Space 1999 - How Not to Decorate

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://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 timewatching 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 inthese productions is the imaginatively designed setsand in particular the constant lack of wallpaperin thefuture!

Here we are in the 21st Century and when I was a kid this wasthe distant future. How many science fiction films begin with the classicwords '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 areeither covered in paint (didn't the cavemen do that) or wallpaper, large sheets of pretty patterned paper glued to the wall - GREAT! Attimes 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 likesomething off a science fiction show. Normally this thought floats around for a few seconds, maybe a few minutes, maybe longer if I'mdrunk! 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 andDavid McLaughlin. This is beacause at several Fanderson Conventions Kit and David had displayedtheir impressiveMoonbase Alphareplica sets (Picture top right). These were true attempts torecreate the Space:1999 full size set pieces and were done to a high standard, including buying allthe 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 mademe realise that something like this could be made to a high standard and not look like pureembarrassing 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'tpractical. So it had to look reasonable good or I was going to have to turn into a hermit and lock allmy 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

Enterprisefor 26000 - but I wasn't thinking of spending that much!! So it also needed to bereasonably cheap.. .

The first problem was deciding what Sci-Fi design to build - but as a 'Space:1999' fan my otherideas were quickly discarded and a '1999' feel was the order of the day. Unfortunately astraightforward copy ofMoonbase Alphawas not possible because of the size and shape of my room-Alphawall panels are 8 feet high and my walls aren't. Also the Alphanpanels are wide and wouldnot scale well to the room size. Other practical problems were building around the fireplace and theidea of handling/cutting large sheets of MDF. Also if the panels stand on the floor how do you getthe carpet under them. And when you vacuum-clean the room how do you not end up bashing intoand 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 favouriteKeith Wilson 'Space: 1999' set design elements, mix them up, modify them, and come up with myown 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 lightingsource.

2, A computer covered in flashing lights was a must! Every Christmas period shops will display andsell various types of decorative lights, and whilst 99.9% of normal people think of Christmas Trees Ialways think of Irwin Allen TV shows that I watched as a child - they always had silly computerscovered 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 thenormal '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
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mean having a visible join line through the centre that would not have looked very good so I initiallydiscarded 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 'Journey 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 itstruck 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 myfavourite panel designs from the 1st series of 'Space:1999' and drew up a plan, as with the rest of theproject it couldn't be a perfect replica due to size problems. The original panels (see below) weremade from 1/8th inch plastic sheeting with a hardwood frame glued to the back for support andfixing to the studio wall. This one is 23 & 1/8th inch's wide, 11 & 5/16ths inch's high (or 587cm x287cm). The pattern of lights is drilled and cut out, with the round holes having a 1/2 inch diameterand the rectangles being 1/2 inch wide and 1cm tall. The various colours are created simply byinserting 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 22x 11 inch's and I was also not going to cut out all those lights. I decided to use Perspex and simplycreate 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 thelight pattern could be marked out by placing pre-cut pieces of masking tape into position. (For thecircular ones I had a collection of self-adhesive paper screw head covers) The panels were thenspray painted with white car primer and the white lines could then be marked in position using thinstrips 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 Ithought 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 theparts 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 ofmagnetic catches were glued to the frame, the first of several hundred used on this project, as Iwanted 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 ofdecent Christmas tree lights were bought and set up behind the panels. In order to get them brightenough many of the lights had to be paired off and tin foil was used to reflect light and stop lightspill into other areas. Also even though the final two sets of lights were flickering behind small holesyou could still see that there were two separate and distinct groupings, so a few bulbs had to beintermingled to kill the effect. I was very happy with the first version of my 'Computer', but I finallydecided to slim it down to two columns for design reasons. All these panels are magnetic so can beremoved/changed easily and give access to the lights. The blank panels are 4mm MDF with metalvents from a DIY store. I was going to buy the metal handles from the same store but Ikea sell themmuch 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 TheMoon.'

With the computer now considered to be a success I decided to push on with the project and do theadjoining fireplace next. Again the basic frame is blocked out using a decent thick timber, as itneeded to be strong and I didn't want it to start warping after a few months. All screw heads thatwould be visible were counter-sunk and the holes filled and sanded smooth. I decided to continuethe black panel effect on the overhang roof section and the centre mantelpiece, although here I usedstandard household emulsion paint.

I was stuck for an idea for the centre-piece but in the end decided on a painting/picture, that harkedback 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 twoinches of depth, which meant that I couldn't just cut the shape out of one layer of material and thensimply slap a backing panel on. Firstly I had to cut out the shape of the panel from 4mm MDF, thendraw in the shape of the centre recess and remove it. Lengths of hardwood were then glued andnailed to the back to give me the depth. In order to get a smooth consistant paint finish this


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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 remainperfectly flat.

I decided to coat the MDF in Sanding Sealer to give a better surface for the filler and later paintfinish - 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 ofthin Plasticard on top and holding it in the correct shape for a minute whilst the filler set. Here Iended up using a plastic cap from a paint tin to provide the correct shape. After the filler had set Iremoved the plastic pieces and trimmed off any surplus material. The filler was then sanded downuntil 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 filledin.

*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 andchanged. 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 littledifference 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 brightlyenough but I didn't realise that they were also showing through parts of the panels where the thinwhite lines were! So I had to paint the rear of some panels black or just use black electrical tape tostop the problem.

With the chimney area done it was on to the final stage of covering the rest of the wall in recessedpanels. Each panel was 22" x 34" and made just like the smaller corner pieces. Only the outer edgehas to be constructed as the flat centre area is just a standard sheet of 3mm white plastic-coatedMDF.

The original plan was to include shelves in the design, for books and CD's, but I found that anymodern day items that stood out ruined the look of the wall. Although there is a Hi-Fi unit, gas fireand 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 thegap 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 theuse of the plastic caps.

After the wall construction was finished I decided that the design didn't look 'balanced', one side ofthe room was too dark so the computer had to be slimmed down to just two columns, instead ofthree, and a couple more recessed white panels were fitted. This meant that I had to change all theelectrical 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 wasthrown 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' whichseemed apt.

I also then noticed that colour was starting to become a problem and I've had to become ratherruthless 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 thenit probably has to go. Even some of the small colours in the computer sections had to be toned downor removed!

Finally I finished, well just stopped actually as there's still a couple of little bits to do and I supposeanother wall.......maybe later with that.


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Overall the project seems to have been a success and Ihave had a few favourable comments about it (and one

person even tried to buy it!), although several visitors doseem confused!

Luckily although the wall took around six months tobuild, and is very solidly made, it can be taken down andremoved 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 findmyself sitting around as an old age pensioner wishing I had done it and not being able to. Now thatI've done it I can go back to normal and forget about this sort of silly thing....or can I? The problemis I am really comfortable in this room, after 40 years of Sci-Fi this is my sort of environment and Ireally 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 havinga 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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Space 1999 - How Not to Decorate