How to choose a "starry sky" stretch ceiling.
For those who dream of installing something such, unusual and exclusive in their home, there is a good solution - stretch ceiling "starry sky". Not to say that the technology is too innovative, such ceilings have been mounted for a long time. But the longer they practice it, the more they come up with new opportunities. Today, you can bend your fingers at least five times, listing options for tensioning structures with such an unusual effect. So how to choose a stretch ceiling with a starry sky? Let's tell you more.
What it is?
The design is based on an ordinary canvas stretched over the frame. The unusual thing is that it is illuminated at night by light from different sources. The sources are located either behind the canvas, in the ceiling space, or along the canvas itself.
Depending on the type of sources, it is customary to distinguish between stretch ceilings:
- Stars are created using fiber optic strands.
- The effect of the starry sky arises from the flickering of special pins.
- The stars are "lit" by LEDs located in the ceiling space.
- The sky effect is created by a drawing applied with luminescent paint.
- Ceiling with photo printing, illuminated in any of the above ways.
How to choose a ceiling "starry sky".
If we talk about the cost of the project, then among all the options there are the most affordable options, but there are also large-budget ones. Let's briefly tell you the main part of the prices.
The ceiling is coated with fluorescent paint.
It will be the cheapest in comparison with the others. During the day, such a ceiling is unremarkable, it looks like an ordinary canvas and can be either white or colored. But in the evening, as soon as it gets dark, drawings made from photo printing with luminescent paints appear on the ceiling. These can be constellations, planets and stars. And how they are located, you choose yourself, ordering canvas with photo printing.
And although the method is quite simple, it looks good, besides, this solution is inexpensive. A kind of such a ceiling can be called a structure made from a simple canvas with photographic printing in the drawings of galaxies. The only difference is that the canvas is illuminated along the edges with LED strips or lamps.
LEDs in the sky.
This method consists in the fact that LEDs are fixed to the ceiling, which, when illuminated in the evening, imitate the stars. You can make a luminous path or constellation the way you want. There is, however, a significant disadvantage of such a decision. It lies in the fact that you will not be able to adjust the flicker, the glow occurs unchanged, in a single mode, and the LED itself is quite large.
Fiber optic ceiling.
The installation process of such a ceiling is rather complicated and laborious. If you look at the fiber itself, you can compare it with a fishing line of a fairly thin diameter. Such a fiber is collected in a bundle and brought to the light generator at one end. Electricity travels from the generator and forms a very bright glow at the ends of the fiber. These tips will be the very stars. But for this, the ends must be brought out over the top of the canvas.
This is a long-term business, each tail is cut off in a millimeter from the main canvas, and in order for the canvas to glow, it is carefully pierced and the end of the fiber is inserted into the hole. This is how the stars are lit.
For those who do not want to perforate the tensioner tightly to pull out the ends, another method can be proposed. In this case, the fiber remains in the ceiling space. But the glow is less intense and bright, it comes as if from the inside of the canvas, the light gives diffused.
Of interest is the fact that optical fiber allows you to change the light from attenuation to an increase in the luminous flux. And today designers in companies can offer you even sophisticated light generators of the latest generation. Such devices allow the consumer not only to control the intensity of the glow, but also to depict flying comets, falling meteors and stars, clusters of galaxies on the stretch ceiling.
The most of the most…
But the most expensive ceiling will turn out if you use optical fiber, and even add the ends of the fiber with Swarovski crystals. This is also a fairly common option today, but it is also the most expensive one. Its essence is that crystals are fixed over the tips of the LEDs, which make the light refracted, bright, and brilliant. And if you use a glossy and dark canvas, then the stretch ceiling with the effect of the starry sky will turn out to be completely bottomless.
So if you choose, then with a focus on financial capabilities. It is worth saying that the effect is directly proportional to the costs, and the investments are justified by the originality of the look and practicality of the ceiling.
By the way! Many people use the "starry sky" stretch ceiling as additional illumination and night lighting of the room.
Starpins pins.
This technology can be called one of the newest, it is a method of piercing the main canvas with needles-pins. They will replace the stars, and the canvas can be anything - both with photo printing, and ordinary, without a drawing.
It should be noted that for the price, this method is quite simple and affordable. You can pierce the canvas and insert a dozen or two pins yourself, but it is important that on the other LED strips should be installed on the side of the canvas, into which the pins are inserted, from them comes glow.
You can combine everything.
There are absolutely no boundaries for imagination, especially if you combine several different options. So, say the experts of the potolokelite company, often when creating a stretch ceiling with the "Starry Sky" effect, they use both optical fiber, and photo printing, and rhinestones. It is important to know when to stop and overdo it with effects. To make it beautiful and tasteful, it is better to seek help from professional designers and installation specialists. The decor is very interesting, and with proper installation, it serves for a long time and reliably. It is not for nothing that this original technology has had so many fans for decades.