Aidan the Conqueror

Here we see the high general of the armies of Rome commanding his armies to the greater glory of the Empire. Aidan loves to play Rome:Total War, and being able to do it on a 3 meter screen is even better! I'm using a PC to drive the projector. A PC will be used as a DVD and media player- but I'll also get some kind of AV receiver that can switch inputs so we can hook up the Dreamcast or other sources as well.

The lighted shelving

Everything turned out better than we expected- but the shelving was simply amazing. These shelves were done by Andy Stocks, Andy Overly and myself. Steff and Erin rigged the wiring of a string of Xenon lights, and I put in a lamp-type touchpad to turn them on, and change brightness. Very nice.

Alien attack!

Well, that could be a movie title, but the photo shown here is of our lights that we bought from Nowell's. There's a bit of a story to go with it because they don't actually carry these lights. Anymore. The owner told me these lights were installed sometime in the 70s and aren't even available anymore. They were set up in the store over the salesmen's desks and had been that way for years. People had come and asked to buy a light, or even two, and it wasn't worth them taking them down and having to buy new ones. But, I offered to buy them all and pointed out that showroom space is limited and they should highlight what they do sell... and voila! They weigh a ton- thick solid glass and metal- no plastic on these. Also, got a cool remote control dimmer that can set them to 'movie mode', a nice gentle glow- with just a single button push ('mash', if you're a real southerner). In the back of the room, we've got four fisheyes pointing at the bouldering wall, as well as two 'swimming pool' type lights to illuminate the roof area of the wall. Just last night we finished lighting the bookshelves... wow! Photo of that coming up.

Frederick's movie marquee finally found a home in the theater! It has been sitting in the game room for years, and we plugged it in a time or two, but were always stuck for a proper place for it. No more! And, believe it or not, I only realized *tonight* that it had "The Jackal" on the reverse side--Frederick always had it displayed with a poster of some other, weird movie.... 

Lights, Camera... sashimi?

We had our first meal in the Theater- yeah, this is one of those 'dinner' theaters! We even serve alcoholic beverages! Steff prepared some sashimi (tuna from our deep-sea fishing trip in the Winter at the Outer Banks), coupled with a Spanish red. Check out the carpet! We've also got the way-cool lights hung. There's not a lot left to do!

Blue Carpet!

No, silly- it is the padding for the berber carpeting that Oscar and his crew are putting in. Steff's sister Debbie helped us pick it out back in January. We paid for it in February- and have been stalling on installing it ("yeah, my painter said he's delayed for another week or two") until our painters actually were done this week. These guys are great- they are the same ones who carpeted the kids and master bedrooms in January. The carpet is so nice tho, that I'm considering a moratorium on climbing chalk for the other side of the room.

Sneak Preview

The seats were uncomfortable, a hard wooden floor, the component rack looked like a wooden plank between two ladders (it was), the sound was a pair of five-watt speakers, and no popcorn to be found, yet The Sneak Preview Showing took place at 1am on March 27th and was a resounding success! Steff, Andy and I enjoyed Frank Miller's Sin City.

-frederick

Peinture

We've just put the first coat on most of the room and I couldn't help myself but to put a second coat on. You can see it in the upper left corner of the painted area. The paint we've chosen is 'Spanish Raisin'- to me it looks like a rich dark leather. The walls were amazingly smooth after John's work and our touchup. We've chosen a (forgot color) beige for the trim, which is also done. We bought enough paint to do the room three times- including the ceiling, but I think we'll keep the ceiling rather light. Andy is almost done with the woodwork- photos of them soon. More work tomorrow with carpet arriving on Monday!

-frederick 

Paint engineers

These two guys we brought in to paint look like the new Intel/Mac Mini engineers. Our child labor on-shoring firm was able to find laborers who were just the right height to work on baseboard trim! Here they show the potential other uses of contruction items (ref: stick = sword). When interviewed, we found out they were Griff "Gangsta" Daddy and Aidan MC Driller.

English Craftsman

My good friend Mr. Andy Stocks agreed to use his honed-through-generations of English Craftsman skills to install an oak veneer in the shelves we built. He even used a hammer to put in nails! (instead of the way cool and loud pneumatic nailer). We're also going to be putting the trim around the shelving. The stairs have finally been trimmed as well.

Hopefully tonight, Steff and her crew of onshored-child-labor can wipe down the walls so we can get the primer on.

Imported child labor!

The neighbor kids wanted to get movie passes as well to the upcoming theater, so they volunteered for some moderate lifting duties. The scrap drywall from installation is now disguised as curbside garbage.




Here we see another crew doing the initial dusting by using compressed air to get some of the dust off the walls. We'll be washing down the walls and ceiling tomorrow with damp sponges. That should be fun

Custom shelving

Sounds pretty fancy, eh? Here you see the shelving specialists we brought in to make custom shelves built into the walls. Andy's brad nailer was great for this! 

Day three of mudding

To mud properly takes three applications. This is the last step before light sanding. The first layer is to cover the gap, the second is to make it level and the third is the final blending with the other surface. John will be back on Monday to do the final sanding- and which point we'll be ready to paint! 

The drywallers took Tuesday off, but were back today. This section is really tricky the way the wall is shaped (I had a tough time framing it). Check out the air intake above the component closet (Hi Brian!). Mudding begins in earnest tomorrow!