Have Black Plastic Will Party: Part 1

Before I dive into the miracle that is black plastic sheeting, I want to note that my inability to blog this party was not because I didn’t think it was a marvelous party.  In fact, I would say Pandemonium at the Disco definitely falls in the top 3.  The reason this party was the amazing night that it was, was completely because of our absolutely fabulous guests.  They brought all of the energy, the excitement and the outfits (without the side of illegal substances) to our little suburban disco.  Without them, this would have been a sad little living room with nothing more than disco music and some flashing lights! But, maybe we could have been featured on Zillow Gone Wild.  

Just some of the boys

There are really two main reasons I’ve been slow to post, and why sadly I can’t show you pictures and describe what we did. If you are here to actually know how to build flashing light boxes you’ll be disappointed (I apologize in advance if you are someone who stumbled across this for actual how to’s or if you were there and just really wanted to add a seizure inducing light solution to your garage.)  The first, as I mentioned in my last post, was the delayed nature of our previous party.  Route 66 was in August, so we had a pretty short timeline and were trying to plan both at the same time. Second, we were in the middle of buying our house (we had been renting it, thinking any day we might be moving to Austin…. We aren’t).  Up until the week before there was always the small, but real possibility if something went wrong we would be asking people to pack a box before they left.  Despite that trepidation we were plowing ahead, because come hell or high water this party was going to happen! We just don’t have the step by step pictures or videos to prove it.  Let’s face it, even without my super excuses we might not have them… maybe we’re just lazy. 

Outdoor Light Box I didn’t actually write about.

Moving along…

Let’s start from the very beginning.  As I understand it, it’s a very good place to start.  When we finally settled on the overall concept for our disco party, we decided that we wanted to do everything we could to recreate the actual Studio 54 experience.  As you might imagine, we had a few of blockers to this concept.  First, we have a pretty standard suburban home located in North Texas.  We did not live in a massive building that used to be a television studio in New York City.  Second, we are not highly skilled set designers. And maybe the most important, handing out cocaine and barbiturates like they were candy really wasn’t an option.   Once we came to grips with that reality we started creating Studio 54, Cesarzville. (The latest edition to the Cesarzville Universe… are you keeping track?) 

Rather than try to walk you through the order that we built and designed things, I’m going to generally walk you through the order guests experienced the decorations.  Ian Schrager (remember him, the lesser known of the two owners) described the experience he and Steve Rubell (the more well known owner… also the now dead owner) had as they walked through the club.  “I always insisted that the black doors be kept closed, so that it was like a processional when they were opened.  It created a very theatrical entrance as the space unfolded, space by space.  It was like going through the looking glass in Alice and Wonderland.”  Alice and Wonderland was not on our research list. 

The entrance to Studio (we’re as cool as Ian now) was an opulent space with black walls, high ceilings with detailed designs, and mirrors surrounded by heavy and intricate moldings.  We had cream walls, with some minor arches that the builder must have thought would give the house some character… Honestly, I’m sure that they do, but we did make them work for us.  I’m willing to do a lot of things for a party, but painting the entryway black was taking it a little too far even for me.  So, we relied on what has become one of our favorite party decoration go-tos, removable peel and stick wallpaper.  We found some relatively inexpensive textured black wallpaper on Amazon, and hung it from the floor to the ceiling on every wall in the entry or really the first alcove in the hallway.  Wallpapering the ceiling wasn’t a reasonable option (I feel a little weird saying we did anything “reasonable” with this party… but we did apply the concept from time to time.) Instead of wallpaper we swapped out the light bulbs for black lights.  This helped with a couple of things, first it helped mask the whiteness of the ceiling.  Second, it gave the room a bit of a fanciful glow, and last but not least it kept the room mostly dark, but still allowed our guests to see where they were going (Safety first at Studio 54, Cesarzville). 

Once the black was up, we discussed a couple of options on how to bring in the gold.  Finding frames and mirrors that were large enough to really get the point across, wasn’t really in the budget…. This was the very first room of the house after all.  We settled on adding a shiny gold wall paper to those pesky arches. To break up the shiny, and bring in the theme we picked up some long white paint canvases from Hobby Lobby, and spray painted them gold with the Pandemonium quote stenciled on one and random shapes on the other.  To add a little more glow and highlight the gold, we ran mini LED lights up the rim of each arch.

In order to create the feel of the door, and block off the straight view of the rest of the party, we hung black curtains across the opening arch that led into the rest of the house.  We finished the look off, by adding a giant gold vase we already had (it was part of a pair, but I don’t want to cast blame) and added a couple of dozen white roses to give the final polished look the Studio entry had.  

Once, guests passed through the black curtains, they found themselves in front of our Red Carpet style photo backdrop.  Admittedly, this wasn’t a real part of Studio (although there were plenty of pictures taken of celebrities for Page 6), but we’ve found that the best way to get pictures of our guests is to stop them before they get into the meat of the party.  And the way people turned out for this party, pictures were a must!  The background was inspired by the Moon and Spoon cut drop that was a part of the Studio decor, just as part of the actual dance floor decor.  Our Moon and Spoon was hand painted on a king sized sheet and attached to our handy dandy background frame.  (The frame actually got an upgrade making it easier to take apart and put back together again before Caroline’s tennis party.)  Just before the party we added some bling to give a little bit of extra depth and sparkle to the backdrop.

Moon and Spoon with Blue Lighting
We would turn the light off and on to get better pictures of the guests.

Our dining room is actually the first “public” room of our house, and  the picture backdrop space opens directly to it.  I’m not really sure where the actual lounge is, compared to the rest of the Studio layout, but I know it’s in front of the restrooms… which were labeled men and women, but were really co-ed.  While we didn’t think people would want to stop off in the lounge as soon as they entered the party, based on the open floor plan nature of the house the dining room was really the only place the lounge could go. The lounge had a monochromatic red color scheme and was decorated with large plants. In past projects we added wall paper to the dining room to help create the look we wanted, however, between the black wall paper at the entrance and the paper we would use in the lobby hallway, we decided that was plenty of wall paper.  So, we created the red glow entirely with lights.  We switched out the dining room overhead lights with red light bulbs (funny story we were testing this when the relator came by to have us sign some papers… I’m guessing she thought we were a bit off) and we added a strip of red LED lights across the top of the wall.  We added some borrowed house plants with Christmas tree lights, and swapped out the dining room table for our couch (these two pieces of furniture tend to take turns being “hidden” outside for parties) and finally changed out the girl’s cute shoe picture for a mirror that usually hung in the hallway. This was never meant to be the star of the show, but I think it provided a place for people to sit and relax, and still conveyed the image Studio was trying to accomplish. 

Guests hanging in the Lobby Lounge

After showing off for the paparazzi (or hanging in the lounge a bit), our guests entered the final portion of the hallway (we have a really long hallway that leads from the front door to the living room) which was designed after the Lobby Hallway in Studio.  This is the hallway that leads directly to the dance floor.  Schrager described it as a “decompression zone” between the outside and the crowds. Much like the Studio entrance, the Lobby Hallway is decorated with highly detailed trim and mirrors.  Instead of black paint, the hallway is deep red, with large mirrors.  It’s finished off with tall fig trees that glow with a soft yellow light.  Just like we did for the front entrance, we relied on peel and stick wall paper and colored lighting to create the monochromatic feel that the Studio Lobby Hallway had. Our space was significantly smaller, so 4 large fig trees were not going to happen.  Instead we added a silk plant to the desk that was already in the space, and a borrowed tree next to the desk.  We added some small Christmas lights to help create the glow.  We finished the space by adding red curtains blocking the view to the main dance floor (alright the living room, breakfast nook and kitchen).

The Lobby Hallway

“This was the kind of decompression zone between the pandemonium and crowds outside the door and the lights, music and energy of the dance floor., which got louder and brighter as you got closer.  This was a real build up of excitement that culminated when you entered and saw the explosive, heart stopping energy of the dance floor and felt the music.”

Next time… what we really did with the black plastic…. Maybe it really was Saturday Night with a Serial Killer…