I wanted to add some photos to flickr tonight to add them to a group. In the process I found the nifty thing I added on the right. I think it works cool.
January 2006 Archives
Well after a bit of dealy I did get the popcorn popper today. I tested it out tonight as well. Worked great even though I didn't quite load it right. I will have to practice a bit more. Very cool.
I was hoping to mount the shelves for the rack today that I got Friday. However there was one slight problem. The shelves didn't come with any rack screws. I checked to usual places but I couldn't find any to buy today. I will have to go to baynesville tomorrow.
I did get my new remote setup somewhat today. Works great and even more reliably with the RF to IR transmitter. Once all the equipment is mounted I will get the rest of the commands programmed.
I have created another gallery with all the pictures from the drywall finishing to the end of the project. It has all sorts of pcitures, check it out. HT Galery 5
On Saturday night after we were done working my parents and I had the first official viewing in the newly minted Hoyt's Cinema. My mom chose the first movie, Hostage. Watching a movie on a screen the size of a wall is pretty cool. After that I watched Jurassic Park, didn't make it all the way through since I was tired. I look forward to many more viewings of movies.
My parents came down this weekend to help to a bunch of little finishing touches to the basement. Friday night my dad and I mounted all the chair rails and base boards all around the room. Saturday we did all sorts of little things. We mounted the registers, bulit the wall at the bottom of the stairs, prepped the railing for stairs, mounted DVD rack to wall, unpacked DVD's into rack, touch-up painting in stairwell and basement, made fabric inserts for shelves, wrapped support pole, hung curtains on door and windows. Sunday we put up the railing in stairwell (which made my dad happy), fixed the basement screen door (after like 7-8 months) and took some pictures.
At this point the basement is pretty much done. There are some little things I want to do, but aren't of immediate importance. Things like trim around stereo rack, in wall shelf, cover for the whole for gas meter, drape to cover opening to laundry room, ticket window. I assume I will always have something to do on the basment or with the electronics. Just the way it goes.
Last night after putting a coat of paint on the stairwell walls and wiping down the stained rails I played with my setup a bit. I got the Gefen HDMI switcher yesterday so I was able to hook up the oppo to the sanyo. I also hooked up my receiver to the speakers that were in the room at the point (center and left surround). I again used i, Robot to play with since it was handy. It is not the greatest movie ever, but a good action flick and it has some really good dynamic and dark visuals.
Luckily there are some people out there who have the same equipment I have and they have done a great deal of work already tweaking. The two main info points I used are threads from AVS Forum, one about the Sanyo PLV-Z4 and the other about the Oppo Digital DVI-971H. Out of the box the oppo + sanyo combo is very good and would make most people happy. After a little bit of tweaking though the picture becomes well pretty amazing.
Unless I do a side by side it is hard to tell the difference, but the projector allows you to switch between pre-configured and user created modes easily. This allows for a very obvious A/B comparison. Some time soon I will use the ColorVision Spyder TV calibration tool to do some checking of my own.
To say that I am pleased with picture quality and size would be an understatement. It is freaking beautiful. It easily rivals and possibly betters my ISF calibrated Toshiba 65" CRT RPTV that I used to have in quality.
Well I am not a big fan of the universal projector mount I got in the package for my projector and screen. It was part of the package and the only one the company offered so I thought I would give it a shot. Well I can't get to be as stable as I like and it isn't quite as short as I had hoped. It is a generic unbranded mount. As a replacement I ordered a Chief RPA Custom Mount. It should be here sometime next week. It has a much more fine adjustment for pitch, yaw and roll. I will evaluate it more once I get it.
I ordered a couple of bits today. I ordered a popcorn popper and the various accessories from HT Market. I also got a 4x1 HDMI switcher from Gefen. The last items were the shelves for the Middle Atlantic rack I have. Hopefully they will all arrive for the first big party on the 28th of January.
We started this morning again about 7:30 AM. We measured and cut the chair rail and the baseboard all the way around the room. Once we were done cutting it we numbered all the pieces so we could put them back together again. We then sanded and stained all the wood.
The chairs arrived at about 1:30 PM. They are awesome, the color matches quite well with the rest of the room. Very comfy as well. They aren't in their precise final location yet so not sure of layout and look.
After the chairs were delivered we moved all the stained wood inside to help with drying. We then mounted the center speaker on the front wall and the screen. I mounted the screen as high as I could but it is still quite low to the floor. It took a while to assemble the screen. It is 106" which once you see it is huge. It is really nice how the black velvet screen just disappears.
After dinner we were hoping to mount the stained wood. They weren't quite dry yet though. I mounted the shelves for the surround speakers. Then I finished the sconces and they worked even. Lastly I mounted the projector. The mount is a little loser than I wanted but I seemed to be able to tighten it up. Just to test I hooked up DVD player and turned on i, Robot, looked amazing out the box. No sound yet though.
The basement is very close to being done. Next weeked finishing touches I think.
Today we started again about 7 AM. We began with the verticals at the ends of the upper half of walls. Aftet that we mounted the linacoustic. We first mounted the top half of the back wall with black fabric. We prepared for doing the two long walls with the patterned fabric. Keith came over and helped us mount the upper rail for the long walls. We finished the last of stapling on walls about 9 PM.
As my parents were finishing stapling I began mounting the sconces. I also finished covering and mounting the outlets in the fabric.
Tomorrow my dad and I will cut the base board and chair rail. We will then stain it and prep for installation either late Monday or first thing Tuesday. Hopefully tomorrow we can also mount the shelves for speakers and the screen. Whatever bits we can get done the better.
Today we got the lower half of the fabric and linacoustic mounted in the theater room. My dad and I first mounted the verticals at the ends of walls. Then we cut the linacoustic to size and mounted to walls using drywall screws. We cut middle rail boards and then attached fabric. Once we attached the rail my dad and mom stapled all the fabric down. They stapled it about every 2-3 inches, which is a lot on a 12' or 18' long wall. Then my mom cut out holes for the outlets and speaker wire boxes. A great deal of the time I was just watching my parents work, since they are a whole lot better at dealing with fabric than I. It took longer than we had hoped or planned, we thought we could get more done in a day. It looks great though so it is worth it.
Tomorrow we will get the upper half of the wall completed. It should be a little easier since it won't be all crawling on the floor like today was.
I also called the Big Screen Store today. They are delivering chairs on Monday. With that I will be pretty much done. Just a few trim items to do. Must say, awesome.
The carpet guys showed up around 8:30 AM and were finished before noon. My dad acting as my advocate probably got them to do a better job than I would have. They wrapped it on the riser and the sump cover really nice. The color blends really well with the walls.
When I got home from work we went out to get some supplies. We got the base board and chair rails. We also got the stain to prep them.
We will start mounting fabric tomorrow morning.
Wednesday night I had Empire Today (Carpet) come out to give me an estimate. As is the norm the sales person started fairly high at $3900 and then through an amazing number of discounts ended up at $3024. The area to be carpeted was 600 sq. ft. finished and would require close to 700 sq. ft. including leftovers. I went ahead and placed an order.
To get one of the discounts they wanted to install it the next day (Thursday) which I wasn't ready for. I was a little surprised by this since it was 7:30 PM and they were ready to schedule the next day. I was able to convince them to extend it to Friday. My parents are at my house now and hopefully the carpet will be done by the time I get home.
The funny thing is the $3024 price is exactly the same as what it cost me to get drywall installed. Weird.
Tuesday and Wednesday night I did some more painting of the built in shelves, riser and sump cover. I also finished the electrical work for the lights in the riser. I put the first coat of color on the walls in stair well. I also mounted the new ceiling light in stairwell in preparation for Thursday.
Last night my Parents came down to help prep for the rest of the weekend. We cleaned the floor real well. Then I remounted all the switches and outlets in the areas that won't have fabric. I stuff the riser full of insulation and sealed it up. Then my dad and I finished the sump pump cover.
The last thing we did was put the base level 5/4"x4" lathe around the room where fabric will be.
I finished the edging on the walls. Then I primed all the other things, riser, shelves and sump pump platform. I started doing some little finishing stuff as well. I put in the trim for the 6" recessed lights. Tomorrow once the edging is dried I will but some outlet covers back on. It is nice to get some of the little things done now.
Saturday I worked on the two colors of the ceiling in the basement. I didn't get started as early as I had hoped on Saturday but I was still able to do two coats on the ceiling, which looks like all that will be needed. I went to a party that night so I didn't do anything else.
Sunday I got up and went to Home Depot. I got a bit more of the ceiling black for touch up and then the color for the walls and gas meter column. I came home all ready to go, but just wasn't up to it so I took a nap and then goofed off until after 6 PM. I was not nearly as productive as I wanted to be. I was still able to get two coats on the walls anyway. I did one coat and then watched the Panthers destroy the Giants on TiVo. After the game I did a second coat on the walls.
At this point the ceiling is 99% done, possibly a tiny bit of touch up. The walls are about 90% done. I need to edge along the ceiling line. I saw a neat edger brush and almost got it today, pick it up tomorrow. Then I need to paint the gas meter column and the in wall shelves. I also need to paint the edges of the riser and sump pump box. I should be able to do primer on those tomorrow along with shelves and then finish both on Tuesday night.
I am hoping to get carpet installed this week and then my parents can come down and help me with fabric. Then just have to chairs delivered.
I spent about 2.5 hours first cleaning the walls in basement. I wiped down the ceiling and walls to remove sanding dust prior to dust. After that I painted a coat of gray tinted primer on all the walls and ceiling in basement. That took me about 5 hours. A little longer than I had expected. It actually looks pretty good now just with primer. Tomorrow I will put the first coat of ceiling colors on.
As of 1 PM today the drywall is complete. I still need to go around and sponge the walls clean prior to painting and there are a couple of corners I need to sand a bit, but 99% done. It took professionals about 105 man hours to complete, I am really happy I didn't try to do it myself. Even with the delays I am sure I wouldn't have gotten it done by now nor would be done as well. The mudding was sanded totally smooth, which I know is what it should be, but I couldn't do it as well. At least not on first 2 or 3 tries. Now I start going full speed ahead on painting.
While waiting for the drywall to be finished I decided to start painting. I started with the stairwell that goes to basement. There was some pretty ugly wallpaper on the walls. I decided to just paint it over rather than attempt to remove it. It took two coats of oil based white primer to get good coverage of the wallpaper. Then today I went to get the color I wanted to paint ceiling and I was told that to get the right color I would need a grey primer instead of white. I got a gallon of Glidden's Gripper and applied it to the ceilings and walls. I am waiting for it to dry while I watch the Rose Bowl. After the Rose Bowl I will put on the first coat of the ceiling.
Hopefully tomorrow the drywall guys will be totally done. Right now they just have a bit more mudding and sanding to do. I walked around the room and most the mud is very smooth already. If they get done early in the day I will put on a coat of primer on the entire basement. Before I do that I will have to spend a few hours cleaning just to make sure there isn't too much dust flying around. Also I don't want any dropped paint to mix and become a nasty mud mess.
