How To Design Your Dream Castle

I've been living in my new castle for almost three weeks now, and it's been a lot of work. As promised, I'm ready to tell you all about the homebuying process. Before I begin, I would like to point out that buying a house is a personal process that varies with each individual. Something that worked out for me might not work so well for you, and that's perfectly fine. After all, a "dream" castle is entirely dependent on the dreams of the person living in it. For smaller spaces, please refer to my "How To Decorate Like a Princess" post, which focuses on individual rooms or small apartments. I've realized that decorating a small space is a very different process from transforming an entire house into an enchanted home. For example, it's better to put up as many decorations as possible to make a smaller space feel larger, while houses are more about using little touches to show off the space you have.

The first step in the home-buying process is picking a blueprint that works best for you. We had our house custom-built, so it was very important that we picked the right blueprint that would determine everything that the builders would work on over the course of the following year. If you are on a set deadline to move, having a house custom-built might not be the best option for you. There are tons of unexpected delays that could push back the move-in date by many months. However, if you are not in a hurry, customizing a new house can be a magical process that allows you to get involved in the magical transformation of a plot of land into your dream castle. For the modern princess who commutes to work, a one-story house could be ideal with its spacious and cozy living area to come home to. Since I plan to work from home, like many others in a post-COVID world, I opted for a two-story home with a smaller living room but lots of extra space upstairs for a home office.

One of the great things about floor plans is that you can upload them to websites like floorplanner.com to create a 3D rendering of what your house will look like and easily add furniture and other customizations to get an idea of how you want it set up. I used Photoshop to edit some of my more specific options from the Design Center into my 3D renderings to have an even more accurate picture of what the completed house would look like. The Design Center meeting can be exciting because it gives you the opportunity to pick the final colors and patterns for everything in your house, but the options they offer tend to be rather neutral, such as grays, browns, and beiges. If you want to give it that magical fairy tale touch, you have to be willing to splurge a bit on art deco tiles or higher-tier options. I found my touch of magic from the holographic tiles in two art deco sets called "Baroque" and "Rain Drop." Though these patterns use neutral colors, they are interspersed with shimmery rainbow-reflecting tiles that make our kitchen and shower shimmer like an enchanted forest.

With so many neutral colors from the Design Center, my castle still wasn't feeling all that magical yet. Therefore, I decided to fill it with as much purple--the color of royalty--as I could. I found some luxurious purple curtains on Amazon for the living room and master bedroom and ordered a new king-size bed with a fancy purple comforter set. The customization options on Apt2B.com allowed me to create my dream purple couch. However, they use a third-party shipper called Metropolitan Warehouse, which is extremely unreliable, so I do not recommend ordering furniture from them. Once the moving truck arrived with my old things, I decided to display them in a sophisticated and modern way by framing my artwork and placing my collectibles in a glass display case instead of an open plastic shelving unit. This did not allow me to display as many of my possessions as in my smaller apartments, but it allowed me to protect them better and show off more of their value.

Becoming a homeowner is a personal experience that differs for each individual. There are many steps involved in turning a floor plan into the castle of your dreams. It helps to use sites like floorplanner.com to get a solid idea of your layout and what types of furniture will look nice in your house if it is still in the building phase. Color and patterns are important for the overall feel that you would like your castle to evoke. There is an endless number of modifications you can make to a house if you aren't happy with the neutral options from the design center. You can always have the walls repainted or the carpets and tiles replaced with something more colorful. For me, I opted to keep the neutral colors of the house and accent them with curtains and furniture that emphasize my personal regal tastes. What would your dream castle look like? Let me know in the comments!