Justin Ohms’s Weblog

New doors and marquee as seen from the stairs. (click for large view)

Well it has been a while since I posted anything about the construction of our home theater.  We finally got around to buying doors for the opening.  (I think Steph was getting a little tired of the curtains. )  We ordered this nice set of etched pre-hung doors with a square pattern from Home Depot.   It did take about two weeks longer than they originally told us for the doors to come in but we have them on 0% for 12 months and we got a really good deal on them so I guess I can’t complain too much.    When they did finally come in I rented the Home Depot truck and my friend Matt helped me pick these up and bring them to the house.   It was so convenient and cheep that I feel less motivated to buy a truck again considering how infrequently I need it.

We did have a hell of a time finding the correct lock sets and knobs to match the rest of the house.  We eventually had to buy them online as both Home Depot and Lowes had stopped carrying them.

I put the doors up about two weeks ago and have been working on the marquee since then.  I was able to get the marquee finished and put up just this past weekend.   I have included a few more pictures including a close up of the faux burled finish I put on the underside  and a picture of the marquee when it is lit up.

Close up of the underside finish on the marquee. (click for larger view)

The burled finish was fun to do and  was rather easy.  It is just gel stain (a mix of walnut and mahogany)  applied with a paper towel in sort of a wrist twisting motion.  It does do a number on your wrist and because it goes on kind of thick  it takes a while to dry.  This finish was done on top of finish grade birch plywood.    I did two coats in order to give it some depth.
(With sanding with steel wool in between.)    The final coat was a rather thick layer of clear gloss lacquer then another steel wool sanding to smooth things out and one thin layer of lacquer for gloss.  We were all getting high off the fumes for several days, even with the garage doors open.

Home theater marquee all lit up. (click for large view)

The lighting for the marquee is 4 40w fluorescent bulbs in a custom made fixture.    I was originally going to purchase the bulb mounts and ballast separately and then build the units  myself, but when I got to the store I found a much cheaper way of doing this.    As individual components the mounts (4 sets) and ballasts (2 – 2 bulb ballasts) were going to cost almost $100.   I started looking around and found a shop light that took two bulbs (the kind you hang up with the  built in plug) for under $10.  Since these are self contained units I knew all the parts; mounts, ballasts etc. would be included.   I bought two of these for the marquee and basically took them apart and discarded  the metal case.  (yes recycled)  The only modification I really had to make (after mounting the bulb mounts and ballasts) was to splice some longer wire in on one side of the circuit so I could mount everything where I wanted it.  I finished off the wiring by enclosing it all (except the ballasts) in an old electronics project box I had sitting around.  I finished off the whole thing with a fascia made from hardboard (which has enough flex for the curve) and a florescent light panel cut to fit and glued on the inside.  Now we just need to figure out what to put up on the marquee.  For now I think we are leaning toward “Opening Spring 2010″