Beautiful Maps for Lord of the Rings Geeks

 

Have you ever wanted to live in Middle Earth? Well, maybe not Mordor, but in The Shire or Rivendell, perhaps? Clearly that's not going to happen, but you can create a little Middle Earth magic in your home. 

Think about the artwork on your walls. Unless you like completely bare walls (and frankly, that's a little odd, to put it mildly), what you hang on your walls is what you look at day in and day out, so it should be something that makes you happy. Or at least evokes an emotion that you like. And it should look good. This is about interior decorating, after all. And while you can change out your artwork periodically to prevent boredom - once a year, or with every new season - most people don't, so choose something you love.

One of the many reasons that makes the Lord of the Rings books so enduring, beloved, and masterful is that Tolkien created an entire world, including its languages and geography, before he wrote the first book. And of course the geography includes the maps. Tolkien drew the the maps for the Hobbit, and his son Christopher drew the maps for the trilogy, and many artists over the years have drawn their versions.

This brings us to Lord of Maps. This artist creates state and country maps (and one for New York City) in the style of LOTR and they are things of beauty, from the recreated fonts to the red place names. Geeky and gorgeous, they belong on your walls.

Lord of the Maps has an Etsy shop and a website. If you don't want to commit to a map, the website offers stickers and a T-shirt.

I live in Washington, so that's the map I started with. My map is the 16 x 12 version and framed in distressed, red, reclaimed barn wood because I love the pop of red against the white wall and it complements the red on the map. Other sizes are available. I'm envisioning an entire wall of these because I love using scale for smaller pieces. Grouping of objects adds drama, interest, and dimension, and unless you own something like an original Warhol that needs to display alone, it just looks better.