My Star Wars Room

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

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

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

Pit Droid

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

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

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

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

Tissues & Coasters

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

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

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

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.

Cabinet & Greebling

The desk top surface is an MDF board on a piano hinge with hydraulic gas springs to hold it open. For greebling, I used standard LEDs, LED push buttons, bottle caps, LEGO wheels, a BBQ vent, and other parts I found. Then I used silver pin-striping to create visual groupings of the elements.

Apple Home Control

The lights run off an ESP32-C3 with firmware built on the HomeSpan library, which lets me control them from my Apple Home. Even though the chip only has Wi-Fi 4, it still responds instantly.

I wrote it as a single accessory with multiple services, so the console shows up as one tile in Apple Home that I can click into to control each set of lights.

Wiring

Power Entry & Main Rail

• Primary power source: A USB-C PD wall adapter connects to a USB PD trigger board, negotiating a stable 12V DC output.
• Main 12V power splitting: The main 12V supply branches directly to:
  • The power input terminal of the 4-channel MOSFET module (supplying high-side LED power).
  • A 12V to 5V step-down buck converter to provide clean logic power.

Control System

• Microcontroller power: Powered by the 5V DC output from the step-down converter.
• Logic signal lines: Operates on 3.3V GPIO outputs:
  • 4x GPIO pins send logic signals to trigger each of the 4 channels on the primary MOSFET board.
  • 1x GPIO pin sends a logic signal to trigger the isolated secondary MOSFET.

Load Connections

• 12V LED matrix: All 4 LED strands share a common positive line connected to the 12V rail. The negative return lines for each strand are isolated and routed to individual channels on the 4-channel MOSFET for low-side switching.
• Auxiliary high-amperage circuit: A single MOSFET routes power from a dedicated secondary wall adapter to drive a separate high-current device safely without overloading the main 12V bus.

Hanging Pipes

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

Ceiling Arch

I 3D printed this arch and attached it with nails and caulk. Even though I measured the angles exactly (they aren’t exactly 90°), it was still difficult to get the edges flush.

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

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

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

Whale Gray

Benjamin Moore Whale Gray covers the walls. Be aware it reads overly blue for a star destroyer — a more neutral gray would be closer to screen accurate.

Iron Mountain

Benjamin Moore Iron Mountain is on the ceiling. Up there, out of the light, it looks almost black.

Gloss Fire Red

A quart can of Rust-Oleum Gloss Fire Red protective enamel — not the ready-to-spray aerosol — went on some Sith trooper armor I made. It’s a perfect match. I also tried Rust-Oleum Gloss Carnival Red, which came out washed out and too purple.