Reno Update

Things are definitely moving along in the Man Cave. In a matter of a few days, the crew got the wiring roughed in, the pot lights installed, and the drywall up. We're just waiting on some mud and tape.

So we went from this last week:

To this, this week:

Lookin' not too bad, huh? The cove you see at left is where the TV will be mounted. It sits right between two support posts, and frames the wall just nicely. Here are a few more for comparison:

That's the TV nook with nothing in it. A few points of interest: First, the outlet is on the back side of the wall, in order to have all the wiring go behind the theatre. Second, the two posts were framed out to provide a flat working surface that won't interfere with the flooring (there's a concrete footing at the base of each post that would otherwise cause a headache.

Without too much explanation (I hope), these should give a clearer idea of what the entertainment space will look like:

 That little hole you see in the TV area (roughly centre on the pic) is actually just marking out the cold air return. The one at top right is for a switch that will kill power to the whole home theatre. You may not realize this, but home electronics use 60% of their power when the device is turned off but not unplugged. Don't believe me? My TV has a red light on it to tell me that it's off. OFF?! How stupid is that? Since I don't need that light, or an internal clock on my TV, VCR, DVD, or home theatre receiver, the simple solution is to cut the power to the whole system when it's not in use (you can do this with a power bar as well...you will see a drop in your hydro bill. It's kind of scary, actually).

So...what's next? Picking out the laminate and paint colours, of course. And the plumber will be in early next week with a jack hammer to carve out the floor for a sump pit. You see the far alcove? The pit will be behind that part of the wall, hidden from the rec room side. With luck, they'll find gravel under the floor so they don't have to dig any trenches.

Yeah. Jack hammer. This'll be fun...