Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Maybe I should start a v4.0 build thread somewhere

Thanks for the pix, Nick! I knew you'd come through!

She made the right choice. I think that a Panther, though amazing, would have created insurmountable decor problems.

Here is a picture from a couple of minutes ago with the chameleon in her new home...

Kewl, Nick! Thanks.

Once she's not so shy and gets accustomed to her surroundings, ask what she thinks of the Top 100 Guitarists.

What's her name?

If my mouth wasn't parched, I would have done a spit take on that one.
Imagine me doing a dry-heave version of a spit take!

Kewl,did your daughter see Rapunzel lately?

So I've got a few hours of drywalling in between yesterday and today, and I hate it already. I did start with the most complicated ceiling area so that I am working with smaller parts of sheets and so that once I get this done, I can start picking up noticeable speed. I did, however, decide that I am getting rid of 1 of the ceiling height changes. I loose 3 inches of height, but it was between to other areas that were that already 3" and 12" down around ducts. That meant taking down a partial sheet of drywall (that I already had the can lights cut out of), and doing some quick framing. Now I need to pry the 2 can lights' nails out of the joists, and frame them down 3" as well. It will be worth the delay it is causing in that the ceiling will look a little cleaner.

Oh, and I killed my Craftsman rotary tool cutting those two can lights. I had used it in my previous basement, and it worked well, but liked to suck up the drywall dust. Well, I killed it this time. So I *almost* bought a RotoZip today, but the smallest that would really work for what I needed was about $75 and it is a dedicated tool, so I opted to spend that money on a nice Dremel set that was on sale. Now I am nervous about using it in fear of killing it with the dust even though it comes with a drywall cutting bit and says that it works with drywall... Maybe the hand-held drywall saw will be the way to go anyway. No fears of having a "run off" and needing to patch it later. I will using the Dremel for anything on the walls (outlets, switches, sconces, but hand cut everything in the ceiling... Yuck!

Cool. I was wondering how I was going to cut drywall for the 4 can lights I'm going to be installing in my new office. I've got a Dremel, just have to find a drywall blade.

Drywall bits are pretty common actually. Just look for one with the tip that is smooth so that it doesn't cut into your can light. It acts like a guide for the rest of the bit. There are also some really nice bits (xbitz or something) they are nice, but pricey. If doing just a few, go with the lower cost ones and you will be fine.

OK. Cutting can lights with a hand-held drywall saw sucks too. It took forever to cutout 2 can lights tonight (the ones that I had to re-do). I ended up spending a bit of the day working on the chameleon setup. We are fighting humidity issues (as expected). Hard to keep humidity inside a 100% mesh cage, but we are getting there.

I also had a helper tonight for some of the ceiling in the game room. My wife came down and I spent some time "training" her on how I wanted things measured, as well as how to cut things. It was a little slower than just doing it myself, but will help speed things up as we go along. She measured up and cut out one of the largest, pieces so far that also had a bunch of cuts while I was fighting the cutouts for the 2 can lights. That alone was worth it. We are 2 skinny pieces and one larger rectangle away from having the game room ceiling done. The wet bar ceiling will be 2 rectangle pieces, so that will go up quickly (of course, more lights to cut out), the hallway will be 1 piece as well with 2 more stinking lights, then we will go back to more difficult ceiling pieces like in the bathroom and office... I will start updating more with photos when we get to the home theater.

I am thinking about picking ip the door for the theater tomorrow so that I can get it hung so that I can drywall right up to the door jam. Anyway, is a solid core exterior steel door still be best approach for soundproofing? I know that I will need a good threshold jam too...