For science: the ultimate Portal bedroom

Ever fallen in love with a game so hard you don't ever want to leave it? One Portal fan is living the dream.

Some videogame worlds are just incredible. From Hyrule to Columbia, from the instant you set (virtual) foot inside, you'd be happy to stay there forever. Although the Aperture Science laboratories aren't necessarily on the same scale, the world and back story of Portal are rich, and the character of Chell so full of possibility and strength that we couldn't blame anyone for wanting to spend more time there.

Especially a fan who goes by the Reddit handle BlondeChell. After acquiring her own home, where she could do whatever she liked, her penchants for interior decorating and Portal led her to the idea of creating her very own Portal-themed room.

But not just any old slap-dash affair.

"I spent hours searching on the internet, looking to see if anybody else had done a Portal-themed bedroom yet," BlondeChell said. "And while they had, and there were some cool ones, most of them either erred on the side of 'Too video-gamey-looking' or 'Not Portal enough'. So I issued myself a challenge: to design a Portal-themed bedroom that while obviously Portal, would also be designed well enough a non-gamer would still look at the aspects and go 'Hey, that's a really neat looking room!' rather than 'What's up with all the weird stuff on the walls?'"

In all, the project took many months, including hand-creating various elements, acquiring props such as Portal guns and turrets, and having a friend, electronics engineer Steve Gilbertson, help build actual real portals to hang on the walls (well, almost).

Although BlondeChell said she didn't want the room to be too "video-gamey", we think the result is unmistakeably Portal — looking like it was sucked right out of the screen and into real life.

Like what you see? Head on over to BlondeChell's Portal bedroom web page to see how you can make one for yourself.

Everything in the room has been carefully painted and colour co-ordinated to reflect the Portal 2 theme (except the carpet, which was fortuitously already the right colour). Compared to the original Portal game, which had a crisp, stark atmosphere, BlondeChell opted for a more aged Portal 2 look, when the Aperture Science facility had started to decay. She painted the walls herself by hand.

The jumpsuit on the bed is one BlondeChellwore to her first comic convention not long ago, and the framed posters came in a set from the Valve Portal store for US$14.95. Note the mirror on the right side of the picture... we'll get to that soon.

Black curtains and black furnishings keep the colour theme consistent. BlondeChell was able to pick up matching bed-clothes and throw pillows pretty easily, and the bed cover is reversible to be either grey or black. The canvas squares above the window were painted by BlondeChell.

The portals! BlondeChell actually hit on the idea of creating a Portal-themed room when she saw an infinity mirror in a furniture store. With some help from electronics engineer friend Steve Gilbertson, BlondeChell made an orange and a blue version to hang on different walls of the room. By day, humble mirrors. By night... portals!

The orange portal hangs near the bed, over which hangs the portrait of Chell painted by former Aperture scientist Doug Rattman in between the events of Portal and Portal 2.

The blue portal hangs beside the closet. The canvas squares over the door (cake!) were painted by BlondeChell.

On the dresser stands a turret plush, an Aperture Science mug and a pair of Portal bookends, all from ThinkGeek.

The Portal guns were also acquired from ThinkGeek. The orange gun (right) is a special edition unit that went for US$150 and is now sold out, but ThinkGeek still has the customisable gun (left) available for US$119.99. The bedside lamp in the background actually has two different coloured LEDs inside (blue and orange), which can be switched to change the lighting of the room.

Someone's been making a den...

And Doug Rattman makes another phantom reappearance. This was done in black paint. The handprint is BlondeChell's own.

The screens for the storage unit were also drawn by BlondeChell, drawn with Sharpie on foam board. She cut them to fit the openings exactly, then taped them to bookends so that they would stay in place.

Apart from the Portal guns and other props, it seems that all you really need is a bit of time and determination. BlondeChell's ingenuity at finding low-cost solutions to bring her dream to life, as well as her attention to detail, have resulted in a space any Portal fan couldn't help but love.