We all have our own ideas about a dream home. Whether that is rustic, modern, a tiny home, or a mansion, sometimes it can be intimidating to try and figure out how to get there. Suppose you love the fantasy world of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novel series that inspired HBO’s Game of Thrones but want a functional home while also looking straight out of a fairy tale. In that case, you have come to the right place to find the best way to get a Game of Thrones-inspired home.
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The Essence Of A Game of Thrones-Inspired Home
Loving the fantasy world but not wanting your home to look like a fantasy novel vomited on it is more common than one might think. While you can go wild and make your home look like a movie set, that requires a ton of money or some really excellent skills in the DIY department.
Alternatively, there is the “-inspired” aesthetic, allowing you to achieve your desired vibe without having the elements of the world of Westeros in your face and an achievable level of inspiration while still being recognisable. If you want a home that is functional but stylish and reminds you of the world we have loved for years, this is the look for you.
1. Choose Your Allegiance
Before you can start your journey into turning your home into the fantasy home of your dreams that is still functional, you will need to choose your allegiance within the world of Westeros and a game plan.
Luckily, George R.R. Martin has laid out an entire hierarchy of warring families and factions for us to choose from. Each family in Westeros has a style owed to their house colours and the part of Westeros that they call home. House Lannister, in the capital of King’s Landing, incorporates a lot of red into its style. House Tyrell includes plenty of green and flowery details (of course), and House Stark includes plenty of greys and furs.
If you feel particularly strongly about one of the great houses of Westeros, go with a bold choice and make your entire home modelled after one family’s style. Alternatively, one of the best choices you could make is to style each room differently, depending on what you want to achieve with it.
Once you have decided where your allegiances lie, it’s time to turn your home into a stunning but functional Game of Thrones-inspired home.
2. Entrance – The Vibe Starts Here
Nothing makes a statement quite like the entrance to a home. As the first place you see when entering your home and the first impression your guests get when visiting, it’s the first place you want to make a statement and enter the world of Westeros.
One house from Game of Thrones that genuinely enjoys making a statement, whether it be a show of power, wealth or prestige, is House Lannister. Now, this isn’t just an opportunity to introduce plenty of gold, red, and lion statuettes into your space; having a beautiful statement entrance could come in many forms.
A statement front door with a lion design is a brilliant way to transform a space into a more fantasy-inspired area, as well as a stunning mirror framed in gold to represent the wealth of the great house of Westeros that managed to wiggle their way into royalty.
3. Living Room – We Want Cosy and Statement
The living room of your Westerosi-inspired home is the perfect place to make a statement that helps you shift your mindset from the modern world to a cosy environment with elements of fantasy.
One of the best styles or houses that you can look to that would help you create a beautiful and inviting environment is House Tyrell. Yes, this is a great excuse to incorporate earthy tones like green into space and a beautiful reason to always have fresh flowers in your home.
Bringing in a more romantic and summery tone with floral textile rugs or decorative scatter cushions is a brilliant choice to get this theme across. A floral statement wall goes a long way in making a statement while tying the romantic theme of the Tyrell family together and design your perfect Game of Thrones-inspired home.
4. Dining Room – Fit For A Feast
The dining room, a place we visit roughly three times a day purely for dining with your family, is where you can pull out all the stops. Turning your dining room into a beautiful and inviting space is as easy as including the warm colours and sunny motifs of House Martell.
Having a dining room with plenty of light, natural wax candles that still have a yellowed tinge to them, honey-coloured tables cloths, and plenty of draped fabric, such as curtains that separate the room from others, tied back with tassels, are all great ways to start your Martell-inspired dining room. Bonus points if you go for a slightly boho-chic aesthetic with a shorter table where you sit on cushions on the floor rather than chairs, but that is only sometimes practical.
5. Kitchen – Functional Yet Stylish
A kitchen is often a place that is considered for its function rather than its looks. Still, there is nothing quite like having a kitchen you are proud of, where you can prepare to entertain guests or even entertain them in your home.
One of the Game of Thrones houses that comes to mind when thinking about this family environment, fulfilling the duty of being a place where you can entertain your family and provide meals for them, is the Honourable House Tully. Game of Thrones might not have made the rulers of Riverrun out to be all that family-motivated or intelligent. You may be confused about how that translates, but think about the solid and capable matriarch of the Stark family, Catelyn Stark.
More than just a mother and wife, Catelyn Stark was a Tully before her marriage to Ned Stark. Although a lady like her is never seen working in the kitchen, you can just imagine the command she had over it.
Enough of the explanation, but let’s look at the inspiration. A farm-style inspiration would be the perfect way to design your beautiful kitchen inspired by Game of Thrones. Of course, there’s no better way to begin than with a farmhouse, sometimes called an apron-front sink. This sink instantly makes a statement in your kitchen, no matter the hardware you have installed for your taps, making it a place for food prep and cleaning.
Incorporating grey blues and whites is an excellent way of bringing in the House Tully inspiration; add some exposed rafters, copper cookware, and subtle river fish motifs here and there, and suddenly, you have a beautiful House Tully-inspired kitchen for your Game of Thrones-inspired home.
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6. Bedroom – Your Sanctuary
Your bedroom should not only be your sanctuary but a place to relax and find cosiness to warm you from the harsh reality of…well, reality.
When thinking of the people of Game of Thrones, the families, the way that they are portrayed in the series, how they dress and where they live, it is almost impossible to think of an environment that is so cosy it makes up for the frigid environment other than beloved House Stark. Of course, the Stark family is primarily represented in their ancestral home of Winterfell, a stronghold in the North that governs the surrounding area, with washes of grey and powdery snow, but let’s take a look at how that translates to a cosy sanctuary of rest.
A rustic style will go a long way in representing a beautiful Stark-inspired bedroom, from solid wood bed frames to log-style paddle arm sofa chairs (if you are one of those people who enjoy seating arrangements in your space), a real or fake fireplace to warm up the space, and of course, LOTS OF FUR. The best option would obviously be faux fur, with rugs (not near the fireplace, please; we all know how that ends, thanks to The Sims 4), scatter cushions and throw blankets all being great options, and a bonus for one of those giant wolf-shaped teddies.
7. Bathroom – Straight Out Of A Book
If there is one room in the house where a nautical theme makes the most sense, it would be in the bathroom. I’m not talking about those overdone nautical-themed bathrooms with white walls, blue stripes, paintings of little white yachts floating in the distance, or framed shells. No. With a Game of Thrones bathroom, you can get really interesting with it.
What better great house from Westeros would be suitable for a true nautical them other than House Greyjoy? With their abode suitably situated on the cliffs overlooking rushing water, an emblem that literally bares a giant Kraken-like squid on it, and commanding the Iron Fleet, it is literally perfect, but how does all of this translate to a beautiful fantasy-themed bathroom?
The Greyjoy banner is one of the most perfect for interior design. With simple black and yellow that could easily be transitioned to gold, your palette is perfect for a moody bathroom interior. Remember, don’t be scared of black in interior design!
Starting with black tiles and black marble countertops with gold-ish or copper veins, the options from there are virtually endless. Bring in the nautical theme with octopus-shaped hardware like faucets, toilet roll holders, towel hangers, 3D decals on the wall, candle holders, etc. A moody bathroom is the perfect environment for candle-lit baths and ultimate relaxation that transports you to a magnificent world under the ocean for your Game of Thrones-inspired home.
8. Home Office/Study – Battle-Plan Ready
Every professional needs a home office or a study. From a place to house your electronics like a laptop or desktop computer to a place to house all your favourite books, a study and home office is the perfect fit.
For a functional office, you’ll need a desk and a desk chair, and I can think of no other choice than a sturdy wooden desk and a chair that is fit for a king planning his next battle. It doesn’t need to be mahogany of anything. Still, a solid wooden desk that looks like it travelled straight out of a fantasy era would be perfect for this.
Playing with values and colours like whites juxtaposed by dark woods will keep the interior of your office simple enough that you won’t find it distracting to work in there and also interesting enough that it is a bit of a statement room.
This would also be a perfect place to bring in some real Westerosi influence through maps of your favourite places from the books or the HBO series printed or commissioned on canvas, framed or hung on your wall.
What better way to show your love for Game of Thrones than by storing your George R.R. Martin A Song of Ice and Fire collection next to some beautiful dragon figurines and your nerdy memorabilia in a sturdy bookshelf that looks like it has come straight from a Targaryen war room?
9. Exterior – So Many Options!
The house’s exterior is where you get to have fun with things. There are plenty of options when it comes to beautiful exteriors and ways that you can decorate your house, from installing faux rock walls that remind you of Storm’s End to water features and flower gardens that remind you of the gardens of Kings Landing, the options are virtually endless.
A beautiful but unassuming option would be to model your exterior after the beautiful Tyrell Family’s Highgarden. To achieve this, a shaded outdoor area, thanks to vines or a gazebo, can be paired with a rounded wrought-iron table and matching chairs at the centre of the gazebo. This would be perfect for afternoon tea or lunch in the garden.
If a garden picnic isn’t quite your style and you prefer night activities or live in a colder climate, take a page out of the Stark book and bring the wilderness into your backyard with a stone or iron fire pit, perfect for when you want some flames for some warmth and atmospheric companionship with friends, or even if you want a fire to cook over.
A deck and trellis could be modelled after the house of Martell, water features after the Greyjoys, garden statues and lions after the Lannisters, and the list goes on and on because the options are endless.
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How will you decorate your fantasy Game of Thrones-inspired home?
