Do you want to go to sleep in a Gothic style castle? Do you love the medieval look? Take a look at my Gothic Bedroom Design ideas, options, and how-to advice for designing your own Gothic bedroom. You’ll find links to Gothic style bedding, Gothic colour combinations, faux painting tips to make your bedroom look old, medieval and Gothic decor accessories, Gothic candelabras, and books on Gothic design to help you get that Medieval look just right! Gothic bedrooms are all the rage right now. Get in on the fun. Design your own Gothic bedroom today!
Why a Gothic Bedroom?
My love of the old Dracula movies inspired me to design my own Gothic bedroom. I so much admired the medieval looking decor that I started really looking at how those castle bedrooms were decorated.
The first thing I noticed was the candelabras. Before electricity that was their only form of lighting. For a proper Gothic bedroom, you definitely need a great candelabra.
The color scheme is a bit difficult to detect in the old black and white movies, but I’ve found that rich reds, royal purples, deep blacks, satiny golds, and all of the gem colours, work very well. Your bedding pattern must be of a regal design, stripes or crests, or simply solid colours with lots of velvet, lace, and fringe work. The large four post bed should be topped with a lacy canopy, or fringy drapes and have an assortment of billowy pillows on it. Also, don’t forget the headboard! I bought a headboard in Leeds in a deep scarlet red satic fabric. It looks great.
Wrought Iron adds a touch of the ancient. Crosses and over door decorations should all be made of wrought iron, or look like it is.
Of course, you will still want the modern conveniences of electricity but be sure that it doesn’t stand out too much. You can find Gothic looking lamps with scroll work on the bases and even in the upper lighted areas. You can even find lamps and lightbulbs that resemble candles.
Your pictures and accessories should not have a modern look. Think Medieval paintings – swords, dragons, crests, Kings, and Queens. Since my room is based on Dracula, I have a great picture of a vampire, ready to sink his teeth in, at the side of my bed.
The most important thing to remember is to have fun designing your Gothic bedroom. Watch the old movies, study the medieval designs in books and start designing your own castle hideaway!
A Strand of Garlic
To add to the vampiric atmosphere of my bedroom, I’ve hung a strand of (imitation) garlic from the top, right, post of my bed as a finishing touch.
How to Create Cracks and Cobwebs
Your Gothic bedroom should have an old look and feel to it. Think dark and dusty without it actually being dirty and filled with cobwebs. Believe it or not, you can get this look with a new coat of paint.
To get started you need to choose a paint color that compliments your bedding and taste. While a Gothic bedroom should be dark, black paint on the walls isn’t necessary. I’d try to go with tones of a dusty white, sepia, or grey. Stay away from anything bright or fluorescent.
I chose to use a neutral colour with a slight golden tone to it as the back color in my bedroom, to match the gold in my bedding and curtains, and a brownish coloured paint for the accent, but I believe this technique will work with any colour you like.
Once you’ve chosen your wall colour, you’ll need to choose an accent colour. This colour should be in the same family as your chosen wall colour, but a shade or two darker. You can also go with a dark grey, or if you’ve chosen a fairly dark colour for your walls, you might want to use black. Test the colours to see if they go together using the paint chip samples at your local paint store.
Once you’ve got your colors, paint the entire room with the lighter colour. Depending on which kind of paint you use, this usually takes two coats.
After the paint on the wall is dry, next comes the fun part! Using a very thin artist’s paintbrush, or the edge of a folded piece of sturdy paper, paint thin uneven lines to look like cracks onto your walls, running from the top corners (where the walls meet the ceiling) in varying lengths, no more than 1/4 of the way down the walls. In order to keep your cracks realistic looking, don’t go all the way to the floor. If a real wall cracked like that, it would crumble and cave in.
As you paint the lines (cracks) down the walls, keep your paint brush on the dry side, and don’t re-wet your brush until you start a new line. The lines should appear darker and fuller near the ceiling and fade away as they descend down the wall, just like actual cracks do.
Do this in all four corners of your room, but don’t make the cracks look symmetrical, and keep the lines thin. Each corner should have its own unique look. If you like, you can paint a few “cracks” in the centre of the walls, starting from the ceiling, but I don’t recommend you do too many. Sometimes, less is better, and in this case, less cracking will look much more realistic.
Have fun with it!