A Padded Room
Our living room was bland in a bad way. It didn’t look intentional or if it was intentional, it was far too timid to be truly interesting. The white on white thing worked out well in the kitchen but wasn’t functioning quite so well when extended into the sitting area.
We looked for hints on the internets as to why this was so. Pointy shoes came to the conclusion that we needed more contrast. We simply needed something to look at, other than our black-hole-TV.
Inspiration found us on Wednesday by way of its mother, necessity. Wednesday was a particularly noisy evening. Road cacophony and a roommate’s late night nip/tuck marathon was keeping us awake.
Annoyed, Broken thumbs fired up his computer internets and began hunting down a sound suppressing solution when he found Karim Rashid’s foam textured wall tiles. The answer was clear. We would upholster our wall.
A prototype was in order. Upon draping the proposed upholstery on the wall, Broken thumbs, who was previously confident about this idea, was no longer completely certain it would actually work out, while Pointy Shoes remained on the fence.
In most successful ventures, a certain amount of risk taking is involved and we were growing more and more dissatisfied with our safe decisions. Never one to admit defeat in the face of imminent failure, Broken Thumbs obstinately refused to back away from his initial inspiration despite its preliminary shortcomings.
Whether it was his stubbornness or impatience or just the 60% off sale at the fabric store, we shall never know. What we did know was that even if you’re going to follow through on a potentially bad wall upholstery decision, you do have to remove everything from the wall first.
After a bit of material research and helpful hint from Robert, we settled on an inexpensive sound dampening material that goes by the name of Homasote. The problem with Homasote is that it’s a bit like Kleenex or Band-Aids; Nobody calls it facial tissue or adhesive bandages, however despite the confusing naming conventions, we were able to find what we needed at orange box. After some plying and careful persuasion, we were able to have a friend assist us in ferrying our quarry back to our abode.
Homasote is a green material made from recycled fibers and it is relatively soft so it’s very easy to upholster. We simply pulled the felt tightly over each board, especially over the corners and stapled away.
After a test fit and a few viewings from across the room, it was decreed that the panels were to stand here until the end of time. The gray felt was made from interwoven white and black fibers, creating a much needed texture to an otherwise textureless space.
Check out the closeup of the bad boys holding up our new felty walls. These screws are inserted into the plaster behind the panels and are covered with a pasty of matching felt.
Since we futzed with the wires in the wall, we had to plug in the TV and game-fun-box to make sure everything was still working. We found the TV in a psychedelic state upon receiving electricity in its newfound home.
Voila! Here you have our mostly upholstered wall. Though it was more for visual effect, it acts as a double bonus in the echo control department. The TV sound no longer permeates the wall, but instead chooses to go around the wall and through our paper thin door.
EDIT: Yes I know our front door still looks like shit. We’re working on this soon.
