Scrimped Together

Brad Berkan from Forest Grove Community Church in Saskatoon, SK, Canada brings us this design inspired by Willow Creek’s Third World Shelter design.

From Brad: Stage right contained a slat wall inspired by the “Third World Design” We purchased “culled lumber” from Home Depot – all of the bent, twisted and unusable pieces most people discarded – which saved us almost 75%. We stained them with a grey stain to give them a weathered appearance.

The Stage Right side of the stage consisted of two large steel arches – representing the bridges in our city. Hardboard was cut and then faux painted to look like rusted metal. Pieces of 1/4″ hardboard were then cut to look like the joining plates. “Rivets” were created by gluing small wooden screw plugs. They could have been painted – but we liked the shadows created by the 3D plugs. The posts were made by screwing together 1×6 lumber spaced with 2×4 lumber – giving a steel I-Beam appearance.

The center of the stage contained a cross made from twisted willow set against a “rusted corrugated metal” wall. The wall was made form corrugated plastic painted with a faux rust paint.

Finally, small amounts of greenery were added to the set – which tied to our theme of finding “opportunity for hope” amidst times of exile.

The stage was lit with a variety of gobo breakups to provide added texture and movement to the stage.

The entire stage design was under $1000.