The Empty Room
People say empty rooms are some great, undiscovered country. They are meant to be full of possibility. For me, they’re more an obstacle course to navigate.
When Queen Gwyneth told me that as her intern I’d be assigned a room in the castle, I didn’t expect to have my own tower. Well, half a tower. It’s really one big room and a little entrance hallway that also serves as the corridor from the main house to the secondary tower.
“I was going to give you both the tower rooms,” Her Majesty explained, “but then I realised there’s no set of stairs going directly from this room into the room above, and I thought you’d go batty running from one room to another via all the other staircases in the castle. I figured you’d end up spending most of your time in one room anyway, so this will be your private space. Mine and Nathaniel’s rooms are up in the main tower, and Wren and Drysi will be on the first floor, so you’ll be the only person with living space on the ground floor. You’ll almost have a castle to yourself!”
Not really, but I wasn’t going to argue. “It’s a great space,” I agreed.
“Wonderful. Your things have arrived from Cymriel, so you can have the day to put it together. But I expect you back at work with Nathaniel tomorrow on those brochures.” She winked as if she weren’t really serious about all the work she expects, but I know differently.
The bed comes first
Of course, the bed has to come first: it’s just a matter of bulk. I’m so glad my parents sent over my old bed—with a new duvet! I’ve slept in this bed for years, and it would feel sort of funny to sleep anywhere else. I guess I’m not as grown up as I want to be, because the sense of comfort I felt when the footmen brought that bed through was palpable.
Next, the vanity
Her Majesty insisted I have a vanity in my room, “because you’ll be going to all sorts of events and I need you to look your best. Thank you, by the way, for working on a new look for me: I need all my top level assistants to look exotic and interesting for the tourists.”
OK, fine. I’m not much for being super well put together, but I understand her logic.
After that, my favourite settee
Then, I had the footmen place my favourite settee, again lovingly recovered by some of my mum’s helpers. The book on the settee is my journal, and yes, it’s locked, and no, you can’t read it.
My desk!
My desk doesn’t look right without my computer and my lamp and my favourite cup and these pictures. All of these things are important to me. The unicorn lamp was a gift from one of my brothers. My favourite cup I found just a few weeks ago at a faire. I love cats, and unicorns, and of course My Little Pony (who doesn’t?). In fact, to use the current young people’s parlance, I would say that Fluttershy is my spirit animal. When Queen Gwyneth asked me to make myself over in order to look more interesting for tourists, I decided to become the fae incarnation of Fluttershy. So it’ll be like I’m cosplaying 24/7!
Decorated desk
Now we come to the part of decorating that I actually like: the putting-in of all my little things that makes my space mine. My unicorn chair has to go close to the desk so I can reach stuff, but far enough away from the computer that I won’t be tempted to spend all my time on Discord with my friends. Pegasus Pony and Bunny (I’m so creative with names!) have to go on the shelf, because they help me with assignments. I’m not making this up. And the Fairytale sign was another gift from the same brother who gave me the unicorn lamp. Eponas really gets me.
Hearth
After that, I worked on the hearth space. I know you can see a bit of the vanity on the left, but we’ll get to that: I forgot to take photographs as I was going along, so these were mostly taken after the room was finished.
I’d never had my own hearth to decorate before: our family’s home in Cymru is quite small in comparison to Queen Gwyneth’s amazing castle. She gave me a little design lesson the castle when I first visited, and she promises to take me to visit the designer, Rivendale, one day soon. She says everything in that shop is amazing.
This old mirror and the butterfly hangings come from my “hippy” period, which occurred more or less when it happened; I was in my 50s at the time, and the counterculture movement in the USA really spoke to me. The bunnycorn I’ve had since I was very small and I don’t remember where it came from. And of course, Fluttershy is there to guard me whilst I’m sleeping and make sure no monsters come through the fireplace. She’s good like that.
Fairy Collection
I was really surprised that mum included this little set of fairies in a box labeled “special decor”. She collects decor, and this is one of her favourite sets of figurines. I’ve always loved them, so she sent them along. Given the rate at which she collects stuff like this, I’m sure she already has a replacement set for the curio shelf back home.
Vanity stickers, and Mean Cats!
Yes, I have a large wall sticker depicting the My Little Pony cast. I love how Fluttershy is looking over them all, as if she is the grand caretaker. As for the cat balloon, I have a bunch of them, but I couldn’t find the others, so I put the Mean Cat pictures up on the window. Mean Cat is another one of my special animals: he (in his many incarnations) helps me when I desperately need to stab someone but would rather not get in trouble for oathbreaking, so I pretend that he is doing it instead of me. I mean, I pretend that whoever is bothering me gets stabbed by him, not that I somehow become him in a weird Son of Sam kind of way. Because that would be creepy.
After break, bed and balloon!
I took a break to see the hairstylist, Robin. She gave me this gorgeous cut with a braid extension (you can’t see it in this picture; it’s behind me), and then I found the kitty dress and my witch hat and my favourite pink boots in one of the boxes. In that box for some reason, was this amazing unicorn balloon, which of course I put up right away: a girl can’t have too many bedroom guardians; am I right? And—about that wall sticker. When I was in my 70s, my mother got this idea in her head that everybody needed to have a personal statement, preferably displayed prominently in their living space. So… this is my personal statement. It may be a bit juvenile, but that’s how I feel about life. If everyone isn’t a pony, they should be.
By the time I got to this stage, I was tired, but there was still one completely unfinished and undecorated wall. “OK”, I said to the helper fairies, “We need some shelves up in here, pronto.”
They were good to oblige me and made sure the shelves looked like trees. I approve of this.
My favourite part!
Then it was time for my favourite part: my collections. I suppose the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree here: I have so many little things I’ve collected over the years that they took up, well, several boxes, and there’s not enough room to put all of them up here, so I just put up my favourites.
Real fairies!
Now, some people have been downright critical of me for this collection: these are real fairies from Cymriel, and I caught them when I was very small and put them into jars and gave them great living environments. I am very careful to feed and water them frequently. They will be such a wonderful reminder of my homeland: the native plants in the terrariums just make everything so much nicer. I know they are happy because they’re always smiling, so don’t look at me like that.
Meowls!
I love meowls. I used to train them and show them back in Cymriel, and these are ten of my absolute favourites: the rest have been left in the company of one of our gardeners who loves them almost as much as I do. They all have names, and there is a story behind each one, but I won’t bore you with details. They do get up to some mischief, but once they’ve been here long enough that they understand this is home base, I’ll open a window and let them fly in and out as they please. Until then, my handmaid is going to have her hands full (see what I did there?)!
When we got to this stage, there were still about six boxes of stuff left over. For right now, they’re being stored in the corridor: Queen Gwyneth says she will drop them into a pocket dimension for me in a few days when the moon’s right for it.
Am I finished? No clue! I’ll probably want to change things up in a week or so: that’s how my squirrel brain works. But for now, I’m pretty happy.
Many of the items in this post are featured items from the Spoonful of Sugar Festival. Spoonful of Sugar is a charity event to benefit Doctors Without Borders, which provides medical care to vulnerable people and in crisis situations all over the world. The festival offers entertainment events, fashion shows, and of course many ways to donate to this great cause, including five shopping sims! Make sure and visit Spoonful of Sugar during the month of September: you won’t be sorry, and you’ll probably come home with enough swag to decorate an entire castle tower!
Items Featured at Spoonful of Sugar:
Bed and End Tables: SPF, Lisette Bedroom
Vanity: SPF, Boudoir Vanity
Settee: SPF, Lisette Chaise
Unicorn Balloon: Tiar, Balloon Beely
Other Décor Credits:
Mirror, Butterfly Hangings, and window treatment: Death Row Designs, Boho Wall
Hearth Fairies: Lucas Lameth, Autumn Fairies (Available NOW at The Arcade Gacha!)
Bunnycorn: Jinx, Rabicorn 1-Mystic
Fluttershy: Gruw Creation, Pony Fluttershy
Journal (on settee): Pixicat, SpellBook (light)
Mean Cat 1 & 2: Eclectica, A Cat of Ulthar wall, Puss and Raven
Fairytale Sign: Hive, her own fairytale sign, white
Pegasus: Hextraordinary, Blossom Pegasus Pony
White Bunny: Birdy, Loafs, Bunny White
Unicorn Lamp: Runic, Magical Unicorn Lamp
Favourite Cup: May’s Soul, Unicorn Milkshake (Available NOW at Equal10!)
Unicorn Chair and Wing Rug: Cherry House, Unicorn Pillow and Small Sofa, Wings Carpet
Wall Shelves: Runic, Herbalist Tree Shelf, Herbalist Floating Shelves
Terrarium Fairies: Ohmai, Fairy Terrariums (from the summer fairy scavenger hunt gacha)
Foxes: Kite, Foxy Pups, Happy and Eskimos
Brown Bunnies: Fawny, Forest Friend Bunnies
Captured Fairy Lamps, Hextraordinary, Captive Fairy Lights, Rose and Sun
Rainbow Patchwork Owl: Chiana Oh, Because Owls
Badger: Schadenfreude, Pastel Badger
Blue and Green Meowl: Schadenfreude, Alle Meowl
Pink Dragonet: Lassitude & Ennui, Dragon Whelp Pink
Magical Sign: Kres, Electric Ever After, Magical
Meowls and Meowl Tree: Hextraordinary, Meowl Tree, Meowls (various colours and descriptions)
Angharad’s new skin: The Plastik, Elvenne Skin, Female, Sunshula
There’s so much else to credit here, and Angharad only appears in a couple of the photos; the main focus is the decor. If you have any questions about anything she’s wearing, just IM me in world!
