Decorating Piratically

The easiest place to start decorating your house in a piratical manner is the kitchen, excuse me the galley. If you want to fill your home with piratical dishware now maybe the best time to go shopping because Halloween stores as well as arts and crafts shops are filled with all kinds of plastic dishware that have skull and crossbones. For your ale, silver tankards with or without glass bottoms can usually be found at thrift stores like Unique for a decent price.

Like any good pirate you probably have a liquor closet full of various types of rum. Instead of throwing the empty bottles in the recycle bin, why not recycle them as decorative items for your mantle or shelves? Captain Morgan has that nice picture of the captain on its label and Captain Morgan’s Cannon Blast bottle resembles a cannonball. Pyrate Rum’s bottle is pretty darn close to the onion shaped bottle that was used during the Golden Age of Piracy. A thoroughly cleaned out rum bottle can be used to store other liquids.

The real challenge is how to stay on the piratical track and not fall into the beach theme? Stay away from the sand, shells and dried out starfish or at least don’t rely on them. Stick to the tools of the pirate’s trade compasses, ropes, and ancient maps. If you’re lucky you might come upon a sea chest for storage. Many of the craft stores sell wooden treasure chests that can be painted to match your room’s color.

Pirates would use any ship they could take, but for some reason nothing shouts pirate ship like the Spanish galleon. Using pictures of these ships as decorative art will work better than pictures of sailboats. Said pictures can be placed just about anywhere, bathroom, living room, bedrooms.

The most challenging room has to be the bedroom. I have seen many pictures of beds shaped as boats. I’m sure the prices would shiver me timbers. Most of the soft furnishing i.e. blankets, pillow cases, curtains seem to be geared to children because they depict pirates as cartoon characters and in some cases as cartoon animals wearing bandannas and eye patches.

For the bathroom cups and toothbrush holders that have an antique finish will work. I know someone who had a diorama of pirates, treasure chests, etc. on a small table in the bathroom.

For a quick, easy piratey feel you can always throw up a jolly roger on the wall of any room. There’s a wide variety of these flags that range from the historically accurate banners of real pirates to skull and crossbones on a pink background that reads Pirate Princess.

Your decorating is only as limited as your imagination which runs as deep as the sea.