How Not To Decorate

http://www.davidsissonmodels.co.uk/moonbase.htm[2014-08-08 13:09:43]
How not to decorate ...........Unless you're really, really, bored one day!__._____________ Back to INDEX
As a science fiction fan I spend rather a lot of my time
watching futuristic films and television programs like
Star Trek, Farscape, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Firefly,
Stargate and many more - usually with the word 'Star'
somewhere in them. One thing I always take note of in
these productions is the imaginatively designed sets
and in particular the constant lack of wallpaper in the
future!
Here we are in the 21st Century and when I was a kid this was the distant future. How many science fiction films begin with the classic
words 'its the 21st Century'. We're well past 'Space:1999' and '2001' has come and gone and all we have to show for it is the mobile
phone! Where are the flying cars and moonbases?
Every time I switch off my television set and return to reality I'm always struck by how boring the modern home is. Plain flat walls are
either covered in paint (didn't the cavemen do that) or wallpaper, large sheets of pretty patterned paper glued to the wall - GREAT! At
times like these a thought usually drifts through my mind (and I bet quite a few other peoples) wouldn't it be cool if the room looked like
something off a science fiction show. Normally this thought floats around for a few seconds, maybe a few minutes, maybe longer if I'm
drunk! But usually sanity prevails. USUALLY.
A couple of years ago it didn't and I lay the blame for this at the feet of two people, Kit Bevan and
David McLaughlin. This is beacause at several Fanderson Conventions Kit and David had displayed
their impressive Moonbase Alpha replica sets (Picture top right). These were true attempts to
recreate the Space:1999 full size set pieces and were done to a high standard, including buying all
the expensive '1970s' Italian furniture and finding authentic things - like the clocks and monitors.
Having looked at this for quite a while, and picked their brains for tips on how it was done, it made
me realise that something like this could be made to a high standard and not look like pure
embarrassing rubbish.. This was important because the only room in my house that this mad project
could be mounted was the downstairs living room - hiding it upstairs in a spare room simply wasn't
practical. So it had to look reasonable good or I was going to have to turn into a hermit and lock all
my doors and pretend to be out every time someone knocked at the door! Of course there is a chap,
Tony Alleyne in Leicester (UK), that has famously turned his flat into a copy of the Starship
Enterprise for 26000 - but I wasn't thinking of spending that much!! So it also needed to be
reasonably cheap.. .
The first problem was deciding what Sci-Fi design to build - but as a 'Space:1999' fan my other
ideas were quickly discarded and a '1999' feel was the order of the day. Unfortunately a
straightforward copy of Moonbase Alpha was not possible because of the size and shape of my room
- Alpha wall panels are 8 feet high and my walls aren't. Also the Alphan panels are wide and would
not scale well to the room size. Other practical problems were building around the fireplace and the
idea of handling/cutting large sheets of MDF. Also if the panels stand on the floor how do you get
the carpet under them. And when you vacuum-clean the room how do you not end up bashing into
and damaging them? Finally the real problem with building something like this is the fact that it will
be perfectly straight and perfectly square - houses are not perfectly square at all - certainly not mine!
So after a great deal of thought, and about 200 plus design sketch's, I decided to take my favourite
Keith Wilson 'Space: 1999' set design elements, mix them up, modify them, and come up with my
own version - or should that be vision? I started by making a short list of elements that I liked.
1, I've always liked recessed panels. Unlike normal flat walls Sci-Fi wall panels often have a 3-
dimensional feel that I really wanted as it creates differing shadow effects depending on the lighting
source.
2, A computer covered in flashing lights was a must! Every Christmas period shops will display and
sell various types of decorative lights, and whilst 99.9% of normal people think of Christmas Trees I
always think of Irwin Allen TV shows that I watched as a child - they always had silly computers
covered in millions of flashing lights.
3, I wanted some sort of feature around the fireplace with overhead lighting.
One problem I was still worrying over was handling the large white wall panels. However as the
normal 'Space:1999' design featured an upper and lower recessed area per panel it seemed a much
better (and easier) idea to make them in two halves and fix them to a frame on the wall. This would
How Not To Decorate
http://www.davidsissonmodels.co.uk/moonbase.htm[2014-08-08 13:09:43]
mean having a visible join line through the centre that would not have looked very good so I initially
discarded the idea.
However one of my favourite design elements from 'Space' was Keith Wilson's fairly regular Black
& White rooms, one of which appeared in 'J ourney to Where' - where a white room had a black
band running around it. As I was having white panels next to the almost-black computer panels it
struck me that I could use them to cleanly spit the panels in two and give me two designs for the
price of one.
Problem sorted it was now time to begin.
The first part of my project would just be to make the computer - and if I decided that it wasn't
going to look very good I could cancel the idea of changing the rest of the room. So I picked out my
favourite panel designs from the 1st series of 'Space:1999' and drew up a plan, as with the rest of the
project it couldn't be a perfect replica due to size problems. The original panels (see below) were
made from 1/8th inch plastic sheeting with a hardwood frame glued to the back for support and
fixing to the studio wall. This one is 23 & 1/8th inch's wide, 11 & 5/16ths inch's high (or 587cm x
287cm). The pattern of lights is drilled and cut out, with the round holes having a 1/2 inch diameter
and the rectangles being 1/2 inch wide and 1cm tall. The various colours are created simply by
inserting coloured off-cuts of Perspex into the holes with white translucent Perspex as a backing
plate. My replica panels would be different in several ways. Firstly they were slightly smaller at 22
x 11 inch's and I was also not going to cut out all those lights. I decided to use Perspex and simply
create the lights by masking them off before I spray painted the panels; this would be much quicker,
easier and neater.
Original
wall panel
The panels were made from 4mm Perspex. Each one was placed over a simple plan and then the
light pattern could be marked out by placing pre-cut pieces of masking tape into position. (For the
circular ones I had a collection of self-adhesive paper screw head covers) The panels were then
spray painted with white car primer and the white lines could then be marked in position using thin
strips of masking tape. Finally the panels were sprayed with the topcoat of Hurricane Grey paint -
with the last coat dusted on for a satin finish. All of the masking tapes were then removed and the
'lights' could be given colour by attaching pieces of translucent plastic to the rear side. At first I
thought I was going to have to buy some expensive tinted filters but ended up cutting up cheap
multi-coloured plastic wallets from a stationary store. Industrial strength tape was used for fixing the
parts quickly although the two wooden positioning blocks and metal plates had to be super-glued.
To support all these panels I assembled a frame on the wall using 3-inch thick timber. A series of
magnetic catches were glued to the frame, the first of several hundred used on this project, as I
wanted the panels to be easily detachable and not have lots of visible screw heads.
As all computers have to have flashing lights then a bit of wiring was required. Several sets of
decent Christmas tree lights were bought and set up behind the panels. In order to get them bright
enough many of the lights had to be paired off and tin foil was used to reflect light and stop light
spill into other areas. Also even though the final two sets of lights were flickering behind small holes
you could still see that there were two separate and distinct groupings, so a few bulbs had to be
intermingled to kill the effect. I was very happy with the first version of my 'Computer', but I finally
decided to slim it down to two columns for design reasons. All these panels are magnetic so can be
removed/changed easily and give access to the lights. The blank panels are 4mm MDF with metal
vents from a DIY store. I was going to buy the metal handles from the same store but Ikea sell them
much cheaper. A computer keyboard was broken up, the keys spray painted and hot-glued to a
plastic sheet backing, to create the replica centre panel - as seen in the episode 'Ring Around The
Moon.'
With the computer now considered to be a success I decided to push on with the project and do the
adjoining fireplace next. Again the basic frame is blocked out using a decent thick timber, as it
needed to be strong and I didn't want it to start warping after a few months. All screw heads that
would be visible were counter-sunk and the holes filled and sanded smooth. I decided to continue
the black panel effect on the overhang roof section and the centre mantelpiece, although here I used
standard household emulsion paint.
I was stuck for an idea for the centre-piece but in the end decided on a painting/picture, that harked
back to the 'viewscreen' look from the series, surrounded by some recessed panels.
Recessed panel sections took a bit of effort to construct as I wanted them to have around one to two
inches of depth, which meant that I couldn't just cut the shape out of one layer of material and then
simply slap a backing panel on. Firstly I had to cut out the shape of the panel from 4mm MDF, then
draw in the shape of the centre recess and remove it. Lengths of hardwood were then glued and
nailed to the back to give me the depth. In order to get a smooth consistant paint finish this
How Not To Decorate
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hardwood also had to be covered in thin MDF so a gap was left between the wood and the inner lip.
Here the covering strips of MDF were glued to the inner edge of the hardwood and were held in
position with masking tape. At this stage gaps are left in the corners to allow the panel to remain
perfectly flat.
I decided to coat the MDF in Sanding Sealer to give a better surface for the filler and later paint
finish - but I'm not sure if it was really necessary.
The curved corners were made quite easily by applying car filler to the area, then placing a length of
thin Plasticard on top and holding it in the correct shape for a minute whilst the filler set. Here I
ended up using a plastic cap from a paint tin to provide the correct shape. After the filler had set I
removed the plastic pieces and trimmed off any surplus material. The filler was then sanded down
until it was nice and smooth and blended into the surrounding wood. The heads of the panel pins,
that secured the hardwood, were punched beneath the surface of the MDF and the small holes filled
in.
*All the MDF panels were painted using standard household emulsion, in this case white
vinyl silk, but the trick is to apply it using a Gloss roller, which speckles the surface,
creating a professional quality looking textured finish.
Of course the original studio Alpha panels were actually an off-white colour but I didn't want that.
A picture frame was modified to fit in the centre of the wall, again it can be easily removed and
changed. The surrounding black panels include more lights and a digital clock, this was a cheap
plastic model that was partially cut up to enable it to fit into place. There's actually very little
difference between the black emulsion and the Hurricane Grey car paint, so the room just appears to
be black and white.
I spent a great deal of time making sure that the effects lights were working and appearing brightly
enough but I didn't realise that they were also showing through parts of the panels where the thin
white lines were! So I had to paint the rear of some panels black or just use black electrical tape to
stop the problem.
With the chimney area done it was on to the final stage of covering the rest of the wall in recessed
panels. Each panel was 22" x 34" and made just like the smaller corner pieces. Only the outer edge
has to be constructed as the flat centre area is just a standard sheet of 3mm white plastic-coated
MDF.
The original plan was to include shelves in the design, for books and CD's, but I found that any
modern day items that stood out ruined the look of the wall. Although there is a Hi-Fi unit, gas fire
and television in the mix these items are black and fit in reasonably well.
Note - all the panels end 6 inches above the floor and a semi-recessed blank wood sheet covers the
gap and all the various wires and more importantly means I don't end up kicking and damaging the
panels..
Right; A finished corner piece. All the recessed panels needed to be screw fixed which required the
use of the plastic caps.
After the wall construction was finished I decided that the design didn't look 'balanced', one side of
the room was too dark so the computer had to be slimmed down to just two columns, instead of
three, and a couple more recessed white panels were fitted. This meant that I had to change all the
electrical wiring so it caused me quite a bit of trouble to do.
Next problem was that my blue patterned carpet looked completely out of place. So the carpet was
thrown out and plain grey office-style (and pleasantly cheap) carpeting replaced it. The next
problem my multi-coloured sofa looked wrong! So out the door with that and a white leather not-so-
cheap corner unit replaced it. I also ended up buying a swivel chair from Ikea called 'Luna' which
seemed apt.
I also then noticed that colour was starting to become a problem and I've had to become rather
ruthless in removing it from the room. My dark blue curtains just didn't look right and also had to be
thrown out and replaced with black. No matter how good something is, if it isn't black or white then
it probably has to go. Even some of the small colours in the computer sections had to be toned down
or removed!
Finally I finished, well just stopped actually as there's still a couple of little bits to do and I suppose
another wall.......maybe later with that.
How Not To Decorate
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Overall the project seems to have been a success and I
have had a few favourable comments about it (and one
person even tried to buy it!), although several visitors do
seem confused!
Luckily although the wall took around six months to
build, and is very solidly made, it can be taken down and
removed in just a few hours.
There are a couple of minor drawbacks to it though.
Firstly one of the main reasons I did this was simply to get it out of my system, I didn't want to find
myself sitting around as an old age pensioner wishing I had done it and not being able to. Now that
I've done it I can go back to normal and forget about this sort of silly thing....or can I? The problem
is I am really comfortable in this room, after 40 years of Sci-Fi this is my sort of environment and I
really feel at home!
Secondly after saying all that I've been living in this room for a while now so I often don't actually
'see' it. When people come to my house they walk in and stop dead like they're in a trance or having
a heart-attack with me asking them 'What is it, what's wrong?'
Then I look round and notice the 26-foot-long futuristic wall with a 'Oh that thing!'
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