Study/Studio Re-Decoration Part 4: Worktop & Workspace

This is the part of this room that is most used for the purposes of studying and art. I've shared a lot of my Book Nook and meditation space because it's probably the part I feel is most finished and which I am happiest with, as well as being most relevant to the Witchcraft-related topics I've been writing about recently. However, that is not really the primary purpose of the room; literally it's just a corner in an alcove off my study, and my study's main purpose is to be where I study for university and where I do things relating to art.

Work-top and too-small window, computer and shelves

My computer is shoved in the corner by the window to minimise the glare on my screen and to maximise available worktop space, while simultaneously hiding the ugly PC tower as best as I could; modern electronics are completely out of keeping with my aesthetic. Eventually, probably after I upgrade my hardware, I would like to build a new case for the tower based off Gothic architectural aesthetics, and probably a matching screen for my monitor.  

My study is dingy because my window is overly small and my walls are dark. Most of the time I end up working there after dark anyway, so it is not much of a bother as I rely on artificial light anyway, but it does make trying to photograph the room in daylight sometimes a tad difficult, especially in the low sun of early spring. 

Desk and Computer

My desk is a worktop of MDF wrapped in the sort of self-adhesive vinyl for covering kitchen worktops, and it is pretty good as a wipe-down surface. Archimedes has scratched it in a couple of places, but that is fairly minor damage, however if anyone wants to build a desk like this and does crafts involving blades I would definitely recommend a cutting-mat. Raven built the desk/worktop and the legs are re-purposed from the banisters of a stair-rail.

Above the desk are shelves for the art-materials I use most often, so mostly pens of various types as well as my water-colours. The purple box is where I store technical drawing tools, the ivory drawers my stamping materials. For storage I like to try and find aesthetically pleasing containers as many craft items come in bright colours and garish modern packaging, so they get put in tubs and tins - especially vintage tins. On my desk I have used a spice-rack with a spindle for kitchen-towel as more art-material storage; things that come in shallow trays like paints and pencil-sets get put there, as they do not store easily on the main shelving. I use the spindle for tape (pictured) but also kitchen towel as intended. My tablet and my Harry Potter book-lamp are on recipe-book stands. Kitchenalia is useful for craft rooms!   

Shelves, art materials, Gothic arches & candlesticks

While storage is the primary concern, I do also like displaying ornaments on my shelves, and also sourcing ornamental containers, such as the skull tub. I have some of my Gothic arch candle-sconces on the wall next to my shelves, and the ones that are not too close to the ceiling do actually get used. All of them are secondhand; the two with wooden frames are from eBay, the metal Gothic arch was given to me by a colleague, and the moon sconce came from a candle-shop and is there by dint of being the wrong size for the Book Nook.

Archimedes on my desk!

Archimedes is a cat, and therefore it is his prerogative to interrupt my work, so he spends a lot of time on my desk.

I have to at some point do an overview of the whole room, but I think that will wait until I have finished it. There's so much left to do on this room, but a lot of it hinges on getting contractors in; the ceiling is definitely something that requires a lot of that, and I can't afford it [at the time of publishing this article, which is approximately a month after actually writing it, we are now in 'lock-down' due to the Covid-19 pandemic, so even if I could afford it, it would not be possible to bring in contractors]. My ceiling requires first the attention of someone to replace the section that was put up incorrectly and has bowed and to patch the hole from the botched attempt at putting in a light fixture that was done for the previous owner by someone clearly not very good at that sort of thing, then it needs an electrician to put in two over-head lights in the long section, and one overhead light above the Book Nook, with new switches (and maybe a power-outlet inside my cubby), and not until then can I paint my ceiling, put up plaster stars, and add coving to my room. There's also little point in starting work on restoring the star-shaped ceiling lights I bought (very cheap) until I have something to mount them to when they are done.

I have some furniture customisation/up-cycling projects that I would like to share next, but each of those has come to a stumbling block, so are currently incomplete, but when they are done, there will be a book-case where I replaced the wicker shelves with MDF painted with acrylic pour technique, a drawer mounted underneath my desk with a hand-painted drawer-front and skull drawer-knob, a set of miniature drawers for my calligraphy things, my painting the inner-face of my door in violet and viridian, re-painting a set of shelves in with glass doors, and eventually, re-painting a Gothic arches book-case.

This blog will definitely return to some of its original purpose, looking at my Gothic home (hence it's name DOMESTICATED Goth) with more craft-projects, and maybe this year some spooky cooking! I have a back-log of photographs from trips to various spooky places from last year that I would like to share, as well. [Lock-down means no more spooky trips for the foreseeable future, but hopefully they will resume in a few months]. I also have some art of skulls, etc. that I would like to share, and I will be setting up some e-commerce in future so that I can sell my art online. 

Gothic Christmas

I decorated my study with Gothic-aesthetic Christmas decorations. As has been explained in this blog already, I don't celebrate Christmas as a religious thing, more an honouring of family traditions. It's very much a secular Christmas in our household, with the big religious celebration being Midwinter's Day on the 21st of December instead. The decorations in my study centre around the 'Gothmas' Tree - something that's part in-joke, part household 'tradition'. The 'Gothmas' Tree started when Raven and I first moved in together, nearly 10 years ago. His family are quite traditional about Christmas, and so Raven wanted to continue that. At that point, I wasn't really into Christmas very much as I came from a home where it wasn't really celebrated because it held too many painful memories and too much anxiety, it was a very simple occasion with no turkey, a very briefly apparent Christmas tree, and usually a lot of sorrow. I went to Christian schools, so Christmas was a big thing there, and I sang with church choirs when I was younger, so I'd performed in many carol concerts, and so it wasn't a completely bleak and sombre affair (and even the worst Christmas of my life ended up with me falling asleep in glittering lights of the basilica in Rennes) but it just wasn't something I felt a deep connection to, at least not a positive one. 

The 'Gothmas' tree & my tinsel on my desk. The snowflake is too big, so leans

I wanted to go for a Gothic 'Christmas' that was just a second Hallowe'en (my favourite holiday, of course) so I could still be celebrating something when surrounded by the huge cultural pressure to do Christmas, but my partner is very much into a traditional Christmas. The compromise was that we'd do both; I could have my own Gothic tree, and we would have a big traditional tree in the living room, and I could watch 'Nightmare Before Christmas' and he could play old-time Christmas songs from the '40s and '50s, and we'd get together for roast dinner with the fancy black-handled ornate cutlery reserved for special occasions I brought back from Ireland. It was said in jest that my Gothic tree was so I wouldn't 'ruin' the Yule tree with skulls and bats when Raven wasn't looking because I kept trying to 'sneak' black baubles onto the Yule tree, especially when I found baubles that were very pretty but too big for my little black tree, and they are now permanent fixtures on the Yule tree (which has a lot of more unusual decorations).

Spiky iridescent bauble, I think from B&M or Tesco, on the 'Gothmas' tree

I couldn't afford a second full-size tree on that first Christmas because I'd recently been made redundant when the shop I was assistant manageress of shut down for good a couple of months previous, so I bought a small tree, to bring a spark of spooky joy into what I feared would be a very bleak Christmas in a new country where I knew virtually nobody except my partner, hundreds of miles from my family, jobless, broke, and celebrating that festival that I usually hated. Christmas that year actually wasn't too bad, and I think I managed to even continue the pattern from our first Christmas where I bought Raven a hamper of unusual ingredients and favourite foods! Ever since then, there has been the Gothmas tree - in our old apartment it used to be in the bedroom, and now it is in my study, where being purple and black it matches everything else in there as the whole room is purple and black. 

Skull tinsel - cracked skull tinsel, to be precise, from Poundland

Apart from being very short, my little black tree is quite weedy, so I fill it with tinsel - purple, black, silver, and one that's purple and black with black cats, and another that's black and white with skulls. It looks a lot bushier once I've wound it around with all that tinsel - full length tinsel meant for full size trees, too! It's about all I can do to make it a passable Christmas tree and not a sad Christmas branch instead.

'Festive Fears' tombstone decoration from SpookyBoxCo

Some of the decorations like the glittery stars and black baubles are just ordinary Christmas decorations - it's quite common to find purple and black decorations these days, and silver is a traditional festive decoration for anything snowy. I quite like the spiky glittery stars, and there iridescent star shown at the top. I've also got decorations from SpookyBoxCo from when I used to be subscribed. Some are black tomb-stones with spooky mottos, and some are white skulls (pictured bellow).  There's also glittery purple skulls tucked into the boughs, but all the photographs that I tried to take turned out blurry, unfortunately. 

Cute skull decoration from SpookyBoxCo

As you can see in the background of the photograph above, the lights on the tree are bats. They glow a blue-ish violet, but all the photographs I've taken of them look purely blue. I promise they aren't entirely blue. They're Hallowe'en lights, I think probably from Poundland, but I can't be certain of that. I don't have many Hallowe'en specific string-lights in my house any more - I used to have several in my study when it had the more kitschy aesthetic, but I've now rehomed them to people who have more of that sort of aesthetic. I still have two strings of skull lights, one with small clear resin skulls, and one with blown mercury glass large skulls, but they are in our bedroom. I bought some purple bat miniature LED lights, which are on the edge of my shelves. 

A purple bat that looks blue. 

The rest of the string-lights in the picture below are all permanent fixtures in my study, except for the ones on the tree. The festive period is probably the only time of the year when I have all of the string-lights turned on, although I do sometimes put a few one for things like ambience while gaming at my PC or mood-lighting for D&D. I also like to put a few on when I'm meditating, and don't want the bright over-head light or stand light. I think my study possibly has far too many lighting options, and I'm saving up to get an electrician in to give me even more lighting options, hopefully in summer, so maybe I'm just overly finnicky about lighting adjustability... The lantern string lights were originally clear plastic with brown frames and I used glass-paint to make them purple and green and nail-polish to re-paint the brown plastic frames black. The skull, lanterns and purple orb lights were all from Poundland. They run off batteries. 

Lanterns, a skull, tiny bats, & glowing orbs are the tip of the lighting iceberg

In both the first photograph and the one above you can see there's tinsel on my shelf. I think they're both from B&M, although one might be from The Range, I can't remember. I've got two more photographs of tinsel and I'm not writing two more paragraphs on the topic of tinsel; one is iridescent green and purple/pink, and the other is petrol grey, and they're thick with long fronds - that is all there is to say about tinsel. I think the iridescent one looks quite magical. 

Iridescent tinsel

I think next year I will get two more strands of tinsel, so each shelf has one, as just two shelves looks a bit awkward. I'd like to get some really chunky black tinsel, and maybe some purple or some silver tinsel. 

Grey tinsel

Another element of Christmas decorations in my study are foil garlands, spider garlands, and a foil star. They are the sort that come flat, and you fold them out to expand them. I know a lot of people think these decorations are quite tacky, but I like them, and they remind me of Christmas at my grandmother's house back in the early '90s, maybe even the late '80s. I liked Christmas at my English grandmother's house, but she passed away when I was a child. I tried really hard to photograph the garlands, but I could not get a good angle. I did get a good couple of photographs of the star that hangs from my ceiling however. 

A foil star with silver, purple and blue

There's a spider garland that has a pretty similar concept - it's purple (six legged???) spiders made of tissue-paper strung along a cord - but I didn't get a photograph of that either. 

My glass-less Gothic arch former-mirror for scale and position.

That was my Christmas decorations for 2019. If by next Christmas, I have my cornice up and sort out my ceiling (maybe with two new lights...) then you might get a half-decent photo of the garlands, too. 

Pentacle Shelf (Review)

I bought a pentacle shelf from ::Casdesign:: in Berlin. 

This is the first time I have bought a proper piece of furniture new that isn't something like a cheap folding chair or flat-pack shelf. Most of our furniture has come secondhand from the likes of Gumtree, or been bought in a charity shop, with some of it (like the book-cases in our living room, my study desk, and our corner table) was built by Raven. 

Pentacle shelf by Casdesign, Berlin.

This, however, was something special, and a custom piece. It is a 60cm diameter pentacle shelving unit/display unit. I bought it back in January, as a custom piece and a New Year's present to myself and the house, to function as a display shelf for Pagan objects that don't go on the altar below (not pictured). It cost me €79.95 to have the shelf made - it was made in a workshop by real people rather than by automated machines in a factory, so I was rather happy with the price, especially as this included a custom paint-job. Shipping to Scotland was quite dear, at €22.99 but considering the VAST box it arrived in, and how much it weighed, that is actually a very reasonable transit cost.

For the green I was given a colour-chart from which to quote a colour code, and I chose the colour "Farngrün", which I think is fern green in English. This goes with the green theme to the décor in our living room (which is where our household altar is), and I think is a lovely colour for a shelving unit honouring objects from a nature-based spirituality. The wood was originally stained in 'dark oak' per my request, but once the shelf arrived I realised that this was actually lighter than the furniture that we already had - my mistake - so I stained the wooden parts a darker colour. All the original stain was done in very even coats, any unevenness in staining is my fault entirely. 

The unit is very sturdy. The circle appears to be made of some sort of formed plywood, but it is solid and not at all flimsy. The pentagram in the middle is made from some sort of laminated wood- each leaf of the laminate a millimetre thick, so a very sturdy product. There is also a beautiful grain on the pentagram parts, which sadly this photograph does not convey. I tried to deliberately dismantle the unit by unscrewing it so I could repaint the wood with darker stain, but found out it was both glued and screwed, so it is definitely put together rather permanently. I think it's very high quality, finished to a good standard, and considering what I got for that money, a very reasonable price. 

I actually like it so much that I am saving up for a second pentacle shelving unit - one of their standard models, with a black pentacle over a purple background, which will go in my study, and store items for my personal altar. 

I would rate this product as: 

Construction: 5/5
Quality laminated timber products are frequently stronger than natural timber due to the grain of the laminated being arranged in varying directions, and this has been assembled with joints, glue and screws (not nails!) which seems pretty sturdy indeed. I couldn't even take it apart when I was actually trying! 

Time: 5/5
I payed on 11th January and it arrived on 3rd February. I think it was made in good time, and the only minor delay was in shipping, but that's more due to the sheer distance the shelves had to travel. 

Packaging: 4¾/5

It was double-wrapped in plastic wrap, which I felt was a bit excessive from an ecological perspective, especially as it was shipped in a very sturdy cardboard box with plenty of packing materials, but perhaps a little wasted plastic wrap is better than a scuffed shelving unit, especially when shipping internationally. I feel like I might be nit-picking slightly, but I'm trying to be committed to reducing my waste output.

Edit: Although I only deducted ¼ of a point for this, I have had feedback from the company about the packaging, which I think should share: all the inside packaging they use is actually reused left-overs from major furniture manufacturers, so it gets one more use at least (depending on if the person that receives the package reuses the packaging again... I try and save packing materials for shipping the things I sell on eBay). Apparently there are also insurance requirements for levels of wrapping; their insurance would not cover mending or replacing a unit unless it is very, very well wrapped indeed. New score: 5/5 for using reused materials. 

Communication: 4½/5

Mostly excellent. The company's primary language is German, but all our e-mails were exchanged in English, which is great as I don't know a word of German. Their translation to English was mostly pretty clear, and they were very prompt in responding to correspondence. I was notified of shipment via Etsy rather than e-mail despite not buying this through Etsy but directly, but other than that everything ran well and I commend them for communicating in a second language with a customer. 

Coolness: 5/5
It's a pentacle shelf, in my own custom colours, and is the perfect addition to my ritual space. Plus that fern green is one of my favourite colours. I have only seen one other company offer pentacle/pentagram furniture, and that is in Australia, so it is something different as well as something for my sacred objects and Pagan things. 

I think I will have to create a room-tour video for the living room to talk about my ritual space and how Neo-Paganism is a part of my life, not just a collection of objects. 

The company make pentacle shelves in different sizes and colours as well as coffin shaped furniture. I thoroughly recommend them after this very pleasant ordering experience. I will be buying a second pentacle shelf unit, but not until I've saved up more money. I definitely think it was worth the money, and highly recommend getting pentacle shelves from them. 

As to what is on the shelf:
✪ Draped over it is a naturally shed snake-skin. Snakes shed their skins periodically as they grow, and this one was relatively intact, so it now hangs over my pentacle shelf as a symbol of transformation.

Clockwise from top:
✪ Top point includes a pentacle and Celtic knot-work coaster that I sometimes use to place my chalice on if it is actually containing a liquid.

✪ In the upper right compartment there is Raven's crystal ball, and a little pewter Celtic knot-work box.

✪ The right point has a fox's jaw-bone we found in the garden, and an athame belonging to Raven with a bone handle and knapped flint blade. It was a gift to him from one of our close mutual friends.

✪ The right section is empty.

✪ The bottom right point has a raw amethyst chunk and some tumbled stones and crystals that are green. I don't use crystals for symbolic or otherwise associations, and just have them as a reminder of the beautiful things that come from the Earth.

✪ In the bottom section is a sage bundle I was given as a house-cleansing incense, which we will use when we have finished refurbishing the property for its ritually becoming 'ours' (we have done other cleansings already, we're just saving this bundle of sage). There's also a pentagram made of twigs I bought in a market in Cardigan, Wales, and an ammonite fossil.

✪ In the bottom left point is an orange carved translucent stone that Raven uses to represent the sun, and a heart carved from some pretty sort of green stone.

✪ In the left section is an old Victorian perfume bottle I am saving for a special use. It's got perfume residue in it, but it doesn't have a scent any more, sadly.

✪ In the upper left point is a big chunk of quartz.

✪ In the top right section is little statuette of Bastet that I've had ever since my period of obsession with Ancient Egypt when I was about 11, and a stone oil-burner with a pentacle window which I bought at the Thunder In The Glens festival of Harley Davidson motorcycles and biker stuff in general, which is held each year in Aviemore.

✪ In the centre is a hand-made green witch's face, made by the very talented chap at ::Mystery Star:: back when he had a shop in the Harris Shopping Arcade in Reading... I've kept it as a memento of that little haven of spookiness ever since and even re-dyed it after the sun over many years faded it to khaki. It will end up nailed next to the kitchen door as I've always had 'her' by my kitchen doors, but for now it's in the centre of the pentacle until I find a suitable sun-and-moon disc.

This is just the start of what will be kept there, I'm keeping a little bare for now so there is space as I slowly accrue more. 

Alternative X - Or "HouseCat Goes Clubbing"

I rarely go clubbing. I went out for drinks a couple of weeks back for somebody's leaving 'do', but that was not 'clubbing'! The last time I went clubbing properly was on Halloween night 2011, where incidentally I went to another Alternative X night in Inverness. Back in 2011 Alternative X was held at a club called 'Cake' but when Cake closed, Alternative X was made venue-less. I think Halloween 2011 was their last night for quite a while. 

Anyway, Alternative X is now hosted by Karma Lounge, on Young Street in Inverness. Karma Lounge has hosted other nights that I've really wanted to go to (including UV nights! I love glowing!) but have always been so far unable to go to. Partly it is because I live outside of the town, and don't like travelling around the city as an alternative female on my own. I get a lot less bother when I'm out with Raven. Anyway, I heard some of my friends were going, so arranged to meet up with them and go out.

I hadn't been inside the Karma Lounge before, and it seems like quite a nice place. The main floor is divided into four areas - an entrance area with steps and a ramp, a standing area (part of which was the dance-floor), some seating and tables, and at the back were what looks like cushions and sofas - presumably what gives the place the 'Lounge' aspect of its name! They appeared closed off for the club night, though. Toilets were upstairs and a bit odd to navigate to - I thought I'd accidentally wandered into staff areas to begin with. They have a quote from  Paul's letters to the Galatians about reaping and sowing painted on a cross-beam. There's a building not far away with Bible quotes on the outside wall, telling people not get drunk engraved into the walls, so it's interesting to see the Bible quoted in such different context in the same city (from different centuries).

I was the first person of our little group to arrive, and ended up sitting alone. Two guys sat down next to me, this was fine, they were polite, asked first, etc, didn't bother me. I heard them speaking in Polish, and I recognised the voice... Started a conversation with them, later found out, after talking Roller Derby, that the chap I was talking to was a friend of a friend and that we'd met before at that leaving do I'd mentioned earlier, but in this different context, neither of us had initially recognised the other! Proof that it is a small world (especially in the alternative scene) indeed.

I caught up with my friends, ended up only buying a couple of drinks in the whole night (for others) and people were constantly buying me drinks (apparently I dance well or something... I think I dance badly and people are getting me more drinks to lower my inhibitions and therefore have me dance more (and in a less co-ordinated manner) in order to giggle at this... Perhaps I am paranoid). Drinks were reasonably priced, the Amaretto was tasty (downing shots of it, though, is never a good idea for me!). It was a free entry night, and usually when clubs run free entry nights, the price of the drinks are inflated, but it didn't seem the case with Alternative X and Karma Lounge. 

The music erred more towards rock and Metal than Goth, with a dash of Punk (I was screaming along to the Sex Pistols at one point) but that seemed fair given that the majority of the clientele were Metal-Heads rather than Goths. They did play 'Lucretia, My Reflection' by Sisters of Mercy and 'Spellbound' by Siouxsie and the Banshees, and a couple of other tracks that catered towards the more traditional Goth scene, but I didn't hear EBM or similar, though (although I guess that for those that don't like 'Cyber-Goth' that will be a good thing. 

I met the host, Brian, who is a very friendly person, who went around, looking to see that all the patrons were enjoying themselves. He also introduced me to his wife (whom I first noted for wearing a gorgeous fitted long leather coat, frilly shirt, cincher and New Rocks. Romantic Goth done excellently!) and his wife and I seem to get on really well - we were  chatting away for ages! It's nice to see a Goth night run by someone who seems really passionate and involved with the local scene. 

I had a lot of fun dancing (which is my primary motivation for clubbing) and hanging around with my friends (something that can be done without clubbing, so doesn't count as a motive for going clubbing specifically.) The only bad bit was me accidentally knocking someone's drink out of their hands while dancing. I'm definitely planning on going to Alternative X again. I really wish Raven had been able to go out with me that night, but he was working in the morning; hopefully he'll be able to go to the next one.