Archive for the ‘Star Field’ Category

Star Field (Complete)

Friday, March 19th, 2010

In my first post I kind of explained how I made the star field, in this one I’ll show the results.

Location for star field in bathroom ceiling.

In our bathroom I lowered the ceiling 4″ over the tub and made a recessed area of where the light panel was going to be placed. everything was taped, mudded, primed and painted prior to the star field install. (unfortunately I never took a picture of this).

After we got the star field in place I patched all the holes and placed a trim around the edges. The end result is shown below, however I still have to cover the access to the CoolSky LED light box and receptacle. I also created a video, but I have to remake it as I filmed it in total darkness and the camera kept going out of focus, it was also a 200M file so it would take quite some time to download. I’ll try to make a better (smaller) video over the weekend.

Completed star field ceiling, well I still need to cover the hatch where the LED module is hiding on the left hand side.


Lit 1

View standing outside of tub (long exposure)


Lit 2

View looking up from the tub. (How many constellations can you find?)



Video of CoolSky LED functions will be coming soon.

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Star Field (post 1)

Friday, March 19th, 2010

I have finally started the star field that will be ending up in my master bathroom ceiling (you can follow that story here).

Star Plot

Star map for ceiling star field. (Click to enlarge)

First off I created an actual star map using wikisky.org then plotted four different star sizes overlaying the map using photo shop. My result is shown on the left, it was scaled down to fit on a 8 X 10 sheet of paper. It worked out so that there are about 170 stars or so in a 3′ X 5′ area.


Me plotting

Me plotting stars and measuring for the middle support braces.

 
primed and covering

3 x 5 sheet primed and I'm starting to cover it with construction paper.

Next I primed and painted a 3′ X 5′ sheet of MDF (which I hope was a good material to use, time will tell). I then covered it with construction paper and drew the a scaled grid on it. Then using the printed 8″ X 10″ paper I plotted each star to the best of my abilities and marked it size with different colors. After all the plotting was done and I was satisfied with where the stars where, I drilled each hole one by one using three different sized drill bits (3/64, 1/16, 3/32). I then flipped the board over, remarked what size each star was, and Jen (my wife) and I pushed through the number of fibers I needed for each hole until all 200 of them were completed. Once the fibers where in place, Jen glued them in place with clear silicon.

Installing the fibers

Arranging the fibers

 

Pushing fibers through the board


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Wow, I did it!

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Well actually, Jen and I did it… not that! We finished the star-field last night! It is ready to install! So far it looks pretty good, we should get it in place on the ceiling tonight, then all I have to do is add trim and patch 5 holes, cut the fibers to the same length and done! I should have pics and a video up sometime next week!

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Posted in Masterbath, Star Field |

Star field inspiration

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

This is to hopefully inspire me for my star-field ceiling I am planning.
Here is an image of what I hope the end product may look like:

Star Ceiling

What my ceiling may look like (hopefully nicer)

Hopefully mine will look a little nicer that this one, but this is the idea I have in my head.

I also found this while I was searching for images:

Starfield installation guide

So I guess there is no need to continue posting on this subject now that someone actually made a guide on how to do one…

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Posted in Architecture & Design, Star Field |

Hello World!

Monday, January 11th, 2010

Hello to the people who may have stumbled upon this new blog. Welcome to my first post! Just to let you know this is only a test site at the moment, but I made it live just for fun and so that anyone could follow my blog right from the start if they wish. Hopefully in the near future I will blend this page so that it flows seamlessly with my design portfolio http://mardena.com page and make it public. The reason I am starting this is to blog my adventures of making a star field ceiling in our master bathroom. Hopefully it will become a useful guide on how to build one of these star fields, though I have never built one before, nor have I actually seen one like the one I wish to build in person… so good luck to me in this adventure. I hope it brings pleasure and useful information to all!

I have purchased a Cool Sky Led lighting unit and a 200 strand 1mm fiber optic cable to start the project. I plan on making the project cover a 5′ x 3′ area directly above the jetted tub. I was planning on using a 1/2″ sheet of MDF for my ceiling panel but am not too sure about how the steam from the shower (which is separate glassed in) would effect this (I’m worried about sag). If anyone who reads this knows of a better material to use or think that the MDF should be fine please email me or post a comment.

Cool Sky LED illuminator:

CoolSky

I will post more pictures as the project progresses.

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