People Who Made Their Homes into a Shrine for their Fandom

19. Harry Potter

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling has touched the hearts of millions of people around the world. But few are as devoted as a man named Brian Thompson, who transformed his bedroom into a replica of Hogwarts. For 18 months, Brian collected styrofoam and thrift store items to get ready for his creation. And it took about two months to complete the transformation of his room.

One of the most impressive parts of the bedroom transformation is the ceiling, which looks like the night sky. “I wanted to come up with a way to create an illusion that made the sky appear more expansive,” he said. “Then I walked by a sale on $5 door-length mirrors and purchased enough to line the perimeter of my room. I removed the frames and attached them to the perimeter of my walls that meet the ceiling.”

Since Brian is a barista, he couldn’t spend a lot of money on the project. So he managed to do this for just $1,500. After posting his bedroom on the internet, Brian received a lot of positive feedback from people who say that this inspires them to do their own DIY projects.

18. K-Pop

Korean pop bands have become so popular, they have fans all around the world. So it’s no surprise that a lot of fans have set up their own shrines in their bedrooms. The first collection belongs to a 28-year old named Jerlyn Lising who decorated her room with merchandise from the K-Pop bands BTS and BT21.

She says, “I didn’t have any plans on collecting their merch. I thought I was already contented with just watching their contents and listening to their music. But their merchandise are not just cute and irresistible, I love how some of them are useful, too! I thought these merch are too pretty to just stay in their boxes until one day, I found myself wanting to set up a den for my collection and I finally did it in March 2020. I never knew I’d be able to make my collection grow so much in a year’s time but I definitely have no regrets.”

17. Friends

Friends was one of the biggest TV shows of all time when it aired. An estimated 51.1 million people tuned in to watch the finale episode. Even though it’s been over for several years now, people still binge-watch the series all the time on streaming platforms. Some die-hard fans even want their home to resemble the apartments seen in Friends.

Desiree Elias from Urbana, Ohio, wanted to give her kitchen a makeover to look like Monica Geller’s kitchen in Friends. Before the transformation, her kitchen had plain brown cabinets that were dark and outdated. With the help of her husband, Desiree managed to transform the kitchen on a $750 budget. She painted the cabinets blue, and they even painted the back of the door purple. They built lower cabinets and the open shelving, and used wallpaper that resembled exposed brick.

16. Disney

Some parents love taking their kids to Disneyland. Others, like Kelsey Hermanson, want to make every single day filled with the magic of Disney. Every single room in her house is decorated to resemble a different Disney movie. Her master bedroom is themed after Cinderella, and all of the antique furniture was customized by Kelsey to make it look like it came straight out of the film. She also has a Little Mermaid bathroom, Tangled entry room, Lilo and Stitch living room, and an Aladdin bathroom as well.

If you want to see more of Kelsey’s Disney house, check her out on TikTok. She uploads videos of house tours, DIY projects, and Disney hauls of things she finds at the store. In an interview with Buzzfeed she said, “I really decorated our house for us to enjoy and it has been such an amazing experience to share it with so many people. I love to inspire others with my designs and I feel so honored to have the opportunity to showcase our home. I enjoy bringing a little bit of magic to my followers every day.”

15. Batman

A Canadian company called Elite Home Theater Seating helped one Batman fan make his comic book dreams come true. For $2 million, they installed a 12,000 square foot home cinema in the basement of the client’s house. The theater itself has 12 seats with a 180-degree movie screen.

In order to enter the theater, there is a secret door set behind a set of bookshelves. You also need a fingerprint to gain access to the room, just like Bruce Wayne’s secret Bat Cave. There is an exit tunnel in the theater itself when guests are ready to leave.

14. Hobbit House

This next fandom project is an entire house! Jim Costigan from Upstate New York built a fully functioning Hobbit house. It took over 8 years for Jim to build the house. While it’s not a complete replica of Bilbo Baggins’ house, Bag End, it still will make you feel as though you’re living in The Lord of the Rings.

Here is what Jim had to say during an interview with Metro UK. “I became obsessed with figuring out how to actually build a home that was in keeping with Hobbit type architecture. So I built a small shed in my backyard which I called a Hobbit shed. I got so many nice comments that I decided to figure out how to make a Hobbit house that a family could actually live in and that is the house that you found located in Pawling, New York.” This house is available on AirBnB! If you’re interested in renting it, click here.

13. Lego

Millions of kids around the world grow up playing with Lego. Even some adults continue to play with Lego sets as they get older. The presenter of Top Gear, James May, worked together with 1,000 volunteers to build a 2-story house entirely out of Lego bricks. This was a part of a TV show called Toy Stories, where they wanted to encourage kids to get away from video games.

It took 3.3 million plastic bricks to assemble the house, which had a working toilet, hot shower, and a bed. The only problem was that eventually, the house had to come down. Legoland decided that they did not want the house for their display, and they were legally not allowed to sell the structure to anyone else. In the end, the house was taken down by chainsaws, and the lego bricks had to be donated to charity.

12. Video Games

A man named George Petro, president of a game company called Play Mechanix, decided to completely make over his family’s house to be a gamer’s paradise. Together with Z+O Architecture, they made the house stylish and modern and yet kept in the love of video games throughout the space. The entire living room is filled with vintage gaming machines, and there is a bar with Pac Man characters behind it.

On top of the games themselves, the house has neutral tones with backlighting. So get your pops of color from the games. Architectural Digest did an entire article on this house, if you’d like to see more.

11. Game of Thrones

When Game of Thrones was on TV, it made more people interested in medieval times than ever before. A British couple named Jayne and Martin Townley turned the back of their four-bedroom duplex in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, into a castle. Martin participated in amateur jousting tournaments, and the couple enjoyed visiting events where they could show off their period costumes.

They rehabbed their dining room to look like it was straight out of medieval times. Guests like to dress up when they come over in order to get the full immersive experience. During an interview with The Sun, Jayne said, “We didn’t want it to look cheesy with just pictures and things that were medieval. It had to feel authentic when you walked in.”

10. Star Wars

There are plenty of mega Star Wars fans out there, but few have as much as a man from Singapore named Jasper Tan. Not only does he buy and collect merchandise, but he makes his own replicas of the costumes, props, and weapons from the movies.

He has dozens of pilot’s helmets, Stormtroopers, and even a life-sized Darth Vader costume. To see more of his collection, check out the interview he did with Certified Geek.

9. Twilight

Are you Team Edward, or Team Jacob? If you haven’t seen the Twilight saga, maybe that question has you scratching your head. But these young ladies have collections that can’t be beat. The first photo is of 15-year old Emily Post from Lincoln, Nebraska. She told People Magazine, (Edward) sounds like the perfect guy, minus the vampire factor.”

The second photo is of 23-year old Ashley Nord during her second year at Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine. She said, “My friends and fellow classmates really get a kick out of my room. I feel like I’m slowly infecting my school with the Twilight fever!”

8. Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift has sold 114 million albums worldwide. Her fans, or “Swifties” have a die-hard loyalty for her music, especially since many of them grew up listening to her music. One fan wrote on Reddit, “Thought I’d share some photos of my Swiftie shrine”.

Compared to some of the other collections on his list, this is actually pretty modest. The shrine is mostly posters, but I do spot a hand drawn picture of Taylor Swift. There are also some CD’s and books, as well as as Taylor Swift concert playing on the TV.

7. Superman

Jason George is the owner of this massive Superman collection that has the respect of fans around the world. He has collected over 150 Superman watches,15 clocks, statues, cookie jars, toys, and so much more. Even the room itself is decorated like Superman with yellow walls and red shelves. The comic book collection of over 14,000 DC titles has a room of its own.

However, with a baby on the way, George has agreed to box up the Superman stuff and make room for the new arrival. While he’s being a good dad, it means saying goodbye to this room that was practically a museum. If you want to see more photographs, check out the original article on Robot 6.

6. Sword Art Online

Sword Art Online is an anime series that is popular in Japan, as well as here in the United States. One super fan named Kirii decided to show his love towards one of the characters, Yuuki Konno, in the only way he knew how- by buying as much merchandise of her character as humanly possible.

When Kirii posted these photos on Twitter, he got a mixed response from people online. Many were saying that they admired his collection, and that it inspired them to build a similar collection. Others called it a “sick addiction”, and suggested that he needed to slow down.

5. Marvel

Marvel comics and movies are incredibly popular, especially since the Disney takeover of the Cinematic Universe. The Avengers: Endgame had the highest grossing box office numbers of all time. So it’s no surprise that someone out there has a Marvel themed office space.

Someone on Reddit said, “I rearranged my office a little, and wanted to share.” We can see two Iron Man helmets, unopened action figure boxes, Captain America’s shield, and framed issues of the comic book series. There is also a glowing helmet of the Black Panther and Ant Man sitting next to The Infinity Gauntlet.

4. Comics

For more than a decade, Sean Kleefeld wanted to make a comic book library. Finally, his dream came true in 2014 when he posted photographs of his finished project on his blog. He wanted to have a space where it was possible to read any comic or graphic novel he was planning on researching, and be able to access his computer to do writing for his blog all in the same room. He accomplished just that.

The desk and bookshelves on one side of the room are Ikea shelving, but a carpenter hand-built the shelving that holds the long boxes. Sean says, “I have really been enjoying it so far, almost to the point where it’s difficult to get any actual research or writing done in there!” If you would like to see a video of the building process, click here.

3. X-men

Mega fan Eric Jaskolka has collected over 20,000 X-Men items in his home in Iowa City. He earned the Guinness World Record for having the largest X-Men collection in existence. In the photos, you might notice that a lot of the items are Wolverine specific, even the costume he likes to wear on Halloween and to conventions.

Eric started his collection when he was 18 years old, and has continued well into his 40’s. He still receives packages in the mail with new items at least twice a week. Many of the comics he purchased have now increased in value. He is also a husband and father, who all respect the massive collection he has.

2. The Royal Family

In England, some people have an immense love for the royal family, as if they were related to them. They show up in magazines, on TV, and there is even merchandise sold featuring members of the royal family. A 78-year old woman named Margaret Tyler has collected a massive collection of items featuring the Queen of England. Because of this, she has received attention from across the country.

She owns a cardboard cutout of the queen, books, mugs, photographs, trinkets, and so much more. Her entire house is filled with memorabilia. During an interview, Margaret said, “”My house is like a museum – people have even knocked on the door to ask what time we open”.

1. James Bond

A man named Luke Arnold admitted to The Sun that “Bond is basically my life.” And you can see that clearly with his memorabilia collection. Luke Arnold has collected over $100,000 worth of products and experiences in order to have one of the biggest James Bond collections in the world crammed into his bedroom.

Some of the key items in the collection are three of the limited edition watches and every single pair of sunglasses that Daniel Craig has worn as 007. He also has signed posters, props from the movies, and so much more. Luke paid extra to go to every premiere in London, and watched each film multiple times afterwards.