I work from home for both my day job and my various paid and unpaid side gigs. My office also houses my PS4 and PS3 as well as my retro Intellivision, my gaming PC, “Goliath,” and my collection of books and sci fi stuff. I spend 8-12 hours a day in my office, even on most weekends.
In 2017, we decided to spend some money I’d earned on freelance gigs to finally replace the 16-year-old carpet in our house’s upstairs. We decided for various reasons to put in bamboo hardwood floor planks everywhere except bedrooms and bathrooms and my wife and kids did all of the work. It is quite impressive, actually. As the work progressed, we added my office to the list of spaces that would get the new flooring. My dear wife offered to repaint my office, since all of the furniture would need to be removed anyway for the flooring installation. The room had been our now 13-year-old son’s room as a baby and was still painted baby blue with clouds and such. We had covered the walls with my collection of autographed photos of Star Trek, Babylon 5 and other actors as well as Star Trek Christmas ornaments on light strings, models, toys, bookshelves and other geekery. So, the color of the walls did not seem important to me: I could hardly see it for all my stuff. But, Connie really wanted to repaint the walls. When she asked me what color of paint to buy, I was unsure. And then it hit me:
“Star Trek…The Original Series.”
Specifically, I had a picture of Kirk’s bridge in my mind. The two tones of gray, red accents and doors, and black consoles:
The TOS crew at work
I poked around to try to determine the right colors and tones. One thing I learned quickly is the paint colors used on the show would look differently on my office walls than the show because my office is not lit like a TV show set…yet. After visiting various sites for the fan web shows and model builders, I read one comment that stuck out for me: paint it how it looks good in your head as you remember it from the show. In other words, don’t stress over authenticity. Do what you like. So, I went through the samples Connie gave me and I picked a red and two grays.
What began with “paint it in the colors of Kirk’s bridge” became so much more. By the time we were done, we had added bluetooth and wi-fi controlled LED and Christmas light strings, remote operated window shades, not one but two 39 inch flat screen TVs to serve as “bridge viewscreens,” a new black desk with smoked glass top, repainted mini fridge and cabinetry, and even a ceiling fan with blades painted in the red, blue and yellow of the three Starfleet divisions. This is not an office anymore…it’s the bridge of a starship!
Connie engineered a marvel to make the Starfleet Corps of Engineers proud! The gallery below has pictures of the office under construction through completion.
