What makes you goth?

I completely agree. I was fortunate when growing up to have multiple influences. Sure, like everyone, I was subjected to pressure to fit in and such. However, I had people in my life that tread their own territory in their lives and styles, and they were ones that I admired. For example, I had a friend through school that dressed her own way and befriended who she wanted. She didn't care about social boundaries. And she was very popular and well liked. I looked up to her for that.

So as an adult, I've held on to that value that I developed growing up. I dress how I want. If you look through my closet and watch how I dress over a couple weeks, you can not pinpoint any particular style. I am influenced be several, and I change from day to day. As far as my decorating goes? I usually decorate my house from room to room. Usually, my kitchen is wine, grapes, etc. My living room is oriental. My dining room is English tea room. My bedroom is more gothic. My daughters' room is fairytale. You get what I mean. However, the overall I guess I wear a lot of black and lean towards underground music (even though I listen to all styles of music including some hip hop, club and even a tiny bit of country), and I do have a very dark sense of humor and way of thinking about things.

It seems that many of us are on the same page though, and even though many of us cringe at the idea of being sterotyped... we have to admit, that we do fit in under that title, and we should be proud to be a part of such a broad category instead of something a lot more narrowly focused.

I agree with Bpagemom. My house is not all gothy. My kitchen is blue and white for crying out loud! Looks like a boat to me, but that's fine. I am not all gothy, but I do tend to dark, odd clothing. Not all from one period, or one sub-group of the goth style, but several. Some people would probably think this is criminal, but I am so glad I don't have myself pigeonholed that tightly that I can't appreciate several different styles at once.

I find this talk about house styles quite interesting. I always had 'the ideal house' in mind..But even then, in my mind I was always torn between what kind of 'look' my ideal future house would have..

Will definately consider having 'themed' rooms..Then I can just hide out in the room that suits my mood for the day..Might cost a fair bit more though.

I too would like to have themed rooms but, since that could prove to be very hard here (not much of a market for it) I think I would go to the extent to design my own furniture (with my friends who are furniture designers here) and give to some ppl who make customized wooden thingies here, and to have more than one color on the wall...in every house I rented or lived in, all the walls are freaking white, I mean come on.... Only thing that was worse than that were my mothers flowered wallpapers

That was my favourite part of buying our first house a few years ago... no longer having to live with rental-white walls! I've used the darkest, most dramatic colour schemes that I could think of for all of my rooms. They're really just variations on the same theme, but still have their differences... my kitchen looks like an old English-style pub, my office is like a cozy den, and the bedroom is probably the most gothic of all, dark purple with black, and a midnight blue ceiling.

I have been collecting furniture for about 20 years, and have been buying certain things that just seem to fit together (lots of cast iron things, lots of gothy/dark things) for nearly that long. It has taken a long time to get all this kind of thing togehter, and I still don't like the way it is. I got lucky when we moved into our current house, that the living room was painted blood red, as is my bedroom, my daughter's room is chocolate and pink, and the kitchen is blue and white. I rather like what was already here. What I don't like is my office, which is pea-soup green (ick!) and my bathroom which is white with the ugliest wallpaper border of purple flowers you could ever hope to see. I have wanted it gone for years, but I am very lazy... Someday I will remodel that bathroom and the flowers will go away. But if I can't redo the whole room, I am too lazy to do just a little bit of the work.