Decorating Styles
Decorating Guides
So Your Style Is: Sci-Fi Past and Future
Are you more likely to search for design ideas at Comic-Con than High Point Market? If so, the future of decorating is yours
For some, science fiction isn’t something to enjoy in books, movies, comics and video games — it is life at home sweet home. To these forward thinkers, the concepts of the future — time travel, spaceships, weird science and technology — are inspirations for rooms they inhabit in the here and now.
Style Secret: Technology Old and New
Whether your technology taste is more based-on-history steampunk (à la Jules Verne or H.G. Wells) or more future tech (as in Blade Runner or Iron Man), there is an accessory to express it. In the Boston home above, dubbed The Steampunk House by ModVic, clocks outfitted with fantastical tech features (check out the lightbulbs and that oversize minute hand on the timepiece in the middle) would be right at home in a Wells novel.
A similar Time Machine style lives in the Los Angeles home at left. The large industrial gears were installed by designer Thomas Filica.
See a Massachusetts Victorian decked out in steampunk style
Whether your technology taste is more based-on-history steampunk (à la Jules Verne or H.G. Wells) or more future tech (as in Blade Runner or Iron Man), there is an accessory to express it. In the Boston home above, dubbed The Steampunk House by ModVic, clocks outfitted with fantastical tech features (check out the lightbulbs and that oversize minute hand on the timepiece in the middle) would be right at home in a Wells novel.
A similar Time Machine style lives in the Los Angeles home at left. The large industrial gears were installed by designer Thomas Filica.
See a Massachusetts Victorian decked out in steampunk style
Want to make high tech part of your home? Why not make the icons from your iPhone into cabinet faces, as the architects at Kyzlink in the Czech Republic did? (Note: When asked by Houzzers about the misspelling of the word “compass,” they replied “:-).”
Style Secret: Creepy-Crawly Specimens
One vision of the future relies more on nature than machine. The shelves of this Dallas home, by Mark Molthan for Platinum Series, contain several animal specimens, but the eye is drawn to the rafters by the golden metal arachnids.
One vision of the future relies more on nature than machine. The shelves of this Dallas home, by Mark Molthan for Platinum Series, contain several animal specimens, but the eye is drawn to the rafters by the golden metal arachnids.
Architect Neal Schwartz used his client’s collection of preserved aquatic life as the inspiration for a remodel. In his words it’s a “modern-day cabinet of curiosities.”
In a move that Jules Verne, author of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, would surely appreciate, the pattern in the glass wall behind the specimens is the genetic code for a harbor seal.
In a move that Jules Verne, author of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, would surely appreciate, the pattern in the glass wall behind the specimens is the genetic code for a harbor seal.
Style Secret: Encoded Messages
Speaking of codes, many science fiction tales deal with communication; for example, trying to deliver or decipher messages to extraterrestrials or people in the past or future.
In this bathroom, by studio A:W, the owner’s appreciation for film is etched clearly on the glass backsplash behind the sink. If you can read Polish and you are a Quentin Tarantino fan, you will likely recognize the dialogue from Pulp Fiction.
Speaking of codes, many science fiction tales deal with communication; for example, trying to deliver or decipher messages to extraterrestrials or people in the past or future.
In this bathroom, by studio A:W, the owner’s appreciation for film is etched clearly on the glass backsplash behind the sink. If you can read Polish and you are a Quentin Tarantino fan, you will likely recognize the dialogue from Pulp Fiction.
The names of the family members who live in this home are rendered in a more obscure language here: Morse code.
Style Secret: Spaceship Glow
What respectable spacecraft doesn’t have a soft, unearthly glow? You can bring the same effect to a grounded dwelling with simple backlighting.
What respectable spacecraft doesn’t have a soft, unearthly glow? You can bring the same effect to a grounded dwelling with simple backlighting.
Not only is the effect out of this world, as seen in this bath by interior designer Kelly Hoppen, but it’s universally flattering to the skin.
For an even more spaceworthy effect, go for a colored glow, as interior designer Mal Corboy did in this blue-lit kitchen.
Style Secret: Organic Shapes
Science has it that there are no straight lines in nature. Maybe that’s why the spacecrafts in movies seem to always rely on curvilinear geometry to impart a futuristic look. Perhaps that’s what the designers at AR Design Studio were trying to achieve in this British bath equipped with an oval mirror and sink.
Science has it that there are no straight lines in nature. Maybe that’s why the spacecrafts in movies seem to always rely on curvilinear geometry to impart a futuristic look. Perhaps that’s what the designers at AR Design Studio were trying to achieve in this British bath equipped with an oval mirror and sink.
The designers at Platinum Building Group took a step further into the future with an abstract, upside-down omega shape for this kitchen island.
Style Secret: Shoot for the Moon
Nothing else symbolizes humankind’s space quests more than images of the moon. In this Columbus, Ohio, media room, by Romanelli & Hughes Custom Home Builders, the phases of the celestial body are depicted on the wall.
Nothing else symbolizes humankind’s space quests more than images of the moon. In this Columbus, Ohio, media room, by Romanelli & Hughes Custom Home Builders, the phases of the celestial body are depicted on the wall.
A home remodeled by Flegel’s Construction and designed by Alison Damonte shows a more whimsical play on the idea. The kids’ room features wallpaper with a high-flying astronaut and his or her rocket ship.
For an even more realistic on-the-moon feel, the designers gave the ceiling of this Cyprus home a lunar-like texture that shows why in years past some joked that the moon was made of cheese.
More:
It’s Star Wars Day. May the Fourth Be With You
A Unicorn in the Bathtub and Other Mind-Blowing Sights
More:
It’s Star Wars Day. May the Fourth Be With You
A Unicorn in the Bathtub and Other Mind-Blowing Sights
Why it works: A lot has been written about creating a retreat at home. With this look you can’t escape any further. Besides, when you search for “science fiction books” on Amazon, you get 366,432 results; try “science fiction” in the Houzz Products section and you get 2,098 items. Can this many people be wrong?
You’ll love it if … You dream of galaxies far, far away and would consider a robot the perfect roommate.