The Room

I designed my basement to look like a First Order star destroyer. The main attraction is an ultrawide framed viewport looking into space with a blinking control console below. It’s still a real room that is great for gaming with friends.

Feature Builds

Tap a feature to read how it was made.

Stairs Ceiling Title Crawl

Stairs Ceiling Title Crawl

As seen in many other Star Wars basements, a Cricut-cut vinyl sticker opening crawl sets the mood as you enter the basement. Be warned, it takes a while to peel off the transfer paper from each letter!

Stair Lights

Stair Lights

This is an under-cabinet lighting set with some Cricut-cut black vinyl stickers applied to create the round capsule corners. Buying lighting with motion-detection on/off was a bad idea and hard to disable.

Wall Light

Wall Light

Made from 2x2 and 2x4 standard drop ceiling lights installed sideways with a laser-cut MDF board on top.

Pit Droid

Pit Droid

A nice 3D print that can be found online, painted First Order-style.

Custom Doorway

Custom Doorway

Some angled framing before the drywall creates the perfect sci-fi door space, combined with double barn doors and some 3D printed details stuck to the door faces.

Hanging Blaster

Hanging Blaster

Painted away the orange parts of a NERF Rival (First Order) Stormtrooper Blaster and hung it on the wall. Looks like a quality prop!

First Order Pillows

First Order Pillows

Giving the basement a more cozy vibe are these custom made pillows using iron-on vinyl stickers.

Tissues & Coasters

Tissues and Coasters

To remain on theme, I printed a tissue box cover and some multicolor First Order logos as drink coasters.

First Order Flag

First Order Flag

This First Order flag was custom ordered online for only $10. A cheap purchase, but a big change to the vibe of the room. The flag divides and softens it.

Corner Strip Lighting

Corner Strip Lighting

This is a LED diffuser corner track with Cricut-cut black stickers on top to create a capsule pattern. Then I hid the wires in a painted pipe.

Control Console

Control Console

The largest project of this room was learning to build custom electronics to mimic the chaotic flashing lights on a sci-fi ship computer panel. They run off an ESP32 running firmware that allows me to control the lights from my Apple Home.

The Bridge Console tile in the Apple Home app The Apple Home controls for the console lights

Hanging Pipes

Hanging Pipes

I hung some painted cardboard pipes to the ceiling using some 3D printed brackets I screwed to the ceiling.

Framed Viewport

Framed Viewport

The centerpiece of the room: an ultrawide star field split across 2 TVs, framed as one trapezoid, which really sells the window look. Although cool, this is easily my biggest regret. Even in 2026, splitting video across multiple screens is cumbersome and limiting.

First off, it limits what devices you can plug in. Apple TVs, consoles, and iPads don’t support multiple unique external displays, so I had to go with a Mac. Then there is an issue of consistent color output between the TVs. Since the Mac only has 1 HDMI out, I also had to use a USB to HDMI adapter, which may not convert the signal exactly like the Mac does. Then since I wasn’t able to use a console, I needed a keyboard and mouse to control the system. I went with all black accessories to blend into the desk design. Also note, the Mac often forgets which TV is left/right when it restarts, which is an annoyance.

And after all that is sorted, there is still no Mac software that can run apps or videos across separate displays, so I had to custom write a Mac app to show my space scene on. I still can’t play any movies across the 2 displays, and as of macOS 26, the Apple TV app nor the Disney+ website offer zoom to fill options when watching content. You will be stuck with black bars on the top and bottom of a single TV screen in this setup.

Animated Light Matrix Panels

Animated Light Matrix Panels

This is simply an off the shelf Twinkly Squares product inset into the wall with a 3D printed border to hide the seam.

Star Wars Jenga

Star Wars Jenga

I 3D modeled and printed this Jenga set. It’s now available online for free.