You had three basic classes of people, your wealthy being kings, Queens, and family members. Then there were the middle class which were the store and shop keepers, business owners predominantly, and then you had the workers, farmers, ranchers, trappers, etc. Sounds familiar to today's society doesn't it? Any way, in order to decorate for this time frame and period one must know the status for which you want the appearance to look like or represent.
The thing to remember here is that they didn't have synthetics like we do today. The upper class used real silk, high quality leathers and real furs. The colors they used were deep rich true colors like red, blue, black, green and white. Ivory was used when the color was natural. They also used lace in their clothing and in their decorating. They used a lot of iron and steel in a great deal of their armament, lighting fixtures, house-hold trim, etc.
The middle class used similar stuff but of a much lesser quality and quantity. You would rarely find anyone in the middle class wearing silk but they would wear a really good grade of cotton and linen. The colors would be muted because in that time frame they didn't have the fabric dyes we use today, theirs were derived from natural sources like berries, pomegranates, etc. They would use lace as a trim on many items such as clothing and perhaps table cloths but they would be rather small pieces in comparison to the higher class people.
The common wealth or rather the rest of the people would usually wear simple linens, lesser quality cottons, leathers or ruminants of leather sewn together to fashion a garment and it would be rare at best to see anyone of that class wearing anything dyed a color it didn't naturally come in. Most of these people lived outside of the city hub and were rarely bothered by anyone, outside of perhaps passer bys, or a neighbor in need.
So there are your three basics to choose from, which I deliberately left out kitchens, bedrooms and tapestries. Most choose from the high class styling because it offers a wider range to choose from, for this we will chose the common wealth for simple space decorating.
Since it is believed that dragons hibernate during the winter we will do a spring scene using a dragon for our focal point. Pictures of castles can be found almost anywhere it just depends on what type you choose to use, how close or far away you want the castle to be in your backdrop. A good computer with a good scanner can scan a picture and resize it to almost any size you wish. Ms. Flare has a picture of a castle taken from a magazine somewhere about five years or so back. The castle sat on a mountain with its back to an ocean. It is glued to a piece of cardboard that has cardboard pieces on the back also glued to create a stand to hold the picture at a stand up slightly angled position.
If you want to get elaborate with your picture you can take the picture itself and slightly singe the edges. (Not for children to attempt without an adult present because if not done right you can burn yourself and or catch your house on fire.), this creates an old look to the picture. Then take a piece of actual wood leaving no more than about a quarter of an inch in all directions unused. Glue the picture on wait over night then use a clear finish over the whole piece. Matt finish is advisable unless you like a lot of shine and glare emanating off of the picture (This should be done out side where there is lots of ventilation otherwise the fumes could make you ill).
Take a sand colored piece of fabric; this particular space is going to be a 2' x 2' square so the cloth is 2' x 2' square. The picture is the backdrop so it goes to the back. Then take some sea shells and place them in various areas along one side and front. Take your favorite dragon statue and place it on the cloth. The dragon should be no more than half the size of the backdrop. In this case a blue dragon was used
You could take a good sized small leafed plant and do a woodsy type scene as though the dragon were standing in a large clearing. Or you could get pictures of cave openings and either have your dragon inside the cave or outside the cave. If you do an inside arrangement if you have the room you might be able to include a baby dragon in the lair. “It really depends how elaborate one really wants to get with the scene they are trying to create and how much actual space they have to get creative with. If permitted there are sword style letter openers, dragon pen/pencil holders, battery operated desk clocks statues you can use as paper weights, book ends etc. There is enough dragon and Medieval items now a days to actually decorate a large room and still have stuff left over for decorating.”
