The "I hope this works" Home Theater - Page 11

HT related I swear, but bear with me.....It seems like everytime I get my HT Fund(HTF) up to acceptable levels the gods of pain rain down on me. Note: Read back to the February incident to see what happened last time I got the HTF over $10K.

THE JEEP
Driving home from upnorth about a month ago my Jeep starts to misfire like crazy (not some little misfire but stuff that actually shakes the vehicle) so I exit the expressway, pull over and pop the hood. Looks ok to me so I start it back up and it is running smooth as silk. So I get 20 miles down the road and it does it again. Pull over again and start it back up. Runs like a champ. Finish the remaining 2 hours home without any issues. Electrical for sure. Next week it is doing it again on the way to work, so I finally decide to take it in. Of course my mechanic can't get it to happen again, so why am I surprised. Engine codes say it is misfiring but not sure why. So I pick up the Jeep and it never does it again, except now something strange is happening.....the tranny (no, not some guy in mens clothing) is now slipping into 3rd gear as soon as it gets into 2nd. Not good. Finally took it in again and guess who needs a new trans, yep me! HT Fund Hit (HTFH for short) =$2,700

THE SONY
Last weekend I am visiting the rents because my brother was in town. Both my dad and I have identical 36" Sony Trinitron TVs (except mine is an HDTV) in our great rooms. I have a 42" LCD in the den which I uses for movie night so no realy need to replace until after I finish the HT. Anyway, during the visit I am explaining to my dad that my TV started acting up that day and wouldn't turn on after being on most of the morning. His is working fine. I get home and I get a phone call from him telling me that now HIS tv won't turn on and he is convinced I am satan or something from the Omen (not his exact words but you get the point). While talking to him I try MY tv and it works. Now I am laughing and he is ready to call in an exorcist to rid my of my evil ways. He replaces his with a plasma and rubs it in my face. I tell him I will have an 11' screen in the basement and then he remindes me that I have been working on it for 4 years. So today I come home and the TV is dead as a doornail (sure it has a red blinking light but other than that it is useless). I know what is wrong (circuit board and it will cost $500 to fix) and it isn't worth fixing so I must dip into the HTF again to get something new and better than my dad to save face and convince him I am not the devil. So begins the hunt for a new TV (55" min). Estimated HTFH or EHTFH = $2,000

Needless to say I will be bringing my lunch to work for the next week or so.

Thanks for the support.

HELOC - Interesting choice but I took took a vow to live debt free a couple years ago. No credit cards, no HELOC (that was a tough one to give up), not car payments. Nothing but the house. Only choice I have is to save or dip into the emergency fund and technically they are not emergencies.

LOL That is always a danger but the $2000 includes getting a TV table. Budgeting $500 for that. I refuse to go to IKEA for that exact reason, because we will walk out of there with an entirely newly furnished house. BTW I hate painting so I will avoid it at all costs.

Most of my posts over the last few years have been about the little progress that has taken place. Well I have broken the barrier and knocked a bunch of major things off my list and have basically finished (not really but it is now usable space):

Moldings - Stained and Installed (I will post a different post on that insanity)
Carpet - Ordered and installed (Story with that as well)
Installed closets - (More stories)
Installed Workroom Door - (Should it take 3 hours to install??? Wait til you find out why)
Installed and wired my ceiling speakers - For music during parties (yes another store will be needed)
Ordered Projector - Should be getting it Friday
Cleaned out Workroom - It isn't really cleaned out, just cleaner
8 million little things - No real story there

All of this took place over about 3 days. Let's just say that I ordered carpet and they were going to try their best to get it in and installed before Christmas. Then they called on a Friday night and told me that they would be there the next Tuesday.....BEFORE Thanksgiving. Panic ensued and I got to work that night. I swear to you on one day I actually worked 29 hours. I believe I was working so fast that actually went back in time.

I will start the stories this evening with some photos and keep them coming each night until I run out of stupid stories.

First showing should take place before Christmas!

Back in October I went to the molding shop on a Saturday morning to order my wood molding. I was getting Poplar wood, even though it is tough to stain, because it is cheap and I found some instructions online on how to stop it from getting splotchy. So when I went to order the trim the doors were locked. No one home. I doubled checked that it actually was Saturday and not Sunday, and then I double checked the hours of operation to make sure I wasn't going insane. Well they just lost my $400 order of molding and trim. So I moved to Plan B and went to my backup, but more expensive option. I show up and place my order and go and pay. I am expecting them to tell me when they will have it ready and can deliver, but that doesn't happen. Apparently they have it in stock and I am going home with it today. 400 feet of trim is a crazy amount to stuff into the back of a Jeep Cherokee. So I end up making the 15 mile trip home with 12' boards sticking out the back and praying the cops don't see me because that had to be illegal. I could barely fit in the Jeep. I wish I had a picture. Never the less I made it home and started to mix dyes like a mad chemist. See you have to dye poplar first, then seal the wood, then stain in order to get it to look nice.

Testing color


My mixing table


The final mix ready to start dyeing


The dye is water soluble but you want to make sure you where gloves. Make sure you don't use the cheap latex gloves and invest in the good blue ones. Why you ask???? Because sometimes the gloves get a tiny pinhole in the tip of the thumb and you get this....


Yes the dye found a hole and soaked INTO the nail. I literally dyed my nail, and you can't wash it off. It was IN the nail. Try going to work and explaining a thousand times that you didn't really paint your nail or smash it with a hammer. Good times.

Here was the final product:


Episode 2 tomorrow

Show I had been working on the moldings for a while. First I dyed them, then I had to do a coat of 50% shellac and 50% denatured alcohol. This seals the wood so that the stain you apply sits on top of the wood and doesn't penetrate and get blotchy. Next I did a coat of wipe on poly, sanded and did a final coat of poly. The problem is I was taking my own sweet time not expecting carpeting until end of December. So when they called to let me know they were installing carpet in 3 days I had to get to work.

Before I could install the moldings I had to finish the closet and workroom doors and get them hung.

The instructions for the closet doors I got from HD were just plain wrong. So sure the idea behind them is right but if you follow them you will have crappy looking doors. I must have installed and uninstalled them 5 times. Now I am an expert at them so if anyone needs it done just let me know. Not sure if I am going to dye them or not.
Here are the installed unfinished doors.

I think I like the natural color contrast so I may not dye them, might just shallac them and that's it.

Once I got the closet doors up I tackled hanging the workroom door. Problem is the door opening was way too big for the door. Not sure what my father-in-law was thinking but it wasn't even close. So off to HD to get some 2x4s. When I got back I reframed but then realized that my moldings weren't going to cover the framing. That means more drywalling, which I vowed never to touch again. Luckily I had saved a few spare pieces of drywall and was able to cover the new framing. But that means mudding and taping. Ugh. After all the finishing work I painted and was ready to start installing the door Sunday around 6pm. It took me 3 hours to hang a pre-hung door. I prepped by reading instructions and watching videos online. Oh sure it looks easy and it probably is, but I found a way to make it next to impossible. I finally got the door installed and pushed it open into the workroom and guess what??? The workroom is such a mess that I actually can't get into the room because there is wood on the floor blocking the door from opening. I had no choice but to remove the door and clean out the room and reinstall. Actually wasn't that bad and went pretty good. You see, if you do something enough times you can accomplish anything. That is why it took me 6 years to finish college.

Here is the dooring during staining:


Finished and installed:
Sorry but I am too lazy to rotate my image


Episode 3 Tomorrow

Oh cuzed, You only know the half of it. BTW I have already seen Christmas Vacation 4 times in the last 2 weeks!

From what I understand Rigid is the way to go as well, but fiberglass was the cheapest for me. Code varies by city/township but I am pretty sure none of them require a certain type of insulation (if any at all). THe one thing they tend to dictate is the use of a vapor barrier. Vapor Barrier in the basement = bad. Unfortunately some codes haven't been updated in many years and still require it. I have been very happy with the fiberglass I used for my walls. Basement is toasty warm. If I had unlimited budget I would have spray foamed or used wool (Roxul) insulation throughout. That stuff rocks. I used it for the ceiling and it is a MUCH better sound killer that fiberglass. Good luck

Who knew you were supposed to show up to class every day???? I even took the wrong Accounting final exam one time (they swtiched the 100 and 200 class level locations and announced during class). I realized it halfway through but I didn't want to leave early because I didn't want the hundreds of people to think a) Boy Genius finished a 2 hour final in 45 minutes or b) Idiot Boy is in the wrong final.

I didn't know it was possible to get a 0.0 in a class.

BTW - I was missing class because of partying...I keep getting overtime at my job and needed the money!

At least you learned a skill!!!!! I worked at McDonald's.......

I still make a mean burger so maybe I did learn something. Hmmmmmm

Once I was done installing the doors it was about 9pm. Now the carpet guys are coming the next morning and I need to trim out the doors and base moldings. But I needed to clean out the workroom so that I can put more stuff in. Basically I needed to move the shelving units out of the workroom and put them into the closets I just finished. The only problem with this strategy is that I have to make a path to the shelves, then take everything off the shelves, move the shelves to the closet and then put everything back on the shelves, now in the closet.

I have 3 of these shelves so I had to complete this stupid process 3 times. I got so tired moving my wifes Dickens Village houses I started to curse Department 56 and wonder why I bought the damn things for her in the first place. I mean come on, you don't even put the house up anymore, can't we just sell them? I think in total I probably spent a few grand on those things. I figure by now they have to be worth 7 or 8 dollars. Awesome.

By now I realize it is going to be a late night because it is 10pm and I still haven't started nailing my trim. That should only take an hour at the most right? Oh no I was wrong in my calculations...

Episode 4 tomorrow

Thanks. It has been a long haul. Finish line is right in sight!

LOL My MIL has one that she stores her village in. Luckily my wife doesn't like those cabinets (I suspect it is because she doesn't want to dust it, but she will never admit it). Maybe if I strategically place them in the attic she could have a nice little setup there.....

It's been almost 4 months since we last heard from our hero. What happened to him, was he kidnapped, or maybe saving the world from certain distruction? Surely there must be some reason why he didn't update his build. Was it the December snow or the long hours he spends in his undercover job as a Sharepoint architect? More likely he made the mistake off hanging his projector and pretending he was finished with the task at hand.

Episode 4
When we last left our hero it was 10pm the night before the carpet guys came and he hadn't even started doing the trim. Cutting the trim with the miter saw was causing smoke to set off the smoke detector, waking up the rest of the house (that was sleeping because kids have school and someones wife can't stay awake past 8:15). Why was it smoking? Was it about to explode? Was there a bomb? Or maybe someone has nevver changed the blade on it even though he bought a new one 2 years prior. Funny how easy it is to cut wood with a sharp blade. The cutting and nailing goes until 1am, then the clean-up begins. 2:30am rolls around and he has finished cleaning up 4 years of construction mess and does a final sweep with the ShopVac. It has never been so clean.

He stands back to admire his handiwork. WTF???? He has forgotten to do the trim around the posts. How is that possible? He breaks out the saw and starts measuring and cutting making quick work of the disaster. 3am and he is finished, but has to clean up all over again. He rolls into bed and gets a well deserved 3 hours of sleep before he heads to the office to not be productive.

The carpet installers work their magic over the next two days (had to split the job up) and when our hero returns from work on Wednesday before Thanksgiving he is pleasently surprised at the work. He cons his friend into coming over to move furniture from the den into the basement. He does this by promising the hero's wife will flash him (knowing full well she will not). It was a mean trick but he wouldn't come over, and the hero was too tired to do it all himself. In the end we all had a good laugh, except for our hero's friend who felt deceived.

Finally the general basement area was complete (minus a few little details):






Sweet carpet job




More updates to come!

Thanks guys. I have a bunch of photos that need to be uploaded. Have my chairs so very little gets done right now. Last week I thought about doing something but quickly changed my mind when I found and old episode of ALF on Netflix. It is going to be a very unproductive summer if I get distracted like that.

Seriously.....I am getting nothing done. It just sucks you in and then the next thing you know you are watching Iron Man for the 12th time just because it is there.