Star Trek TOS Inspired Home Office Remodel

[Starbase101]

Another tip with Frog Tape specifically is to pre-activate it by running a damp sponge along the edge before painting.

I did not know that, thanks!

 

[Starbase101]

Déjà vu....

Now that the dress-rehearsal is over with I can start putting things together for real this time. Wife wants to retain white shelves at her crafting desk.

By now I'm really liking the new gray color a lot. Not only does it match the furniture, but wall plates and the window shade also look better:

(That last photo is washed-out with evening warm-white room lighting. Still haven't gotten cool-white lighting yet.)

The new closet doors needed their height reduced by about 1/4" for fitting into the opening, so they're now finally ready for painting. Just need to find a place to do that.

 

[Starbase101]

 

[Starbase101]

Sorry, no girls walking by dressed in their summer clothes.

 

[Starbase101]

While waiting for paint to dry I finished a basic model of the room. Suggestions are invited for where the silver tape vertical stripes could go. Nearly every wall is "busy" with something and there aren't very many obvious places for adding this detail.

 

[trekkerguy]

Since the TOS corridors were built very simply from sheets of 4' x 8' plywood with wooden 2x4's sandwiched between wall sections, the answer is very simple for where to put the silver mylar stripes -- the answer would be every four feet! A 2x4 is actually milled to be 1.5" by 3.5" and the 2x4's are turned vertically. So the 1.5" silver mylar tape (easy to find, see below) was applied on the slightly recessed 2x4 in between the 4' wide wall panels. Here's what I bought to create my "Trekkie Bathroom," in terms of mylar tape: https://www.amazon.com/WOD-Metalize...eywords=1.5"+mylar+tape&qid=1609386522&sr=8-2

 

[Starbase101]

Since the TOS corridors were built very simply from sheets of 4' x 8' plywood with wooden 2x4's sandwiched between wall sections, the answer is very simple for where to put the silver mylar stripes -- the answer would be every four feet!

I did initially try a 4' spacing (#90) but they end up colliding with too many shelves and furniture, and it doesn't look "right". Since this is not a corridor, the spacing doesn't need to follow a 4' guideline. There are several examples in the show where the panel spacing is less than 4' or greater than 4'....

Corridor narrow panel spacing:

There are also narrow panels in Sickbay and other rooms:

There is a large (8-foot?) spacing in Engineering:

So the goal here is to come up with an arrangement that suits the room layout, not an arbitrary 4' spacing. (By the way, I've got that same tape bought from Amazon.)

 

[DazzlerFan]

Just a suggestion for three stripes of silver.

 

[Starbase101]

I too was considering one at the 3D printers (uncertain how "proper" it would be having shelves cross over a stripe), and one on either side of the window. There is a large pegboard at my wife's desk so anything over there would only be seen behind/above the shelves, which are always loaded up with crafting supplies. Other locations I'm considering is between the two pictures above my desk hutch (moving the pictures a little further apart) and next to the red alert light and/or wall intercom (these are ideal placements because are the only non-obstructed walls in the room).

 

[trekkerguy]

Of course, "your mileage may vary" and there were several examples where the plywood wall seams did not occur at four-foot intervals. It's just that the most COMMON view was in starship corridors -- where spacing is exactly four feet in most places. But you will want to do things to make it look good for your own space. Desilu's set construction guys just did the most efficient and cheapest thing, which was to use standard plywood (or masonite-type) sheets of wood for the main wall panels.

 

[trekkerguy]

By the way, we followed the same approach when building the corridor walls now at Neutral Zone Studios in Georgia (see below) -- filming site for "Star Trek Continues." By comparing the two photos, you can see that TOS corridors changed from episode to episode. Sometimes there were extra corridors "cut in" to the main corridor (such as when we see Chekov tortured in the Agony Booth in "Mirror, Mirror."

 

[Starbase101]

If I was theming a hallway then I'd be a lot more on-board with 4-foot spacing, but again this is a room so it is instead more comparative to crew quarters, science labs, or other rooms (where there are fewer stripes on the walls):

 

[Caveneau]

Are you happy with that Fire Cracker colour?

 

[Starbase101]

Are you happy with that Fire Cracker colour?

I think so. It's certainly not as "orange" as the previous red, but it does look good with the darker gray and is an okay match against screenshots. I'll be able to make a better comparison later today when the doors are hung.

 

[Starbase101]

Alright, here is how I've laid out the mylar striping:

A = Edge aligned to front of shelf above closet, symmetric on opposite wall (this will actually align behind the shelf instead of beside it, for getting closer to 4' at the wall's other end - I revised this after taking the screenshots and didn't want to redo them)
B = 4-foot spacing
C = Centered between red alert light and wall edge

The tape is a little pricey so it will not extend behind areas where it won't be seen (behind desks, pegboard, bookcase, etc). The hanging picture positions can be adjusted, and I might need to shorten the 3D printer filament shelves before they get painted. The intercom wall will be left blank so it's not so "busy" entering the room. The 3 stripes which are visible all the way to the floor I'm thinking should include the wall base instead of stopping above it as this person did in their basement (not my room):

The tape will be going up today or tomorrow (need to heat up the room with a space heater so it's not being applied to cold walls) and then also with the red doors hung it should begin looking cool again.

 

[Caveneau]

That looks awesome. You went full-on with the food synthesizer too. Are you going to paint the wall register? I have a few in my hallway that I was going to spray paint red.

 

[Starbase101]

Read more carefully - that last photo is not mine nor of my room. It is an example showing striping stopped at the wall base top instead of at the floor. I'm undecided whether to do the same or include the wall base with the stripes.

Spraying the paint would definitely be the way to go. I just do not have the space for spraying - I am SO not getting overspray anywhere inside the house or garage, and it's snowing outside. I've been painting with a roller and fighting a losing battle with roller marks, so I'm going to try one more time with a synthetic brush designed to eliminate brush marks and a thicker coating than a roller applies so it can self-level and hopefully look acceptable. I'm at the point now where it would have cost less if I had simply bought a gallon of the red. The FINAL coating will be going on in a little over an hour.

 

[Lt Washburn]

You should stop at the baseboards and paint them black.

 

[Starbase101]

That was my first thought as well and even bought a quart of black paint for doing just that, but decided the black band around the bottom of the room would be too tall and look weird so the wall base was painted gray. Sorry but black baseboards won't be happening.

 

[Starbase101]

Well, the red doors are painted yet again (what is that, 5 or 6 times now) and they still look bad, so it seems I'll be taking a power-sander to them on the weekend and spraying them....outside, in the cold. That means choosing yet another red color from a rattle can. It really should not be this difficult to get smooth red doors.