We recently celebrated our Auggie’s 7th birthday. Once I suggested to him that we do a Harry Potter birthday party, there was no going back. There are endless ideas and options for Hogwarts/Harry Potter Party theme decorations. I decided I wanted to narrow down what we were going to do so it wouldn’t get too out of hand in terms of number of projects and decorations. After searching Pinterest to get some inspiration, I decided to focus on making our dining room into the Hogwarts Great Hall for a sorting hat ceremony for the kids.
I was inspired greatly by Angela Rose Home on how I could transform our dining room into the Hogwarts Great Hall. If you are looking for amazing inspiration, DIY’s, and How To’s, I suggest you check her out! I was inspired by her DIY window transformation to drastically change the space, with minimal effort and money. I’ll show my results below but check her out for the most amazing transformation.
Here are all the details on how we transformed our dining room into the Hogwarts Great Hall to have our very own sorting hat ceremony.
This post may contain affiliate links. This means that if you purchase products through these links, I may receive commission at no extra cost to you.
Great Hall Dining Room
Floating Candles
My first thought when thinking Harry Potter Great Hall is the floating candles. When Harry and his friends walk into the Great Hall for the first time the ceiling is breath taking for all the first-year students. I knew I had to do something to recreate the floating candle look. I found my floating candles on Amazon and decided to string them across the ceiling with fishing wire. There are endless options out there for these battery-operated candles, but I think the most important feature to ensure you get is the remote control on/off. You do not want to have to twist/put batteries in while the candles are hanging.
Window Treatment
This was 100% inspired by Angela Rose Home. She used electrical tape on her windows to create the diamond shape inserts; check out her Instagram and Blog for more details. This was such a simple DIY that makes the biggest impact. It took a single roll of electrical tape and 10 minutes. Everyone commented how great it looked and thought I had bought actual inserts. This is a no-brainer to add to really transform the space.
Hall Decor & Set Up
I bought the Hogwarts House banners from Amazon. Simple hanging decor that we decided to put up alongside the wall, again there are countless options when it comes to the different House Flags on Amazon, but you definitely need a little something for each of the houses when doing a sorting ceremony.
I bought the plastic wall “stone” covers from Dollar Tree. Luckily, his birthday is in October – so these were available in Dollar Tree’s Halloween Seasonal Decorations. I bought four of them to put along the wall to recreate the stone look of the great hall.
We used kid’s tables in the dining room to be able to fit two side by side and Nate made me some benches to have Great Hall seating, but most importantly – we needed Dumbledore’s podium and a stool for the sorting ceremony at the head of the room.
Harry Potter Accessories for Hogwarts Great Hall
Can’t have a shorting ceremony without a sorting hat! We decided to order one from Amazon that actually sorts!
We told everyone that they should wear their robes to our party! Auggie was Harry Potter for Halloween, so we already had ours ready! You can buy Hogwarts or specific houses on Amazon!
We had Hedwig ready to go for added detail since we are big Harry Potter fans already. Some other details for guests include wands!
It was hard to pick and choose which details to focus on for transforming our dining room, but I think we found a good balance to really transform our space with minimal effort. We successfully hosted a sorting ceremony and had many happy kids with their results! But seriously, look at those fingers crossed to not be put in Slytherin.
Thanks for following along, and I hope you feel inspired to host your very own sorting hat ceremony for the Harry Potter-loving kids in your house.
Follow along for more of my home tour and Schutt Farms’ events.
Madison