Star Wars Themed Room Remodels (preliminary planning)

Harblar

New Member
Hi all!

I'm currently in the process of remodeling my Farm House and am planning on doing some Star Wars-centric rooms while I'm at it. My ultimate goal is to have a home theater and lobby styled after the cargo holds of the Millenium Falcon and a bedroom styled to match a mix of Death Star corridors, Emperor's throne room, and Bespin Carbon Freeze Chamber.

My plan for the theater area is lots of pipes, wire, and conduit. I also plan to eventually incorporate a Holo board, Circular Bench, Engineering Console, Hyperdrive, and Turret Port. (also lots of speakers, amps, processors, and a decent projector) I've got a decent Idea of what I want to do here, I just need to sit down and draw it up on the computer to finalize it.

My plan for the bedroom is a lot more open-ended. My initial thought was Emperor's thrown room. I've got 4 floor to ceiling windows facing south and I thought it would be cool to put a swiveling Thrown chair there. I also wanted to put some Death Star wall panels, including the backlit light panels, along some of the flat walls. I'm also leaning towards building a custom murphy bed on one wall, I've been thinking a lot about how to do this recently and I'm currently looking at doing this wall in a Carbonite chamber theme. Why? So I can attach a Han Solo in Carbonite to the bottom of the Murphy bed, of course. haha ;-)

My original thought was to build a full accurate HIC Box with Lights and all to mount to the bottom of the bed, but I think I'm just going to direct mount it to the bottom of the bed, for both space and simplicities sake. I'm also toying with the notion of doing a partial Bespin style grated floor/platform (with red/orange backlighting) where the bed folds down onto.

For the most part, I am in no great hurry to get these rooms done. Most of the finishing will be done during the summer by me and on my own schedule. That being said, The bedroom is a concern as it will be the master bedroom (for the next several years anyway). I eventually plan to build a ground floor addon with a full master suite. When I do the old bedroom will become the guest room/lounge/collectibles area, hence the murphy bed from the start. Anyway, all the rooms are sheetrocked and in need of mudding, taping, and painting. My issue right now is how to go about that in the bedroom. I can do a lot of it myself, though making it look good and professional is a different matter. My other thought is if I have a guy come in and pay him to do it, it'll look good, but I'm eventually going to cover it up with custom made MDF Death Star Wall panels. So how much finishing do I actually need to do on the walls? The way I'm thinking right now, I could just do a quick and easy job on the wall seams and screws and then have the pro tackle the ceilings. This should save me some money... maybe even enough to offset the cost of the paneling? Either way, I need to make a decision fairly soon so I can get it livable before spring planting consumes my life.

So, what I'm looking for right now is any links for guides, tutorials, plans/specs, reference, or other builds on the Death Star Wall Panels. I've done a bit of browsing, but haven't really come across anything with actual dimensions or good walkthroughs/suggestions for the backlight panels. (I'm going to use LED strips, but I also want to get the lighting as thin and even as possible) Any good guides out there on that? I don't really want to build out a whole extra 2x4 wall if I don't have to. ;-)

The other thing I need to nail down pretty quick is a HIC cast. I see King Jawa does runs every now and then and has a good guide/tutorial on finishing it. Does anyone know if he's planning a run anytime soon, or has any currently available? If not, is there any other places out there I could get a good set of casts for this? Any ideas on price? I've seen it mentioned that they aren't too bad, but haven't really been able to find any specifics.

Anyway, I suppose that's enough rambling for now. I'll continue to post updates and pics as things start moving forward. It should be a lot of fun and I can't wait to get started on it. :)
 
Yep! I found that build on a different board (maybe here? I can't remember). Either way, the thread you linked to had some dimensions for the light panels included. They ended up being a rough hand drawn diagram, but it should help a little.

Another good one I found was actually some wall panels for making a 1:12 scale diorama.

http://thefwoosh.com/2015/12/gtp-toys-space-wall-or-not-star-wars-death-star-panels-review

I think I'm going to get a set (maybe... $98 and I only have a few 1:12 scale figures at the moment) or I might just use some good straight on shots to get the proportions laid out right in CAD and scaled to fit my ceiling height correctly.

My concern is still getting the panels lit nicely while being as thin as possible. What are people using for the white diffusion panel? Opaque Plexi? Glass? I'm thinking edge lighting with an RGB strip might work nicely. Set it up for default white and then tie it into my home automation for color coded alerts. ;-)

I'm going to take some time tomorrow and see if I can get something drawn up. Here's what I'm working with for a floor plan (approx).
Second Floor.jpg
Ultimately, I don't care as much about screen accuracy, though I do want it to be highly detailed and still have that Star Wars feel to it. :)
 
Wow...it's kind of ironic that I'm just completing the re-conversion of the 4th bedroom in our house back to a bedroom after having it as a Death Star themed display room for all of my 1:1 costumes for over 10 years. If I had it to do over again, now that I've had to brush up on my drywall skills again, I don't know if I would have done it. Lot's of skim coats of mud to conceal where I mounted all of the panels to the wall, THEN painted....it built up hard edges of paint.

Either way, when you're in the throws of it, you'll be making things up as you go. And the best thing about Star Wars sets from the OT era, is that as long as you get the basic theme right everything else can be thrown in and it sticks!

I'll add, enjoy it while it lasts, 'cause you'll likely not want it forever.
 
I'll add, enjoy it while it lasts, 'cause you'll likely not want it forever.

Hahaha... Probably, though I've got an entire first floor and an unfinished basement I can do "normal" stuff with. (though a Cantina Bar/Heavy Metal Club theme has a real possibility of going into the basement! lol) ;-)

Where I'm at right now, as far as the walls go, is some new sheetrock hung and patched in with some old finished/painted sheet rock. The more I think about it (and after what you said) if I ever do decide to undo it, I'll probably have to patch/remud/texture anyway. I'm thinking I'll save a lot in the near and long term if I just mud and tape the seams and screws and call it good. I've already got an idea for mounting the panels. I'm thinking 1x2's attached to the wall and placed at panel seams. Paint them black and they should be pretty much invisible and easy to remove, should I ever want to.

I made a quick light panel in CAD and imported it into my floorplan software. I think this is going to work good. :)
 
That's what I did in regards to making it "easy" to disassemble. I used 5/16 hex head screws that were exposed and then just painted over. It gave it an industrial feel anyhow. Plus I mounted 1x2's and then mounted panels to them with edges to conceal it all. Even though there were lot's of things that went right onto the wall, plus I removed all of the rooms casing and ripped new out of MDF and made all of the corners like the movie sets with 45 degree triangles onto each corner to give it a six sided opening for the window, closet and room door. I probably should have removed the carpet but man am I glad I didn't go that far!
 
That's what I did in regards to making it "easy" to disassemble. I used 5/16 hex head screws that were exposed and then just painted over. It gave it an industrial feel anyhow. Plus I mounted 1x2's and then mounted panels to them with edges to conceal it all. Even though there were lot's of things that went right onto the wall, plus I removed all of the rooms casing and ripped new out of MDF and made all of the corners like the movie sets with 45 degree triangles onto each corner to give it a six sided opening for the window, closet and room door. I probably should have removed the carpet but man am I glad I didn't go that far!

Right now it's unfinished drywall and plywood floor. I'm going to do a floating laminate floor (though trying to find a laminate with a semi-glossy black tile look is proving to be somewhat of a challenge, so I may end up with a black slate looking laminate instead)

I'd love to see a pic of how you did the windows and corners. I hadn't really thought of doing that yet, but it might look pretty neat and give the bay window area a fairly Star Destroyer Bridge like quality to it.

Here's a quick render I did to see what the panels would look like. Blended with the rest of the room it should look pretty good. :)

Bedroom test 1.jpg
 
This is how it looked before I re-modeled the entire room back to "original". While I loved it, 10 years was enough and I really never went into the room other than once in a blue moon for a few minutes to gaze at what I had created....it was kinda weird :lol It was far better suited for a home theater, but was relegated to a bedroom. Hope these pics help. Be sure to post pics as you go along too!
 

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