalenders. They are a bit hard to find in May, but when it's December again, you should look for LOTR chalenders.
It's even cheaper if you make your own art. It's a lot of fun to make your own drawings and paintings! The more you try, the better your art will look. Unfortunately, it's possible that you are not too good at drawing. If that's the case, it is a bit too hard to start with the characters. Maybe you can try objects instead, like the One Ring, a Lothlorien brooch or a sword. You can even write a LOTR poem and decorate it with the motifs I posted yesterday. Use your imagination (and if you try these things first, it will eventually get easier, so you can try a character too, after a while).

If you have more ideas, you can always post them. If you have questions, feel free to ask!

[ArwenUndomiel]

WOW i'd love to have a lotr room and soon (well a while) i'm goin to get one!

[Marieke]

That's really cool, ArwenUndomiel! I hope this workshop is usefull. Oh, and if it's possible, I'd love to see some pictures when it's done. ;D

[Brannwen]

I thought I had posted here before...hmm. Well anyway, this was an [glow=red,2,300]awesome[/glow] workshop Marieke! I have been wanting to redecorate my room and you've given some great tips!

[Marieke]

Thanks, Bran! I'm glad that my tips were usefull.

[ArwenUndomiel]

Yeah well my room may take a while! But I'll try and post pics when its finished Marieke, but no promises and this workshop was very useful, I've got all these ideas in my head but the trouble is i need a room the size of a tennis court to fit everything in so i'll have to do some thinking!

[Marieke]

Here are some things I made:

[Morwen]

Oh, wow, those are great, Marieke! I wish I had some time to decorate my room, too *sighs* ....

[ArwenUndomiel]

Wow they're great!! My decorating has been put on hold but oh well!