Dad Builds Another Amazing Fiber Optic Star Ceiling for Kids' Room 5 Years Later

When Mike Galloway’s wife was pregnant with their first child back in 2009, the DIY dad came up with a creative idea for his future daughter’s nursery: He would turn the room’s ceiling into a “starfield” –  an amazing Fiber Optic-powered starry night sky.

It wasn’t an easy task. Galloway spent three months painstakingly popping a wire for each light (a whopping 288 in total) through the attic floor and into the room that housed the nursery below, then running downstairs to pull it through. The other problem? It was summer in Texas … in the middle of a heatwave.

Despite the long process, Galloway’s starfield finally came to stunning fruition. The IT consultant and new dad detailed the process on the how-to site Instructables shortly thereafter and posted a video description of the project on YouTube, a video has racked up more than 30,000 over the last five years.

"I learned a lot the first time around," he tells Yahoo DIY. “I messed up so badly I can share all the different things I did that were all mistakes.” And five years later he still responds to messages who have questions about trying to recreate the starfield in their own homes for their own kids. The most popular question is simply: “How’d you do this?” (That one he ignores.)

Despite those mistakes Galloway mentions, the starfield was a success and baby Elizabeth slept under the stars every night as intended. But two years later, when the family decided to move from Dallas to Portland, Oregon, they sold their house to a couple who wanted to keep the installation, forcing the Galloways left it behind.

"It was heartbreaking," recounts Galloway. Though he put up "temporary things" in the Portland house (which was now housing their second daughter too), it wasn’t quite the same. So when the family moved back to Dallas earlier this year and bought a fixer, he decided it was time to do it all over again. "We told our daughter, ‘We’re going to build new stars’ and she still remembered them from when she was 2."

This time around, Galloway built the starfield into a drop ceiling enabling him to do the whole thing in one room and in just two weeks instead of three months like the last time. And the actual financial cost of doing the project is relatively low. Though some basic tools and glue are required, the Fiber Optic kit costs $239 with remote and the moon, which you can pick up on Amazon, will run you another $25 or so. Since lighting it up it is the equivalent of just having a 50-watt light bulb on, according to Galloway, the additional monthly electricity costs are negligible.

As for the new finished product, Elizabeth, now 5, still loves it, and her little sister, whom she shares a room with, gets to enjoy it too. “It’s bright enough to read storytime to it,” says Galloway, who lets the girls fall asleep with it on, but notes that they don’t need the starfield on to fall asleep. “I don’t want them to be terrified of the dark,” he says.

And those early years under the stars might just have something to do with his eldest daughter’s interest. Of the Galloways’ three kids, Elizabeth is the one most fascinated by the outdoors. “She’s the nature kid. I don’t know if it’s necessarily related, but she’s the one who has the affinity,” he says.

For now, anyway.

"I just hope," admits Galloway, "that when she turns 13 she doesn’t suddenly hate the whole thing."