Discussing all aspects of home altars and deity worship is possibly my most favorite thing!
I’m going to walk you through some ideas about HOW to set up your own altar, covering practicalities like, the actual physical altar, and also the requirements for your space and family zone.
While a temple room at the heart of the home is a dearly held aspiration for most devotees, not all of us are in the situation where this is possible.
Should you have such a room set aside for worship then wow! That’s so nice!
Your altar may not even need curtains, just a space to meditate and a door for privacy.
Here’s some absolutely gorgeous open altars, you can pretty much take your inspiration from temple worship where they close off the actual temple, not so much the altar.
Gorgeous Open Altars for Home Deity Rooms
My mother is caring for a child sized Krishna deity, and she has a room which is *mostly* set aside for Krishna. It also functions as the first room of the house, so Krishna’s half is screened off using a series of Chinese folding screens.
Krishna stands on a charmingly ornamental bureau, a former dressing table which is so marvellously suitable because it has two little inbuilt platforms on which her much much smaller deities of Lord Chaitanya and Lord Nitayananda stand, and on the other site, her Spiritual masters in 2-D & 3-D forms.
The Humble Home Altar Options
If like me you are in a humble house where space is limited, you may find that you need an altar solution that you can close while normal daily life is conducted.
For us, our altar has always been located either in a bedroom or in the living area.
We used to have a wrapped bundle of pictures of our lords to worship which we unwrapped and set up on our table when we had our puja.
This simple and portable altar works really nicely to worship 2-D deities (pictures in frames) and maybe that’s all you you will ever need.
I’m going to attempt to cover the options available to you when you create a permanent altar set up for 3-D deity forms of the lord, or even 2-D deities where you want a permanent location.
Firstly, consider the size of your deities. Do you have a tiny little 9″ form of Krishna? You may only need a very small shelf or cupboard.
A Shelf or Box Shelf Altar
Have you thought about a wall mounted shelf? You can get an abundance of different types of boxed shelves that would be very easy to either leave open or cover with a cloth when not worshipping Lords.
Altars with Doors
My sister has a 12″ deity of Krishna and has repurposed an absolutely charming painted Indian cupboard and turned it into the perfect altar for their small home.
The cupboard is painted with delicate depictions of Sri Radha Krishna & very Rajasthani in style.
To repurpose it as an altar, they removed the internal shelf, creating more height.
Krishna deity stands on a little platform, and below are her 2D forms of Lord Chaitanya
I recently picked up a charming cabinet with the same sort of designs, and intend to repaint it myself.. so gorgeous! My daughters little Krishna Balaram will fit in it so nicely. For now, it serves as a sidetable in our room.
The Cabinet Conversion – lockable!
My own Lords are 21″ or so inches, and I have set up a very nice cupboard – altar conversion which I’m quite happy with.
We live in a tropical (read- mostly hot!) climate, and I wanted to have lots of breezy airflow on the stiflingly hot days of summer.
My first altar was technically a wooden converted Tv Cabinet. You might not remember, but in the past, TV had this massive back, and everyone wanted to hide them away, along with the dvd players, in cabinets. So there are a lot of old T.v. cabinets around, largely from Bali, where they have slatted door style or some other design.
Tto dress and bathe my Gaura Nitai deities (which I do daily), we would kneel or squat on the floor. This started getting more difficult for me, so I started thinking about having an altar which I could stand at, while preparing my Lords for their morning bath and dressing.
For reasons of availibility and economy I eneded up getting nearly the same type of cabinet, just a little wider and a lot taller!
It was brown wood when I bought it, and over the course of a rather painful week, I painted it white. Many adventures to tell about the home altar conversion journey!
I’m still extremely satisfied with it, I love standing to look after them!
A further benefit of this height is that one can stand up and have kirtan and worship the deities.
While a shorter altar you may not be able to see the Lord if you are standing, requiring sitting.
While my altar is perfect for standing, if you are going to sit and worship then you find that you can see them better from a little distance, or from a low chair.
Got babies?
Then baby you need lockable doors!
Not keeping your lords locked in, but lock out those naughty little fingers!
If lockable doors aren’t your thing, the be prepared to constantly swoop on Questing Fingers! Alternately, you could have an altar that was out of reach.
This style of altar works really well, and another friend has the same lovely altar which she painted a strong blue. With lots of young babies it is great to have lockable doors and an out of reach altar top!
My friend in USA has this wonderful Radha Krishna she worships – scroll through to see her simple cabinet, repurposed into the wonderful world of Krishna!
With two levels, she can accommodate her Radha Krsna deities on the top level and further forms on the lower level.
Another idea is a tall and narrow cabinet, if it’s just you who needs to see the Lord! See my sisters absolutely lovely cupboard for selfish viewing of Krishna! hehe this is a view for x1
Not quite as narrow, but shallow and with lots of room for my mums tiny deities, she used to use this shallow but tall cabinet. For the same reasons as me she wanted deities you could stand up and worship, and care for dress without sitting on the floor.
I often still suggest various altar types, and there’s nothing I love more than a good altar hunt – I’m proud to say I have been instrumental in assisting many friends find an altar /cupboard to suit their requirements!
Look for vintage
Here’s a few of the cabinet or cupboard styles I think would make gorgeous closed altar conversions:
When you are looking, first order your thoughts:
- size
- depth
- lockable doors or curtains?
- style?
- Light/Airflow
- budget!
- Babies?
- Standing or sitting
Now lets go through these one by one.
Size: Do you live at the top of a decent set of stairs? Do you have friends or family who don’t mind you calling upon them to rearrange furniture or lift/move your gear? (I’m permanently renting, and every single item in my house is intentionally lightweight & portable with the ONLY exception being my Altar – but it’s on skid pads so I can push it around the living room at will!)
Depth/ Dimensions: Requirements for your deities. My deities need room to stand and lay on the altar. At night time we pull out their beds and lay them down, the 2d frames get tucked to the back of the altar to make way.
Lockable doors/ or Curtains? This will probably depend on the style of altar you get, and whether you need to keep out young fingers! If you are happy to use curtains than you can easily repurpose a bookshelf as an altar space.
Style: You may want to consider your space. Do you want something that discretely blends into your layout without drawing attention to itself, something more western in design, or chinese/asian? Are you hankering after an actual domed style temple (I did! For many years!). Create a mood board – Pinterest is Incredible as aspirational research tool – check out my many boards here:
Light/Airflow: This is kind of a subrequirement of the Style- one will dictate the other. For me it is important to have airflow and breeze in my altar, so the slatted doors work really well. Another type that would work is carved lattice work or special screen style. To add actual electrical lights to the altar, consider whether you need to make some holes or can use pre-installed electrical holes as is often put into media cabinets. You may also just use little battery operated candles or real candles while you are offering (Common sense would dictate never leave real lit candles unattended!)
Budget: After working through your style preference, you will have a better idea of where to source the items for your use. If you are getting a cupboard style altar, you can either buy brand new, or you can search the online second hand sites. I find that Facebook Marketplace along with resources like Craigslist and Gumtree (in australia) are great sources for 2nd hand furniture (refer to search terms above).
Babies? Better consider keeping the altar OUT OF REACH and if possible, Lockable! Cos those crawlers quickly turn into toddlers! Grasping fingers can mean disaster for your sacred altar space.
Standing or Sitting: This is relevant to the height of your altar. Do you have bad knees that make getting up and down difficult or painful? Do you want to be able to stand and worship your deities? Take into account these factors when you choose your Size & Style.
Everything is so interconnected in these choices that you might get lost – so why don’t you start off by seeing what is available!
Keep watching for more ideas on decorating INSIDE your altar!
If you need deep altar, some of the search terms you might try are:
Tv cabinet
Cabinet
Hutch
Wardrobe
Cupboard
Armoire
Media Cabinet
Kitchen Hutch