On 26th July Lonereth and Angilwen won the 13th housing week of D&Co du Milieu in the category Belfalas/Rohan. With a total score of 7,74 out of 10 they impressed the jury and the public voters equally. “I only have one thing to say: was this house developped by SSG?! Cause I had the feeling that I was not visiting a house but questing into an abandonned cottage. BRAVO!” said Yao, the organizer of the player event.
(Meta) Amsterdam/Mittelerde, Colcalad.
Another member of the jury, Prunaprismia, is full of excitement and wrote:
An abandoned house! The garden is very successful, totally fitting the atmosphere, it fits well with Eastfold houses, I like it a lot!
The interior is also full of originality, AFAIK we had never seen houses like this, more abandoned than haunted, and that’s very good! The main room is very beautiful, the mixture of ruins + greenery which is gradually regaining its rights is very well done. A great achievement, congratulations!
Pilze und Gestrüpp wächst überall (C) D&Co du Milieu
The Funkenflug received from partner association D&Co du Milieu kindly access to the winner, met them and talked with them about their house, the idea, the process to success and other details about housing and decorations. The house can be found on the server Evernight 8 Ridge Road, Neighborhood Sappingcot in Eastfold Rohan and can still be visited.
Lonereth and Angilwen themselves are describing their abandoned house like this:
The deserted house
This once beautiful house is no longer a home for it’s been abandoned by its owner for years. It’s a bit of a mystery what happened to her. Local rumours have it that she perished in a battle for Middle-Earth in a far distant land, while others say there’s been a murder and the owner is buried somewhere in the cellars. The people in the neighbourhood thought that it would be a shame to let all the beautiful furnishings fall to ruin. So that’s why they started to plunder. It was then that something happened in the house which frightened them so much, they did not dare enter the place again. In fact, one of the men on that plunder spree never returned. So be careful before you meet the same fate!
A couple of months ago the neighbours noticed a change about the place and at first they thought the owner had returned, but as soon as they got close they could feel something unnatural, evil has taken up residence here. Funghi and weeds are growing unnaturally fast and are taking over. The garden is overgrown and falling to ruin, and spiders have infested it. Enter this house at your own risk! (Putting this house together was a mother-daughter effort. After hours of arguing and bickering, we are happy with the end product!)
Spinnen nehmen alles in BEschlag (C) D&Co du Milieu
Following the interview with Lonereth and Angilwen about the winning house:
Colcalad: Dear Angilwen and Lonereth. Thanks a lot for your time to give me this interview about this very special house. It can be found at 8 Ridge Road, Neighborhood Sappingcot in Eastfold Rohan on the server Evernight. How did you get this idea?
Lonereth: Because of the Gundabad items which were new at the time, we felt that the theme of an abandoned/ruined house was obvious and when we entered the housing competition, we were afraid we were not the only ones with this idea. Fortunately for us, this proved not to be the case!
Angilwen: I wanted to create a ruined garden for quite some time now, but I had not yet purchased a house, so when the new items came and Lonereth (my mother) wanted to create an abandoned house, I persuaded her to buy a house in the Eastfold housing area, since that would go well with my idea for the garden. *smile*
Colcalad: You won the houseweek contest of D&Co du Milieu number 13 in the category Belfalas/Rohan. What effort did it take you to decorate your house to this final product?
Lonereth: The garden and the library were very quick and easy to decorate, since we had the most ideas for those areas. Filling the rest of the house was a bit harder, especially while the premium houses are much larger than the normal ones.
Angilwen: It was a bit daunting to see all the large rooms empty, we simply didn’t know where to start! As work progressed however, decorating became much easier and in the end we spend quite some time ‘polishing’ the house: adding creative touches and details, moving decorations just an inch… That’s the part which is most fun for me.
Colcalad: Can you describe how you design and schedule such a project?
Lonereth: We wanted to create a house that was lived in in the past but is now fallen into ruin. To acquire this effect we first decorated the house as if it was a normal house and later added the plants and fungi.
Angilwen: We used D&CO’s site quite often, to search for items that would fit well into our theme. Without D&CO’s database, our house wouldn’t have been such a success! Lonereth mainly decorated the main hall, the ‘throne room’ and the library. I myself did the garden, ambient lighting and the tomb. It proved to be a successful partnership, even if we sometimes disagreed with eachother’s choices.
Colcalad: Was there a decoration item or furniture which did cost a lot of time or chance to get it for that project?
Lonereth: Since I didn’t have the Gundabad expansion at the time of our decorating project, I kindly asked my husband to get all those items for me. He spent quite a lot of time on getting all of them, so he deserves a special mention too!
Angilwen: We really wanted to use the spiderwebs in our house, so we spent a lot of time playing the Remmo raid. Most of the time it didn’t drop, so that was a frustrating endeavor. *blink*
Bücher stehen nutzlos da (C) D&Co du Milieu
Colcalad: How many times did you participate in a contest like this before?
Lonereth: We both entered the housing competition once with our personal houses. I joined the last competition with my Christmas themed Bree house and made it into the Final Fifteen. Angilwen joined the first Rohan housing competition and also made it into the Final Fifteen.
Angilwen: We were already happy with being in the Final Fifteen, so winning the competition was a thrill!
Colcalad: Now you have got a unique idea brought to a beautiful house. What is the purpose of such a decorated house – also in the meaning of an award winning? Will there be some actions and adventures in it?
Lonereth: We mainly decorate for the purpose of decorating, so for us the journey counts more than the end result. Though I admit that we decorated this house also to enter it in the competition.
Angilwen: Lonereth likes to visit our house and just stare at our work. Our house is open to everyone, so you are welcome to try this experience as well.
Colcalad: What were some of the most remarkable reactions to your success?
Lonereth: We were really humbled by Yao’s response to our house. It was so nice and wonderful to hear that our house looked like it was developed by SSG. We were also very glad to hear it was such an original idea, especially since we didn’t expect it to be so.
Angilwen: To be asked for this interview!
Colcalad: Winning once doesn’t mean never decorate and participate for other contests. Could you give a hint, what are your plans for the future?
Lonereth: We are never done with decorating, so whenever I’m inspired to do so again, I will!
Angilwen: I’m currently playing with the idea to create a Mordor themed house and with D&CO’s prize money I have just the right number of lotro-points to buy (yet another) premium house. I already own fives houses so I will be paying a lot of upkeep, *smile*.
Colcalad: Others did not win or didn’t do it at all. How would you advice and encourage to newcomers and others doing housing?
Lonereth: Use D&CO’s site! It’s an enormous help while decorating and also full of ideas.
Angilwen: You can look through the foto’s of all past housing weeks, so that’s a great source of inspiration.
Colcalad: If you had a free wish about housing in middle-earth in Lord of the Rings online. What would that wish be?
Lonereth: MORE SLOTS!!!!!
Angilwen: I would love to have an option to alter your garden along with the seasons. Snow on the ground for a winter garden, brown leaves for a autumn garden etc.
Colcalad: Thank you very much, dear Angilwen and Lonereth for this talk. All the best for you.
Lonereth&Angilwen: Thank you very much for the interview!
The competition is evaluated, but there are more contests to come affiliated to D&Co du Milieu and also from the Funkenflug. A visit or a view on the final fifteen should grant some cool ideas and hints how to decorate.
Link to the final fifteen of the housing week 13
Picture: A mysterious and spooky house, abandoned and … © Lonereth & Angilwen, D&Co du Milieu
