Romantic Goth: My first love in Goth style

Aesthetically, Romantic Goth is my first and most constant love. Yes, my hair is a fantastical set of neon colours, but they owe more to the myth of mermaids drowning sailors than to the CyberGoth hybrid subculture - although I like that sort of more danceable industrial too! 

This top from :Punk Rave: has inner mesh sleeves.
The outer sleeves are velvet and split all the way to the elbow

The first time I saw a Goth was probably 1993; my family had gone to Reading - a town in Berkshire - for some shopping, but this happened to coincide with the Reading Festival, one of the UK's largest rock festivals. I think The Cure were playing that year, and a lot of Goths turned up. The one I remember most clearly, was a woman in a deep red crushed velvet fantasy dress with bleached platinum hair back-combed; a more colourful variant on the usually black version of this look. I thought this was beautiful, the prettiest lady I had seen, and unfortunately, being a small child with no appreciation for - or understanding of -what was taboo in my household, I think I said something excited about this, and got sharply chastised by my mother who dragged me away and gave me a lecture on how these were bad and dangerous people I shouldn't associate with... but I think the seed was sown, and that aesthetic imprint stayed with me. 

Me in my study: my aesthetics aren't limited to my clothes.
The velvet top I am wearing the Saphira top from :Punk Rave:

I've been a fan of the Romantic Gothic aesthetic ever since - that wonderful mix of the macabre, fantastical and historical, and this post is something of a paean to that.  

The Romantic Gothic aesthetic is certainly one that is enjoyed outside of the Goth musical subculture, and one that pre-dates it; it's that Hammer Horror, Elvira, and 'vampire' aesthetic of villains and supernatural creatures that has existed for centuries. It's not surprising that is has been adopted by fans of the Gothic in general as well as Goth, and being visually striking, it's also not surprising that a lot of people come to the aesthetic before the music (same with all Goth and Gothic styles).  I was one of those people, and although I came to the Goth subculture eventually, it was a path that went via lots of Symphonic Metal and bands like Evanesence, Nightwish, and Within Temptation where that aesthetic was prominent. There were plenty of films with gorgeous costumes, too, especially older horror films and a good few fantasy films with more 'Gothic' looking villains and villainesses. I saw all that and I wanted to look like them. It was magical, romantic, otherworldly, and while I knew it was a costume, but every now and again I would see someone, maybe online, maybe walking through the Queensgate shopping mall in Peterborough or past some Oxford colleges, or maybe in Shrinking Violets in Bristol, who dressed that way, in ordinary life, and I knew it was possible.

The first Goth shop I went into was actually a Hippie shop called Rod & Maureen's in Peterborough, that had a Gothic section in its upstairs. I was more into fantasy-inspired hippie clothes at the time, but I saw some gorgeous purple velvet dresses in there... The second was probably Mystic Rose in the Harris Arcade in Reading, where I wanted everything Raven and Alchemy Gothic made, but could barely afford a pair of earrings, then I went to the indoor market - St. Nick's - in Bristol - while I was in my Steampunk phase, and I bought my first ever made-for-Goth item, a black frock-coat, to wear with a white frilly shirt from a mainstream store, and green velvet trousers, and whatever brocade waistcoat I could find, a monocle and a cheap costume-shop 'top-hat', or with a high-necked blouse, and a floor-length purple velvet skirt from a hippie shop... I still have that coat, although I'm a now a bit too busty to fit it.

I wasn't allowed on eBay as a teen, and I didn't have PayPal, so I mostly relied on charity shops; mail-order catalogs and Goth shops were generally more than I could afford, and while my Dad didn't openly disapprove, he was hardly going to let me spend money on that sort of fashion.  I rapidly learned that I wasn't going to find exactly what I wanted in Oxfam, and that I would have to learn to modify things, and rapidly learned to apply lace and better buttons to things, and how to do other simple modifications. With a limited budget, basic sewing skills, and a general lack of time and resources, I was a long way from looking like an evil sorceress-queen or a vampire lord, or really looking like anything that was vaguely put-together, but with patience, improving my sewing skills, and finally getting access to the great secondhand resources of eBay and the like, well as becoming an adult and having a full-time job, I could finally start to build a wardrobe that I really like. 

New hair-do required matching make-up

A decade and a half later and it literally is enough clothes for two wardrobes  and several boxes, because I'm something of a clothes collector now. I'm slowly scouring the internet for all the beautiful dresses I pined over as a teen but which were then far out of my price-range, and finding them secondhand on the internet for about £15 -£20, and then customising them with lace and trims. There's a meme on the internet 'be the Goth queen your 12 year old self dreamed of' and while 'queen' isn't always the aesthetic I'm going for ('prince', 'pirate', and 'terrifying bog-witch' sometimes), it's something I feel strongly about; it might have taken many years to get there, but I've actually achieved a (fairly minor) goal; I look like the kind of person my younger self admired. 

I went through a lot of style switches and hopped subcultures as a teen, but even when I was dabbling in Steampunk or a more 'Hippie' aesthetic, things with lace-up details, big bell sleeves, lots of lace, full skirts, brocade waistcoats, velvet trousers, etc. always ended up in my wardrobe. It appealed to my love of history and also to my love of fantasy - whether that was the graceful elves of Lord of the Rings or the decadent vampires of 'Interview with a Vampire' - it also always felt luxurious to be wearing this rich fabrics and fancy lace, and growing up very poor, I'd had very little luxury. At some point I would like to do an article on class dynamics and the 'fantasy aristocrat' aesthetic, but this isn't going to be it. 

I think there's an element of escapism, in that Romantic Goth clothes let you dress like something apart from the regular world, but I don't think it's necessarily a pretense; there's a little of that when it starts getting into painting yourself an undead grey/white, wearing contact lenses and fangs, latex ear prosthetics etc. deliberately looking like a fantasy creature, but that tends to be reserved for the sorts of festivals where taking on a persona is part of the fun, or for photoshoots - one step down from LARPing, but for most people involved, we don't think we're literally vampires, demons, sorceresses and fae, nor are we LARPing - what we're doing is expressing our fandom, our enjoyment of literature, film, comics and art depicting fantastical themes. I can't speak for others, but I'm not trying to take on a persona (sometimes I do as a bit of a joke, but it's several layers deep in irony and campiness), I'm expressing what I love in those things.It's not about being the villain, it's about having their  wardrobe; it's not about being someone else, it's about being enthusiastically and outrageously myself.

My decor is stereotypically Goth in black and silver

To me, Romantic Goth embracing all the decadence, drama and fanciful things that many people only allow to be expressed in the realms of fantasy; there is no reason other than social acceptability to NOT to dress like that. Building my identity positionally to 'the mainstream' is something I think is pretty pointless, and I don't dress differently as some act of defiance, but it's not like I'm oblivious to the fact I stand out, that even many other Goths dress a lot more casually than I do, especially with the popularity of the more minimalist Nu-Goth aesthetic at the moment. I turn heads, and not always in a good way; I don't like attention even if it's positive, and while I disregard the negative opinions of strangers as irrelevant, it's a lot harder (and stupider) to ignore when that escalates to outright aggression. However, as I've written about before, I will never trade expressing myself for blending in.

While a lot of Romantic Goth takes historical inspiration, primarily Medieval Europe, Baroque and Victorian, and more recently there's an increasing interest in the Norse cultures of the 8thC to 11thC, there's a wide variation from those who are interested in getting the historical attire correct for the period, with the right shoes, undergarments, and maybe some actual elements of antique dress, to those who are less interested in recreating history and more interested in being creative with the inspiration - I am certainly the latter; I love history (hence my second degree studies being in history & archaeology), and I also know how much time, effort and research it takes to do historical garb justice, and I don't have that time, sewing skill, or money to pay someone who does. I also love the creativity and aesthetics of the more fantasy orientated designs. I do like to borrow elements from historical dress, especially Edwardian and Victorian, sometimes a little 18thC stuff, but I don't want to recreate history, just use it for inspiration. 

I've noticed a slight decline in the Romantic Goth aesthetic - I think it was pretty popular in the '90s, and then with the explosion of Goth-specific manufacturers, became a lot more accessible in the '00s, but in recent years the Pastel Goth and Nu-Goth aesthetics have dominated, although the 'witchy' aesthetic that was previously characterised by white-on-black occult prints seems to be shifting to something involving more black dresses, with the same big black hats popularised by American Horror Story: Coven. There's also a lot of people into a Norse aesthetic at the moment - 'Vikings' 'Norsemen' 'Vinland Saga' and 'The Last Kingdom' probably contributing strongly to that! I think there's something perennial about Romantic Goth, and while which particular fantasy/supernatural icon or historical period dominate, it will continue. A lot of the older Romantic Goth brands seem to have dwindled, although some like Sinister and Dark*Star are still going strong, but new ones - like the sponsor of this post, ::Punk Rave:: are filling that niche. 

I accepted the ::Punk Rave:: sponsorship because I've bought quite a few clothes from them in the past, and I've always been impressed by both the attention to detail and the quality. They're at the pricier end of the scale, so I tend to buy new clothes from them once in a while, but even secondhand they are well worth checking out because the clothes are durable enough that they'll still be in good repair. These are definitely clothes worth the money. I really love their take on the Romantic Goth aesthetic, as there's a lot of influence from Gothic Lolita and Visual Kei aesthetics, which is refreshing compared the usual Western fare. Unlike many Goth brands, Punk Rave actually show their factory on their website and have their clothes made within the company rather than outsourced to a supplier; this allows for a lot more oversight in quality, and my guess is that the better fabric choices came when they opened their own factory, as their very early garments had lace that really wasn't as nice as it is now. Punk Rave's lace is often FAR nicer than I see on many other brands - no scratch raschel lace! A $50 coupon is wonderful, and I will be putting it towards ::a lovely cloak:: from them, but my opinion isn't bought - I will only ever recommend brands I genuinely trust. 

What is that expression I've got??

As a bonus for reading this far, have a 'blooper reel' picture of me in an awkwardly imperious pose - it's an out of context image from me trying to film a room decor tour, but at least you get to see the whole outfit with faux-leather cincher and mesh insert skirt. I will try again at filming a tour of my study decor, which is just as Romantic Goth as my clothes are - my love for the aesthetic goes far beyond just fashion. Check out my Instagram account of @domesticatedgoth for more decor pictures. I'm wearing a corset in the photo; those elasticated cinchers don't give an hourglass figure. 

Study/Studio Re-Decoration Part 2: Book-Nook

In my much earlier post about decorating my study ::here:: I showed some pictures of it with lighter purple walls, and vinyl decals of Gothic architecture. I felt the bright purple was a bit too kitsch, and was having doubts about the vinyl decals. As such, I became motivated to re-decorate, firstly by removing the decals and re-painting the room a darker purple, and then by adding new flooring (finally!) and screening my meditation area/book-nook with  curtains. There is quite a lot to cover, so I am splitting this between several posts. The previous post ::here:: was about my gallery/display wall.
Sensory Space

My Book-Nook has been a part of the study/studio design plan right from the start. It's probably the most 'Hippie' rather than Goth corner, despite the dark purple walls and black furniture. Its purpose is to provide a quiet reading and chill-out space for me.

I have Asperger's with sensory processing disorder, and one of the most difficult symptoms to manage is sensory overload. To mitigate this, I have deliberately created a calming sensory space. It is important that it is dark, with muted colours, because one of the major ways in which I get overstimulated is through too many bright lights, garish colours, etc. (envisage a supermarket or mall full of bright shop lighting - that will affect me badly, for example). I can gradually increase the light to reading level by using string-lights for dim light, then using the ::Klevercase:: Harry Potter book-shaped reading light (bought in a sale!), or turning on a stand light that is just outside the Book-Nook.

Double mesh curtains filters any glare from the window, and also adds a little sound insulation, although it is a quiet corner of the house, anyway, away from things like the kitchen and bathroom which might have noise. Loud noises and noisy environments are also very difficult for me. I can again gradually increase my sound exposure by putting calming music on with head-phones, or from my computer speakers. I find urban environemnts far too loud for me a lot of the time - too much traffic, all the H.V.A.C systems on buildings, the sounds of people, sirens, etc. all become quite overwhelming (especially traffic noise trapped between the hard surfaces of buildings so it becomes almost an indistinct rushing noise...). It's one of the reasons I moved to somewhere rural, and I am sad about how much busier and more developed where I live is becoming.

I also have to recharge after socialising because the constant analysis and 'masking' required for me to function socially is quite exhausting, so this space provides a retreat and recharge space for that. Having this space is very important to me avoiding meltdowns, especially as I have to try and hold everything in when I'm out and about, so that release when I get home can sometimes be a gush as the dam breaks if I'm not careful.

Meditation Space
I have a half-height book-case that I use for university books (not all of them; they don't all fit!) in there, and originally I was using the top of the book-case for photo-frames. I took down the photo-frames for two reasons; firstly I wanted a more permanent set-up for my personally altar, and secondly I haven't got around to having prints done to fill all of the frames. I don't have many photographs of friends of family, and this is something I want to work on - mostly printing out photographs I've taken myself. When I do fill all the frames, I'm going to put them on the radiator cover (more on that later). 

Darker purple wall with moon mirrors and stencilling.  Gothic fairy.

Photo-frames with pictures of my Dad and Uncle. Dragon frame will be for Raven

I apologise for the quality of some of the photographs; where I have used the camera on my mobile phone the photographs are grainy and poor resolution, where I have used the camera on Raven's phone, the pictures are crisp and better quality.

One addition to my study has been replacing the photographs on top of one of the book-cases with a new iteration of my meditation altar/personal devotion altar. As it is on a book-case, and therefore effectively on a space that is more shelf-shaped than table-shaped, the arrangement of the altar is necessarily elongated.  I like having somewhere quiet and tucked away I can practice privately without interruptions. The book-nook area is behind curtains, so it is even more secluded than my study, which itself has a door onto the upstairs hallway. There's no window facing directly onto the book-nook, so it is probably the most private corner of the house - perfect for not being disturbed while I'm meditating, as well as perfect for reading in peace. I am somewhat reclusive by nature, so hiding myself away in a corner is my idea of heaven. It's a little inner-sanctum in my house, a corner that is just for me.

These are some pictures from early September of my altar set up - I will show some more recent ones later one, so keep reading for those.

Personal Meditation Altar

The two 'pink' candles are actually more of a fuchsia purple, slightly darker and bluer than fuchsia pink, however they look quite pink once lit - they are hand-dipped candles bought from The Maker's Mark in Newcastle Emlyn/Castell Newydd Emlyn in Wales. It is a fabulous wee shop, and whenever I'm in Wales, I try and make trip especially to that shop. The lavender jar-candle is one I made myself from the reclaimed scraps of candles I have burned at my altar in the past - the stubs of so many white tea-lights diluting the purples and blacks I have often used. As has been mentioned in other posts, I am now buying beeswax or soy candles, and this jar-candle of recycled paraffin wax stubs is the last of the paraffin wax used on an altar. I'm phasing out paraffin wax altogether, burning through the last of my stash of tealights, and replacing them mostly with beeswax.  More recently, I have been buying rolled beeswax hand-made 'dinner' size candles. I will probably make a blog post all about candles in the near future.  One of my main candle suppliers is ::Sweet Little Candle Company:: because of the variety of sizes and colours.

Close-up of my chalice, two spell pouches, the box for my Black Book and

candle-holders, pentagram plaque

The black and purple pentagram plaque was bought on eBay, it is hand-made, and I am not sure if it is secondhand, or made by the seller. It was originally gold and black, but I repainted the pentacle purple to better fit in with my décor, using some purple nail-varnish to get a high-gloss and durable finish. The moon shaped glass tea-light holder was second-hand on eBay and it was only £1 (excluding postage). The stack of skulls resin ornament is just there to weigh down the altar cloth, because it was quite light and sheer and kept sliding off the gloss-painted book-case. Not that long after this, some falling incense burnt a hole through the altar cloth, so I have replaced it (pictures further below). 

Contextual image of my Book-Nook. Some colour distortion on right side.
Corner shelves on left have travelled with me since I lived in England!

There are stars stencilled all along the upper edges of my walls. I bought the stencils on eBay for £4.99 from a shop called 'The Stencilist' which is no longer on eBay. I also got an individual star-burst mylar stencil for £2.99 from Stencil Zone. All the stars were sponged on with acrylic paints, with a mixture of gold and silver acrylic used in the Book-Nook to give a shimmer effect. The mixed paint isn't quite as fun as colour-shift paint, but it does have an interesting mottled look, and how gold or silver they look depends a lot on the lighting conditions.

I did the abstract painting in the middle - it is an acrylic pour painting done with metallic paints with colours inspired by the Aurora Borealis. I live north enough to see the Aurora from my house sometimes, although often the weather is too cloudy to get a proper look. At the time of writing this, the painting is part of an exhibition I am in at the Inverness Museum And Gallery (ground floor, in the Room to Discover), and I've replaced it with a large moon mirror. 

Large moon mirror. Photo taken during full moon ritual. Purple lantern reflection

I think the moon mirrors are made in Indonesia - one is certainly labelled as such (the smallest one), and I think as they are all so similar, that they are likely all made in the same place. I have three on this wall, an oval one on the side of the book-case, and a matching carved wooden wind-chime hanging over my window. All of the moon mirrors were bought secondhand, mostly on eBay. The large one was £3.95, the small one £3 and the medium one £3.73, all from different sellers, and excluding postage and packaging.* I think these moon mirrors might be made as tourist souvenirs, as it is relatively common to see them turn up second-hand. I haven't seen this specific sort of thing in import shops catering to the hippie demographic (like FarFetched in Inverness) but that is also a possibility. I display them because of the religious significance of the moon to me as a Neo-Pagan Witch. My meditation altar is where I do my moon-phase devotions, so there is a lot of moon iconography on that altar. I see a lot of similar mirrors on sale from American eBay sellers, but I can't afford postage and customs from America. I don't often buy things new, so wouldn't know where to look for one new. 

Current collection of round moon mirrors, two with coronas, all three purple.

Stylistically all very similar: carved wood with a similar style of painting,

thin eyebrows, soft gradients of colour, three stars and similarly drawn eyes.

As I mentioned above, I recently got a new altar cloth. It's always a risk having incense or candles near fabric, and unfortunately some smouldering bits fell off a joss stick, and landed on the layered altar cloth over a rather more flammable plastic-based synthetic lace skull table-cloth I'd been using to keep my books less dusty, and a hole, rather noticeable, got burned into both of them. I've ditched the Hallowe'en table cloth idea entirely, and I'm going to make a curtain for the books that is under the lip of the top of the book-case, so less likely to come in contact with anything falling from incense on my altar. It is good that I was right there when it happened; this sort of thing happening unattended could start a fire. Always think of fire-risk if you use candles, incense or any other naked flame or source of ignition in your spiritual practice. Witch-burning is a bad thing!

New altar cloth, beeswax candles, candle-sticks, witchy boxes, etc.
Ash next to incense burner rolled there once very much extinguished, and because
I was faffing about with re-arrangement; it did not land on my new altar cloth.

I want to mention the candle-holders. Both the two small ones and the two taller ones are from charity shops. The two taller ones are the first altar candlesticks I ever bought, back when I lived in England, probably back in 2002 or 2003. I had misplaced one for a while, so they weren't on my altar because I don't like asymmetry.  I try and source as much of my stuff secondhand as possible; there's no reason to spend a whole heap of money to put together an altar, or even to have intresting decor. I see a lot of expensive stuff being sold to the Pagan community and also to the Goth community and it's frustrating when I see people who feel like they NEED to have all these expensive things to be a proper Witch, or to keep up with all the Instagram Goths or Instagram witches,(of which technically I am one of both, so look me up at @domesticatedgoth that is where I put all of these photographs before they went up on here) and you don't need to spend a lot of money or have whatever item is trending on Instagram to be valid. Have a good rummage in a charity shop/thrift shop, look on eBay, Depop, your local sales group, etc. etc. There's plenty of very reasonably priced items out there, and they are often more unusual and unique than what is mass-produced.

*I exclude postage and packaging fees from all eBay prices because it is something that will be so variable depending on location. Many sellers offer direct collection, which is very useful if you live in a large urban area with lots of eBay sellers, but I live in the Scottish Highlands, so not only do I rarely have anyone nearby selling, I also have to contend with a surcharge on deliveries sometimes, something I feel is deeply unfair as I still live on the mainland and we are serviced by a proper road and rail network. I am not on an island! It does not take a ferry or plane to deliver me post!. Also, a lot of sellers have a 'doesn't post to Scottish Highlands' issue. It's a pet peeve of mine - we're not as remote and isolated as people think.

Domesticated: Study Decor

Originally, when I set up Domesticated Goth, I intended it to be about crafts, homemaking, cooking and decorating - a blog to give people ideas on how to make Gothic things for their house, small art projects, etc. Unfortunately, I moved into a rental apartment that had strict rules on decorating, and that put a real dampener on that idea, and instead the blog evolved into a more general Gothic & Goth lifestyle bog, with Gothic tourism, art projects, accounts of my involvement with Gothic Lolita, photography, the odd musical post (I am terrible at writing about music intelligently) and discussion of the Goth subculture itself. 

Three years ago, however, Raven and I bought a house - we didn't buy it outright, we have a mortgage on it, and it's not a very big house, but it's where we call home. Over that time, we've been decorating. Not all of the house is Gothic (the living & dining rooms are open-plan with each other, and have a more earthy, slightly witchy sort of feel, with lots of greens, dark wood and natural and Pagan motifs) and some rooms are more Gothic than others. There's also still a lot of work to be done, so many rooms are still very incomplete; we don't have much money, so we can't hire people to decorate for us, and we barely have the time and the money to do it ourselves, so it has been dragging on. However, my study is the smallest room that isn't a bathroom, and therefore it's one of the more complete.

Spiderweb candelabra and skulls are still quite 'Hallowe'en'

My initial idea was to decorate it in a deliberately kitschy, Hallowe'en-esque sort of way - LOTS of skulls, cartoon bat decals on the windows and ceilings, and quite a vivid purple (Valspar's 'Purple Storm'). However, having had the room for 3 years, I feel that style both feels a bit overbearing and doesn't really reflect my personal aesthetic any more, as I've definitely got further and further into a Romantic, Gothic and very Victorian/anachronistic sort of aesthetic, and I want my study to feel more like it is inhabited by a vampire from an Anne Rice novel than one from a Tim Burton movie. I've still got the vinyl decals on my window because I simply can't get them off, and I think I'm going to have to use a heat-gun to remove them!

My window, with its bat stickers as well as SunSeal mandalas
There are a lot of pentagrams and stars hanging up in my window.

Some of the vinyl decals, those of Gothic architecture and Gothic arches, I will keep. I feel like it's still in keeping with the reproduction 1820s Gothic Revival wallpaper of window tracery, especially the arcade of grey/silver arches - something I need to get a good photograph of! I'm in two minds about the vinyl decals of buildings. I'm not sure if they are too cartoonish to look good, or if their simplicity is a good thing, or whether they should go entirely, or whether I should carefully take a scalpel to them and give them a few more details to make them a bit classier (including making some of the Romanesque arches into Gothic ones!). I don't want to make my study too Victorian either; my 1960's house doesn't have high enough ceilings to really pull off the Victorian look without feeling claustrophobic; the spaces are too horizontal. 

The rounded arches and lack of details annoy me!

I have two favourite sections of my study so far, my 'book nook' reading corner, and my feature wall. My study has a weird L-shape, with a short stubby bit over the staircase, and an above-the-stairs cupboard that I store manga and art materials in. In the stubby area, I have a book-case, a corner unit, a wicker peacock-back chair (inspired by Morticia Addams) and a two-handed broadsword! The broadsword is a claymore, the distinctive variation from Scotland. 

My book nook. Chair pulled out to get a good photograph.

The bookcase is all non-fiction. The top shelf is architecture books, the middle shelf history, culture and anthropology, and the bottom shelf is for big A4+ size books, mostly art, but a few history ones too. It's not big enough for all of my art and architecture or history books, but it's got a few. More shelving is actually something my study desperately needs, and is something I've been working on. Some friends of mine are moving to Scandinavia, and have a lovely double-Gothic-arch bookcase that I would like to buy off them, and I've put two new above-door shelves up in my study, one above the main door for ornaments, and one above the cubby door for notebooks (you can see a bracket for it, sans shelf, in the photo above). I'm awaiting some more shelves in our bedroom, so that I can move all my fiction books out of their stacks under my study desk! I've also got a stack of art books under my study desk, and another stack of art books next to the book-case, all of art books too big to go on the bottom shelf of the bookcase. I've got a few shelves above my desk, but they're for art materials, not books. 

Cubby visible in mirror!

My cubby needs a lot of work; it already has shelves, but they're too broadly spaced out, but too close to simply put an additional shelf in between - I need to take the existing shelves out and put new ones in.  There's also a crack where the back board of the cupboard has come away from the wall, and I'm not sure what the best way to deal with that is, as the problem appears to be lack of an allowance for the expansion and contraction of the building. I think perhaps an L-shaped piece of wood, attached to the brick wall and not the board, will cover the gap while allowing the different materials to expand and contract sensibly. I'm not sure whether the back wall of the cubby should have wallpaper or be painted, and if so, what colours. I also want to save up to get an electrician in, both to move the main overhead light at the conjunction of the two parts of the study, but also to install an additional light in the ceiling of the cubby, so I can see what's in there better. 

The purple and gold book is actually a Harry Potter themed lamp! They're available ::here:: and at the time of writing, they're on sale below half price at £35 (hence why I could afford one!). I'm a bit of a Harry Potter fan, so this was perfect. If there had been a silver on purple version, I would have loved that even more. I had the cover text customised to 'Liber Lux' - book of light (probably slightly wonky Latin; it's been over 12 years since I studied Latin!). When you open it up, the pages light up, and create a lovely ambient glow. I put mine on a mini-lectern/book stand so I can use it while I'm letter-writing or whatnot.

My mini-bodhran and a Gods' Eye weave.

Another thing I use my study for is music practice. I have my bodhran and my doumbek, my fiddle and a whole lot of recorders (flûte à bec, not for recording music), whistles and flutes. Eventually I wish to move my harmonium (pedal organ) up into my study, but my staircase is steep and winding, and Raven and I alone are not strong enough to carry it upstairs; I think it's a four-person job, but not a four-person staircase! I'd like to get a piano for the living-room to sit where the harmonium currently is; I used to play, and my nice piano is at my father's house. 

Raven, in front of a resin crow figure from TKMaxx
The silver and black damask bag behind has love-letters he sent me.
The silver and black box below has letters from friends and family.

I also have a desk, which is where my computer sits, and where I do a lot of my art-work. I haven't taken any proper photographs of the desk itself, because currently my desktop is just some MDF (medium-density fibreboard) and I'd like to get something like some black sparkle formica to make desk-top. I've been looking at the wonderful geode-inspired resin art-work of ::Mrs ColorBerry:: (which is totally incredible; I seriously recommend checking it out!) and I'd like to learn to do something similar to make a cool poured-resin worktop for my desk, although I wonder how heavy that would be! Raven built my desk, and to get ornate table-legs, he cut some banister spindles down to size! 

Hand-painted skulls, and easy DIY project. Just prime then paint!

I do like skull motifs, even if they are sometimes a bit kitschy. These three are small skull decorations from Hallowe'en - £2 for a pack of 9 - which I repainted using nail-polish, to immortalise some of my favourite nail-polish combinations. The iridescent green and purple one is my favourite. These skulls are tiny, about and inch and a half high each. 

I love the Art Nouveau packaging

I love burning incense in my study, although it tends to leave an ashy, dusty mess around the burner. I keep the incense for my study (which has cheesy names like 'Werewolf's Bite' or 'Gothic Prayer') in that purple vase. I used to have dried roses in the vase, but they just disintegrated entirely. I love the Art Nouveau packaging for the 'Yesteryears' incense, so I keep that particular incense out on display. The wall faces on the window aperture are painted a lighter purple (I think it's called either 'Lightning Bolt' or 'Haunting Melody'; I can't remember which of those two I eventually settled on. More Valspar paint.) 

My favourite part of my study is the wall behind where I sit at my desk. I painted it black, with silver glitter dusted into the paint, and it is the feature wall I use to display art work. The art work is on rotation. Currently I've got a lenticular image of a crow on a skull, which I think is from Alchemy Gothic, and a postcard of a cat as Moriarty (having stolen the crown jewels). Half of the picture frames are from TKMaxx and Dunelm Mill, and the other half are thrifted. I'm starting to swap out the artwork for fine art images. Not really visible in this picture, but the image in the concentric rectangles frame at the upper left is a postcard of a Edward Burne Jones sketch  (it is of a woman looking down to her left, with a crown of golden leaves, done in chalks or pastels on a purple background, you can see a version ::here::). I'm going to hopefully fill all the frames with classic art soon, just need to accumulate prints/postcards at the right size. The picture of my father (at work, he's an archaeologist) on the far right is going to be re-framed in a black frame and moved to our bedroom, where we have a wall of friends and family pictures.

Display wall from the other angle, with sword.
Also note the Gothic Revival wallpaper in grey.

You may have noticed I have another sword. I collect them, especially antiques. The sword on my display wall is an antique officer's dress sword from the 1870s-1880s, from Italy, with a beautifully engraved blade. I love the duality of beautifully made weaponry; both artistic and aesthetic, yet designed for a lethal function. There are dents along the spine of the dress sword that indicate it's been used in some form of combat, and I wonder if someone fought a duel with it. It's definitely not a battle weapon (unlike say, a cavalry sabre). 

Unfinished wall with broken sconce; the mirror got shattered.

As you can see, this is not a complete over view of my study, and there is much left to do. I'm going to put a Gothic arched cabinet over my radiator, and I've got facings to put on the shelves over my door. I need to take more pictures of things I have added to my study, like the two new shelves. I still don't have a final floor covering; I've got a rug over floor-boards as I can't afford enough laminate flooring to cover my study yet (however I do have a roll of underlay!). I'm going to try and 3D print a single tile of cornice, then make a mould, and then use that to make dozens of foam ones, in order to get a repeating Gothic arch design to go around where the ceiling connects to the walls. I've already painted skirting board gloss black, but I can't put that in until I've got the laminate floor down. I still don't have enough shelving, as detailed above, and I still have lots of stuff in boxes. 

If my readers are interested, I can update the blog with progress on my study, and with how other rooms are decorated. Please comment if you want to see more of the Gothic décor in my house. There's the witchy living & dining area mentioned before, a French belle-epoque inspired aesethetic, just with added skulls, for our main bedroom, a more modern take on Gothic decor for the spare bedroom/games room and the kitchen. The upstairs hallway is going to be quite opulent, with some really fabulous wall-paper, but I'm still currently stripping the original wallpaper! 

I also suggest checking out two Gothic DIY blogs:
::GIY: Goth It Yourself::, which is currently on hiatus, but which has an archive of PLENTY of projects worth reading and looking at, and

::Me And Annabel Lee:: which is also full of wonderful Gothic decorating and craft ideas and tutorials.