At Home Imagineering: Enchanting Harry Potter common room

in Harry Potter, Merchandise, Movies, Universal Orlando

When exploring Hogwarts, Beauxbatons Academy, Durmstrang, Ilvermorny, Mahoutokoro, or, for that matter, any of the 11 Wizarding Schools, finding magical treasures comes as no surprise. However, hidden within the Louisiana city of Shreveport, an amazing Harry Potter inspired common room contains an equally impressive collection.

For Angie Cason and Jasper Price, along with an adorable cat pretending to be Mrs. Norris, themed entertaining and home decor seemed like a natural fit when it came to expressing their love for J. K. Rowling’s wizarding wonders. From over the top magical parties to their incredibly detailed common room, the pair’s passion for Potter would make even Vernon Dursley proud.

Alabama born Jasper Price already acquired talents for graphic artistry and illustration long before creating a colossal common room with his partner Angie Carson. A former newspaper graphic artist, Jasper earns a living as an illustrator for a medical school/research facility.  If his name sounds familiar, that’s probably because he’s also written and illustrated “Zombie Asockalypse,” a children’s picture book where two siblings have to stop a Zombie Sock outbreak from taking over their house.

 

Incantations of Inspiration

“Angie and I have a mutual love of books, especially Harry Potter, but when we first started dating, I quickly realized she was a super fan so I had to step up my Harry Potter love just a bit. She had already started collecting Harry Potter items when we met, so when we bought our home, we dedicated a corner in our living room to the collection. But our love of Harry Potter just grew over the years, and with it that collection.”- Jasper Price

To celebrate their love for “the boy who lived,” Angie and Jasper, with each new novel released, invited family and friends for spellbinding soirees.  With each new tale told, the Price’s Potter parties would grow in size, as would their wizarding memorabilia.

As parties progressed, props increased.  According to Jasper, “For parties, we always made custom wands for our guests, complete with boxes (and we still have some leftover boxes we use on display in the room). We made everything from Potions Class with tons of bottles and cauldrons to Divination Class with teacups filled with tea leaves to read. Flying keys, banners, a giant Dementor, several costumes, a Triwizard Golden Egg, chocolate frogs — there’s nothing we didn’t try our hand at making for those parties, and soon our collection was too big for that corner and much of it was stored in our attic.”

“When we visited the Wizarding World at Universal Studios when it first opened in Orlando, we were so inspired by everything we saw there. It was the first time we felt like we stepped into this world we both loved … and Angie did a lot of crying entering and leaving that place! We knew we wanted our collection to reflect what we experienced there, an immersion in the Wizarding World.”

From that fateful foray into Universal Studios Florida’s Wizarding World, more props emerged.  At Angie’s request, Jasper crafted an oversized “Monster Book of Monsters “and a custom made Quidditch crate.

Room of Requirement

For Christmas, Angie’s desire for a particular Potter prop was granted. That wish set magic in motion resulting in the couple’s wonderful wizard themed common room.

“When the Pottery Barn Teen Harry Potter collection came out, and Angie requested the Mirror of Erised for Christmas, I told her it was time to revamp our former dining room once again. We had already transformed it into a reading room — we needed a quiet space separate from my art studio and our living room with the distraction of the television. When the mirror arrived in December, we started pulling out the pieces that were tucked away in the attic and started building the room around it.” -Jasper Price

Items for their amazing common room materialized from personally created props to a wide variety of Harry Potter collectibles from places like The Noble Collection, Pottery Barn Teen, Think Geek, Hot Topic, and the recent addition of the Loot Crate Wizarding World subscription.

Treasured Treasures

When queried regarding which enchanting items have cast their spell of favoritism upon him, Jasper replied, “Definitely the Quidditch case and the Monster Book of Monsters — I loved the creative challenge of making those and trying to make them as screen-accurate as possible! The quaffle, bludgers, and beaters are all from the Wizarding World, but I found an old vacuum cleaner box that I painted and added the inserts and chains and antiqued hardware to. The Monster Book was an old advertising catalog from the newspaper office where we both worked … it had pink and blue pages, so it took a lot of painting and paper clay sculpting for the eyes, teeth, and tentacles!”

Harry Potter Holidays

Even Christmastime calls out for a magical makeover.  Angie and Jasper’s holiday tree boasts a rather large collection of Harry Potter ornaments. December decor materializes beyond just Christmas tree trimming; festive floating candles add to wizarding winter wonderland ambiance.

While wizarding wonders are their preferred passion, Angie and Jasper are also fans of Doctor Who.  Should their Harry Potter collection continue to expand beyond limitations of their home, the two might need to call on their time-traveling Doctor’s “bigger on the inside” T.A.R.D.I.S. for additional decorating space.

To say that this glimpse into Harry Potter haven by way of the couples captivating common room has been a delight would be an understatement (thank you both for sharing your home and creativity with ITM).

Source and images: Jasper Price “Zombie Asockalypse” Facebook Page and Instagram Page, “Zombie Asockalypse” website, Angie Cason Facebook Page, Pottery Barn Teen

in Harry Potter, Merchandise, Movies, Universal Orlando

Comments Off on At Home Imagineering: Enchanting Harry Potter common room