Star Trek TOS Inspired Home Office Remodel

[Starbase101]

Love your OG Tron lightcycles!

Oh yeah, HUGE "TRON" fan here. "OG"? These are original Medicom Real Action Heroes toys from Japan. Most of my TRON collectibles are unopened, but the lightcycles just simply could not be left in their boxes! My son and I are hoping to build electro-luminescent Tron and Sark costumes to celebrate the 40th anniversary, but still need to acquire just one more piece of extremely elusive Jofa gear before that project gets green-lit. (We've got the correct shoulder pads for Sark, bicep pads and helmet for Tron, and a source for doing the electro-luminescent work - but haven't yet been able to acquire the correct Jofa shoulder pads for Tron.)

 

[kickman88]

So, after thinking about it for a few weeks, I've decided to splurge and get all-matching furniture for my side of the room. (Wife is content with the furniture on her side.) I'll need to wait until my desk arrives before placing the second order because I won't know until then whether I can modify the tackboard I bought or if a different one will need to be ordered (save on freight costs if a replacement is ordered with the additional furniture). I've changed my mind about a 72" tackboard with a 72" desk - it's just way more tackboard space than I'll ever need and covering it with replica Trek fabric will be costly, so I've decided on a smaller size which will be more reminiscent of the TOS wall panels and then can be resurfaced from only 1 yard of fabric.

In the same spirit of showing "before pics" as in the first post, here is how the old furniture looked (old desk barely visible on the left, 3D printing workbench in the middle, cheap bookcase slightly visible on the right). The smaller 3D printer on the right has already sold to make room for a resin printer.
View attachment 1376990

What a mess! The new workbench will have full doors on its front and look much "cleaner", and being in the same gray color and style as the desk will have better continuity and theming on that side of the room.

I am open to opinions on what color to make the new 3D printer workbench top. The gray desk's top is wood-grained in the same color as Kirk's desk in his quarters. On one hand I'm leaning towards a gray countertop in keeping with the style of Kirk's quarters where all his non-desk cabinetry has gray tops. On the other hand I'm leaning towards a charcoal-color countertop in keeping with the style of TOS science labs:
View attachment 1376996

Although the charcoal countertop would be appropriate for the type of work (play?) being done on that workbench, I'm a little concerned about "color mashup" because the workbench will flush up against the desk (same height, probably same depth) so introducing a 3rd color could be a little much.

Wood-grain desktop beside gray workbench top (color samples from manufacturer brochure, bottom half represents furniture front face):
View attachment 1376999

Wood-grain desktop beside charcoal workbench top (color samples from manufacturer brochure, bottom half represents furniture front face):
View attachment 1376998

I don't fancy a wood-grain top for the workbench because the grain would run perpendicular to the desk's return surface (which I don't think would look so great) and doesn't align with its function:
View attachment 1377003

Which do you think would look better and why? I'm leaning toward charcoal despite becoming a 3-color scheme because there would then be functionality distinction on the same-plane work surfaces - oak woodgrain for the "administrative" area (computers, laser printer, Alps printer), charcoal for the "making" area (3D printers), and gray for the "storage" areas (desk drawers and hutch, workbench cabinets, bookcase).

For me there is something really sharp looking about the light wood/dark paint contrast and more bland for wood and the light gray...kinda like maple and walnut in the same piece giving a nice contrast compared to wood/light gray just blending in...but maybe you want "blending in"!

 

[Starbase101]

For me there is something really sharp looking about the light wood/dark paint contrast and more bland for wood and the light gray...kinda like maple and walnut in the same piece giving a nice contrast compared to wood/light gray just blending in...but maybe you want "blending in"!

Yeah, I've been really warming up to the oak/charcoal combination and how much sharper it looks. It's probably what I'm going with. At the moment I'm waiting to hear back from their design department for what it would cost to have drawers added, and placing a 24" deep countertop onto a 20" deep cabinet. I've got space for a 48" cabinet but that length is advertised as a doors-only configuration (a drawers option is only for 30", 60", and 72" lengths) and drawers would be useful on a 3D printing workbench.

Both styles are available in 20" and 24" depth, and having a 4" overhang on the cabinet's back would enable power cords being behind the cabinet instead of inside it when passed through topside grommets. The resulting side gaps wouldn't be seen due to a desk on the left and a bookcase on the right.

 

[Starbase101]

Two more ingredients have arrived. Soon I will be able to start construction.

The panel's intercom piece will be 3D printed, and I can either do this on the Mass Portal Pharaoh when it returns to the room (and then have to clean up print lines) or wait until an Elegoo Saturn is on my workbench (which is what I'd rather print it with).

The more this project evolves the more I am not liking the Colonial closet doors, so even though I spent a week painting them I've been shopping around for plain-Jane smooth doors to replace them with. Good thing there's lots of red paint leftover.

 

[Starbase101]

Newbie question here - This project involves multiple separate "props" for decorating the walls, desk, and a handheld. Is it preferred that as construction begins on each of these that a separate thread be created for focusing on each individual piece rather than mixing it all up here in the master project? If I was searching The RPF for information about a particular prop (which I've done a lot, often to no avail) I'd probably rather see a dedicated thread for each prop I'm interested in rather than one thread with multiple props buried in it. If the preference is "child" threads for each prop, would it be better to start new ones or rename the few I've already started for soliciting information? Thanks!

 

[Michael Bergeron]

Depends on how involved it is. If it's something specific that warrants it's own thread then by all means (such as your Captain's pad thread), but at the same time flooding the forum with a bunch of little threads can be annoying to many members. I'd suggest using this thread for most stuff and just edit the title as you progress to new elements, ie: "Star Trek Inspired Home Office Remodel - Alert Panel"

 

[Starbase101]

First shipment of furniture has arrived - not going to be fun moving this upstairs.

 

[Starbase101]

Calamity!!! The "Distant Star" paint color is much too light compared to the furniture:

That's an evening photo so the colors aren't all that great, but you get the gist. The furniture looks good relative to the electrical plates and window shade, but the walls have a distinct "blueish" tint when juxtaposed with the furniture color, and are just way too light. This will never do! I'm not going to spend years sitting at my desk thinking about how bad the wall color is compared to everything else, so you guessed it - now would be the time to repaint, before installing my half of the room. Damn!

So now I get to take one step backward in order to take two steps forward. All the shelving comes back out, model kits emptied from the closet again, wife's furniture moved to the center of the room (this time it can stay in the room since carpet's already in), re-mask, and carefully re-paint without messing up the carpet (which will also look better against darker walls). Yeah, a lot of sucky work, but in a week or so after all the dust has resettled it will be worth it. I'd rather have the furniture, wall plates, and window shade coordinate better with the walls than take the easy road and regret it later. I don't know if I'll be using the TOS Set Tour "Online" color or something else - going to Home Depot tomorrow with a piece of the furniture to choose a color, and this time I'm also going to have a less shiny finish. At least my wife is supportive of repainting, and this time it will be without Covid (yep, we've both fully recovered).

Damn again.

 

[DazzlerFan]

I hate to hear that your colors don’t match well.

I searched through some notes and I found where it says that the color “Online” is a match for the original TOS grey under 1960’s set lighting. “Gravity” is the color from the Star Trek Continues sets and is a match to the original grey when under modern set lighting.

Hopefully that helps in some way.

 

[Starbase101]

Yes, I have that information too. However, it matters more to me that the paint color matches the furniture in the same room than that it matches the walls of a set over 2,000 miles away. That's why I'm taking a piece with me to the store tomorrow. If I'm doing this project, then by golly I'm going to do it right.

On one hand I'm thinking 100% match the paint to the furniture so it's all the same color like on the TV show, but I'm concerned about the room then maybe becoming too dark. (It seems to be a darker shade of gray than seen on the show.) On the other hand my wife suggested maybe a slightly lighter shade of gray than the furniture, but then it might look weird like "oh we tried to match the color but didn't quite get it right" and then also the wall plates won't blend in as well. I'm leaning towards having the furniture laminate scanned and color-matched, since the 75W warm white light currently in the room will be replaced with 200W cool white light (which should lighten everything a little bit, right?) and it seems like it would look more "proper" having the cabinets match the walls. Opinions?

Oh, and this then also means painting/replacing the shelving (at least on my side of the room) is now on the table.

 

[Lt Washburn]

Definitely match the furniture.

 

[Starbase101]

Definitely match the furniture.

Yes, that would be ideal and most likely what's going to happen. Just concerned it might be too dark of gray.

Here is another pic in better lighting. I don't like the shine of the walls (too many reflections and general shininess), and the existing paint is just way too light for me to accept.

Again, for comparison against the TOS "Online" color, "Distant Star" isn't that much different:

The difference between the furniture color and "Distant Star" is greater than the difference between "Online" and "Distant Star", so matching the furniture will shift me further away from the proper gray but I still think having the walls match the furniture is the right way to go. I hope to have new color information later today.

 

[Michael Bergeron]

Another thing to think of when trying to get the right colour for the "feel" is the size of the room. These original sets were bigger than your space and FLOODED with tonnes of light. There's a reason most studio sets are very warm. Since your room is more an homage than a strict replica I wouldn't be too concerned with what the proper colour is and go with your eye. I have a feeling that matching the furniture will result in a pretty dark room, even with the 200w light. Maybe try a test area first before you commit.

 

[Michael Bergeron]

Here's a really rough mock of what it would look if the walls were the same colour as the outlets. Doesn't look too bad now but when the room is full it'll look much darker.

 

[Starbase101]

I totally get that, and thus the dilemma. It should match the furniture, but shouldn't shift to the other extreme of the color being too dark. I think there might be some room for flexibility, so I'll know more later. Besides, depending on a scene's lighting the original walls sometimes appeared darker anyway.

In each of those photos the gray seems close to the same color of my furniture, so it could yet all work out.

 

[Starbase101]

No pictures yet (you don't need to see the room being broken down again), but I did get a piece of the furniture scanned today at Home Depot and satin finish paint (I had gotten semi-gloss the first time). It might not be an exact match (I'll know in a couple days, the furniture's laminate was difficult to scan) but if not then it's definitely very close. I also picked up a quart of "Gripper" primer which they said should allow the same paint to bond to the shelves and supports, so my side of the room at least will have gray shelving to match the walls. I also found replacement closet doors, smooth without any decoration on them, pre-primed. I'll be going back to pick up two of those another day soon. The red paint I've got might be too bright with the darker gray so I'll need to re-evaluate that after the gray dries. The blue door is probably going to remain as-is.

Oh, and there's another good thing about repainting - I had bought a roll of the silver tape used between wall panels but forgot to apply it before putting my wife's side of the room back together. After realizing this I figured not a huge loss because not much of the walls are visible on that side anyway. But now that the walls are being redone, I've got the roll of tape out so it's not forgotten this time around. (Yes, the original plan was to include silver vertical stripes at intervals around the room.)

 

[Lt Washburn]

If you're keeping the room door to maintain it's appearance from the hall side, you might consider getting a sheet of Luan and gluing it to the interior for a smooth look. If you pick the right glue, it should hold but be non-destructively removable in the future.

 

[Starbase101]

(Are you the same Lt Washburn as at the Starfleet 1701st Uniform Club? My two uniform projects haven't been abandoned, in fact this remodel is going to provide an improved area for me to work on them. I am STILL waiting for my wool elastique to finish getting dyed!)

A smooth face on the main door's inside would only be seen if the door is closed while inside the room, and that rarely happens. The cats have a conniption if somebody's inside the room and they're "locked out" with the door closed, as if we're making secret plans in there for re-homing them. With the door open its inside face is against a wall and not seen. The door is kept closed while not in the room because the cats have a history of being "naughty" in creative ways in there. It's painted blue on both sides so while in the room with the door open there's still blue present in that nook rather than being white from the hall-side, and it seemed weird having it blue on one side and white on the other side. At first it looked odd from the outside having one blue door in an otherwise white hall, but nobody knows yet what color the hall will eventually be and we've already grown accustomed to "the blue door". In a way, being a combination of the house styling with a Colonial door painted light lblue it represents a soft transition from the "normal" part of the house to the Star Trek theming. I might have skinned the door's inside face if I had gotten the idea before painting, but doing it now I'd then want to strip the door's outside back to white and honestly at this point it's not worth the trouble for reasons mentioned above.

The suggestions have been great and where feasible and agreeable I implement, like painting the shelving gray - now that the shelving is down again for repainting and there's a solution for having the paint adhere (untested), the shelves and supports are likely going to be gray for matching the walls. If the main door ends up getting a re-treatment after the darker gray is on, then I'll consider more seriously about having a smooth inside face. (And now that the idea has been planted in my head it's going to brew there and possibly get acted on. That's how replacing the closet doors came about - a private discussion about the Colonial styling not quite fitting in and how can my OCD cope with that......turns out it could not.)

 

[Metaluna mutant]

Like the build - great to see adaptions of 60s future-mod minimalist design.

Will you be adding the purple/green red mood lighting?

 

[Starbase101]

Will you be adding the purple/green red mood lighting?

It hasn't been mentioned yet, but I have indeed been musing in the back of my mind over the last several weeks about how to go about adding colored mood lighting angled onto the walls in a couple places. They're only musings at this point because I wouldn't want visible light sources and I wouldn't want to go overboard with colored lighting. My thoughts were to wait until most everything is done and then step back to identify areas where some ambiance lighting might look good. I'd want to do it using "smart" lights that can be linked to Google Home so I could simply say to the intercom, "Hey Google, turn on the mood lights" and have them switch on/off with voice commands. The problem is all the "smart" lights that I know of are the big regular-sized light bulbs and maybe too large for hiding behind things. I haven't yet researched whether smaller color-changing lights exist that can be connected to Google Home. The alternative would be ultra-bright LEDs (easy to hide) connected to one of the desktop's 8 colored rocker switches. I've also got a blue Lava Lamp that I'm considering moving into the room as a nod to the 60's. And now I'm 100% hypnotized by your avatar, darn it.