I wanted to focus on 3 things when I first created this site: decorations, guides, and contests. 

It was a weekend in July of 2016. I was decorating my house in-game when I realized I was lacking sufficient information about all of the decoration items that were available and where I could get them. I wanted a way to find and organize decorations into categories of how they could be obtained.

So I did a Google search and found a few websites where I could start getting more information. However, I quickly realized that many sites were no longer being updated and did not actually have the information that I wanted.

I was already the editor of a LotRO blog (LesBalladeDeYao), so I thought, why not begin another adventure by starting a housing blog?! I wanted to create something that would be helpful, not only to me, but to all others who are interested in decorating in Middle-Earth! I discussed the idea with a friend, Prunaprismia, publisher of Trolls & Chiffons, and we decided to join together on this great adventure of creating a Housing website and database. The Decorators’ Magazine was born!

We soon decided that the website needed to be divided into two parts. 

The first part was the decorations database. We would have to collect, photograph, and categorize every single decoration item in the game. Judging from the websites I had already looked at I thought that there were perhaps two or three hundred items in total and that this would be a relatively quick job (how wrong I was)!!

The second part of the website was a more vague idea in my mind. When the idea of D&Co originally came to me I knew quite clearly that I wanted to create the database which would serve as a dedicated Wiki of LotRO decoration items. Pruna came up with the other ideas: guides, news, reports on houses AND contests! Ideas flourished (not all of them good) and we knew we wanted to hold a contest before the website was even created: “Semaine du Housing,” Housing Week!

So we got to work. From late July to early August we created a presentation format and started listing all in-game decorations and planning the first contest. We also had to think of a name and a look for the site. Pruna thought of D&Co, which is the name of a house decorating show in France, similar to “Extreme Makeover Home Edition” in the US. She also created the very first website logo! As for me, I started the development of the website itself.

Thus, on August 12 2016, D&Co du Milieu opened its doors to the French public (with only 50 items in the database…)! When I look back, the graphics and organization of the site seem very inadequate for what we had planned. Which is why we have had to constantly update the site since its creation. We eventually got the organization of the site right and only graphics updates and minor non-structural updates have been made since then.

In 2017 we had more than 600 decoration items in the database and had also held many successful contests. Having already been of great help, Pruna made the decision to leave the management of the site to me, while continuing to be a wise advisor and unparalleled decorator-judge!

In 2018 the website had really begun to take off. Wanting to keep up with the success of the site, and getting a number of requests from our cousins across the Atlantic, I embarked on a translation of D&Co du Milieu into the language of Shakespeare (and Tolkien)! It was a long and difficult task but two months later, on March the 19^th of 2018, I opened the doors to the English version of the site.

This was when the Housing Contests went “World Cup” style! It was also that year that the largest part of the database was filled. We were almost 100% complete.

I also have to thank Rhuangar here, who has been a great help in the editing of the English version of this site!

2019, therefore, promises a bright future for D&Co du Milieu and I hope you will join us for another year of decorations, contests, and news on LotRO Housing.

Happy decorating!

~ Yao

Who actually read this whole thing ?! Raise your hand!!