Get the Look: Medieval Touches to Add Throughout the Home

Long for an era you never got to be a part of? Bring medieval life to you with these choice furnishings to accentuate your existing furniture throughout the home. You don’t have to retreat to outdated castle living and all its drawbacks to have a home reminiscent of medieval finery; a surprising amount of medieval-style furniture can fit right in with just about any modern decor and benefit you by with its practicality in household uses, all without forcing you to replace your existing furniture set.

For the kitchen or dining room, I would recommend a medieval cabinet with detailed sides and a hearty wood interior. A wall cabinet is a practical choice to store your most decorative or favorite teapots, mugs, and other small ceramics or breakables. If you don’t have a lot of counter space, or you have children and/or pets that are drawn to breakable objects, as all children and pets tend to be, this is a great way to maximize your wall area with little risk of damage from having your favorite ceramic sugar holder in pieces on the floor.

A good medieval touch for the living room or bedroom is an ottoman; functional and classy by its nature. Carved in this mahogany ottoman is a delicate pattern along the legs’ clawed feet to add distinguishing medieval character to the piece. If you’ve ever had an ottoman before, then you know they’re not just decoration; a good one can be an extra seat in a pinch if you have more than the expected amount of guests, which makes it quite handy to have around even if you don’t normally prop your feet up. For more storage or as a writing space, a medieval secretary desk can fit in a front room of the house or personal office. Like the medieval ottoman, this secretary desk also has clawed feet and carved legs to add ornamentation to a more simplistic desk style. You can use it as a display table, as a writing desk, or as both depending on your particular needs and where its placed. If you have any antique photos, consider framing them in tiny frames and placing the photos in the nooks of the desk to give it a level of personality unique to your family.

Sconces are an undoubted aesthetic player to the medieval look to the point where you will see at least ten sconces in the background of any movie taking place in a realistic or fantasy version of the time period. But more than easy props for movies, sconces double as a source of natural mood lighting and can be surprisingly practical in the unfortunate case of a power outage when placed strategically in your home. You could have a standard sconce per room as extra lighting, or one or two more elaborate ones for your biggest rooms as a wall centerpiece. Just be wary that you’re not placing the candles too close to curtains or upholstery, or else you may get wax stains or worse.

Gargoyles were once said to scare off evil spirits and protect the home with with their warped and fantastical appearance, and even today can be put around your residence as a lucky charm. I’d recommend you put it by or in your garden to act as a scarecrow; birds will think twice about picking at your plants with a gargoyle around. With time, some outside weathering and moss growth will add that older statue and building charm to your front or back lawn, giving your house a medieval feel both inside and out.