A few months ago my childhood home went up for sale and because of its posting online I was able to take a peek inside for the first time this millennium. I duly shared the images with you as well as some related memories. It was a wonderful experience, just to be able to take that step back in time and remember how things were. I must admit, that inevitably with the passage of time that these memories will become rose-tinted; that is the nature of nostalgia.
Anyway Mama_Rah has been using AI to generate layout concepts for our living space just to get a sense of how each room my might feel and I thought for fun I would just do the same and where better to start than my childhood bedroom.
The picture above, an original and not AI-generated image, was lifted directly from the estate agent's website and as you can see it has been left empty and soulless. It was a small room, but probably not quite what we would call a box room in England. Coming in at 2.77m wide and 3.18m long it wasn't huge but it had enough room for me and that was all that mattered.
What I have tried to do in this first AI image (above) is to recreate my bedroom as I remember it being when I was a child / teenager. It took two attempts, mainly because I failed to change the curtains to red and I because I also encountered some problems with the poster on the wall next to the bed. Nevertheless, it is a relatively good recreation of the room even if some of the details are a bit off. The bed and drawers are a fairly good representation as is the desk (only the drawers were to the left with my leg space being nearer the wall) and the chair is almost perfect. AI made a reasonable attempt at the wardrobe although it should have had a third compartment and a small cupboard door below the main one, thus dividing it into three parts, but the integrity of the materials is pretty good. The main errors concern the shelving section between the desk and the wardrobe. It should have comprised of three shelves (which it actually does) with the first being just above floor level, this would have brought the second shelf, with my record collection down to a much better level, which in turn would have made my hi-fi unit lower and more accessible. My hi-fi unit was actually a bit bigger than this one, but at the height that the AI put it at, I would have never been able to get my records on and off the deck!
But all in all not a bad result - and I will take the win rather than strive for perfection.
What I attempted to do in the image above was to imagine it as being a teenage boy's room with his identity all over it. Just like me, I wanted him to be a heavy metal fan and for that to be obvious when entering the room. The AI kind of overdid it a bit and there are sure signs of inauthenticity in the detail. Consider the spelling of Metallica on the poster and who are Slayden (Slayer!). More obviously one of the pillows on the bed says Iron Maiden, but the image is definitely not Eddie - their mascot and logo. Funnily enough Slipknot survived. That aside, in terms of looking at the layout of the room it gives food for thought and shows what can be done. I could then have used this as a base photo to move things around. For example I might have wanted the bed where I actually had it and the desk under the window. There does seem to be an excessive number of speakers and some could be taken away. However, as with all of the images it is about concept and idea generation.
For my second concept (again see above), I wanted to design a student space. This room would be for somebody who is a little more mature and focused on their studies. As part of the prompt, I asked for it to be tailored around him or her being a law student and just like the "heavy metal bedroom" AI exaggerated what I was looking for, As a consequence I actually removed some of the detailing that it had added. For example, there was a large "justice is blind" statue on top of the bookcase similar to the one on the desk and there were two overly-obvious posters concerning law on the wall, one to each side of the noticeboard. Personally, I would have liked to have removed the justice statue from the desk and the gavel from that pointless little table, but after removing "justice" from the bookcase and leaving a less than perfect result I decided I had done enough editing.
I used the erase tool on MS Photos to acheive my results and - yes I know - Photoshop would have acheived a better result - apart from it is so damn complicated to use!
My third concept, was to create a mature home-office space for a homeworker. This has, since Covid became an ever-increasing need in modern living spaces. I work from home, but the environment is less than ideal to be honest. Here I had the freedom to experiment and see what I could do and out of all of the concepts looked at thus far, this has to be my favourite. The layout is good and the detailing is not excessive. I did ask for the double screens as part of the prompt and the printer scanner. I wasn't sure that the map on the wall was necessary and considered removing it, but I decided that it actually looked quite nice and if I were to remove it I would want to replace it with something else. Overall the layout is clean and functional.
And now to my favourite...
For my final recreation of my old bedroom, I wondered what it would be like to turn it into a snug and home cinema and the result is impressive, but I do get the sense that it has dropped it into a different room, which is something that didn't happen with the other rooms. Notice the alcove that the shelves are sitting in. There is no such space in the original room, it has also removed the hatch into the roof space and the window has a different profile.
However, it shows what can be done.
And that is the point. In the past, to see such layouts, it was necessary to visit an architect, interior designer or invest in heavy duty software. AI now does it all for you, but it is only as good as the prompt it receives. We must also remember that it is not about AI creating the final result, but for it to help create concepts and design ideas which can then be incorporated into any renovations that you are doing. For example, the placing of the bed and desk in the heavy metal bedroom. I would have never thought about doing it like that, even thought that was exactly where my bed was when I was a small child.
As always stay safe and well my friends.
