Not your typical home theater installation
So this weekend didn't have a lot of big builds, but we made some very tangible progress in making the house really livable and we have even started moving more furniture and boxes in!
With enough of the kitchen floor done and whatnot moved into place, for example, we were able to move in the laundry machines! And for freebies off of Craigslist, they worked very well after some troubleshooting.
Morris did a final pour on Friday night for the island while he was there alone (I was out for a dance event and that meant fewer feet kicking up dust) and made more progress spraying the paint in the living room.
Saturday morning as we were getting ready (I was packing up some boxes from the apartment and getting the dog ready to go) I got a text with a photo that demonstrated real, deep love.
If you buy a house that has been sitting for a while, the toilets will require a lot of arduous cleaning. I would show a before picture, but don't need anyone losing their lunch.
The fun part of the weekend was setting up a home theater system. We had decided to go for a projector as a cost-effective way to have a screen large enough that everyone in the kitchen can still watch the game. First projector just didn't have the ability to project a large enough image from the distance we had to work with. A second contender definitely did the job, along with a surround sound system to replace Morris's old one that has been slowly dying this past year. After moving in the couch so that we would know where to set everything up, Morris gave it a whirl. We have paint that is designed specifically for projecting on walls to maximize the picture quality, and it definitely works, and Morris had started applying it to the wall based on the initial projector's results.
Here is the result that was significantly larger than originally expected - in fact Morris had started to paint the non-projector area paint on the left side of the wall.
This was before he got a chance to put up more of the specially reflective paint and while we still had some lights on in the room. For reference, the wall is about 12 feet across. Yeah. We have a GIANT screen now.
After applying some more paint (can't do too much at once because the fancy paint is thicker and the sprayer gets cranky), turning off the lights, and finding a video game to show off, here is the result later that evening. Again, this screen is 12 feet across. (The special projector paint isn't over the entire surface yet, and will need some more coats, but the initial results were spectacular!)
Both of us were amazed that the detail was so sharp and precise.
So yeah, movie night at our place? You betcha! Game night? Of course! FOOTBALL? OBVIOUSLY!
Sunday also featured a trip back to Woodcraft in Springfield for some additional wood to finish off the counters (really just the same wood but in the necessary widths). We ran into the guy who helped us on the first round there and we ended up spending a lot more time there, hanging out and showing off the photos of the island and counters so far. The guys all made the appropriate ooohs and aaaahs and got genuinely excited. They asked us to email some photos so that they can show off on the photo album that they have scrolling in the store.
We also got a chance to hit up the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Alexandria where we picked up some funky lightbulbs for Morris's eventual steampunk lighting project for the sitting room and also managed to find a futuristic desk for Morris and a large cabinet for the sitting room that will also get to serve down the road as the base for the fish tank (but I'm not allowed to post photos until the tank gets cleaned and prettified). I definitely recommend it - they have a lot of furniture and hardware, even doors, that are much cheaper than new and the money goes to a good place. (For anyone acting quickly, they had a whole pallet of mason jars while we were there, FYI!)
I have a super crazy week with work right now, but next weekend we'll be doing more moving and finishing projects with the hope that we'll be soon 100% located at the house, closing out the storage unit, and getting down to living our lives in the house! I'm not looking forward to packing and unpacking, but I am definitely looking forward to having all my stuff in 1 place with no more moves coming up!
With enough of the kitchen floor done and whatnot moved into place, for example, we were able to move in the laundry machines! And for freebies off of Craigslist, they worked very well after some troubleshooting.
Morris did a final pour on Friday night for the island while he was there alone (I was out for a dance event and that meant fewer feet kicking up dust) and made more progress spraying the paint in the living room.
Saturday morning as we were getting ready (I was packing up some boxes from the apartment and getting the dog ready to go) I got a text with a photo that demonstrated real, deep love.
If you buy a house that has been sitting for a while, the toilets will require a lot of arduous cleaning. I would show a before picture, but don't need anyone losing their lunch.
The fun part of the weekend was setting up a home theater system. We had decided to go for a projector as a cost-effective way to have a screen large enough that everyone in the kitchen can still watch the game. First projector just didn't have the ability to project a large enough image from the distance we had to work with. A second contender definitely did the job, along with a surround sound system to replace Morris's old one that has been slowly dying this past year. After moving in the couch so that we would know where to set everything up, Morris gave it a whirl. We have paint that is designed specifically for projecting on walls to maximize the picture quality, and it definitely works, and Morris had started applying it to the wall based on the initial projector's results.
Here is the result that was significantly larger than originally expected - in fact Morris had started to paint the non-projector area paint on the left side of the wall.
This was before he got a chance to put up more of the specially reflective paint and while we still had some lights on in the room. For reference, the wall is about 12 feet across. Yeah. We have a GIANT screen now.
After applying some more paint (can't do too much at once because the fancy paint is thicker and the sprayer gets cranky), turning off the lights, and finding a video game to show off, here is the result later that evening. Again, this screen is 12 feet across. (The special projector paint isn't over the entire surface yet, and will need some more coats, but the initial results were spectacular!)
Both of us were amazed that the detail was so sharp and precise.
So yeah, movie night at our place? You betcha! Game night? Of course! FOOTBALL? OBVIOUSLY!
Sunday also featured a trip back to Woodcraft in Springfield for some additional wood to finish off the counters (really just the same wood but in the necessary widths). We ran into the guy who helped us on the first round there and we ended up spending a lot more time there, hanging out and showing off the photos of the island and counters so far. The guys all made the appropriate ooohs and aaaahs and got genuinely excited. They asked us to email some photos so that they can show off on the photo album that they have scrolling in the store.
We also got a chance to hit up the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Alexandria where we picked up some funky lightbulbs for Morris's eventual steampunk lighting project for the sitting room and also managed to find a futuristic desk for Morris and a large cabinet for the sitting room that will also get to serve down the road as the base for the fish tank (but I'm not allowed to post photos until the tank gets cleaned and prettified). I definitely recommend it - they have a lot of furniture and hardware, even doors, that are much cheaper than new and the money goes to a good place. (For anyone acting quickly, they had a whole pallet of mason jars while we were there, FYI!)
I have a super crazy week with work right now, but next weekend we'll be doing more moving and finishing projects with the hope that we'll be soon 100% located at the house, closing out the storage unit, and getting down to living our lives in the house! I'm not looking forward to packing and unpacking, but I am definitely looking forward to having all my stuff in 1 place with no more moves coming up!
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