I HATE DRYWALL DUST!
So dirty, and it gets EVERYWHERE...

OK, I knew that going into the running of the wires today, but even with precautions such as drop cloths under areas that I was cutting in to, it still gets everywhere.

So after putting on the second coat of paint, I decided to start on the wiring. The trouble is getting from the middle of the room, to the sides into the soffit, and then down and out of the soffit and into the area behind the crown molding.

I know, I already mentioned this before, but wow, I never expected it to be so tricky.

Anyway, there was a lot of me looking back at old construction videos and photos to figure out the best spots to try to get through the drywall. The problem is that I needed to make pretty good sized holes just to be able to get to the fish tape at various spots along the way.

So without any more details about that, I got the front 2 wires ran, and was about to tackle the rear 2 when I thought that I better see how I was doing on speaker wire... I was short a couple of feet for the longer run of the two, and there is no reason to snake the shorter one through without the longer one with it. More speaker wire is on the way, and last time it took 2 days to get here, this time it is taking 6 business days and won't get here until Wednesday (When I figured out that I would need more anyway, I ordered it thinking that it would be here before the weekend. WRONG!)

So the rear speaker wires are not run yet.

I decided that since the fronts were run that I would start round 1 of the drywall patch. I am actually really good at hiding patch work, so I know how the steps to fixing it. I basically put 2 screws into the chunk that I took out of the soffit, this is just to get a grip, and then I put silicone caulk in the seam using a fine tip so that I could get it to the inside. This stuff added just enough tension to really hold the piece in place on its own. I let it sit for about 20 minutes, and then came back and put some mud over the area. I always recess the inserted piece just a little bit since it needs to be retextured and such anyway, so it is really just there to be mass.

For the ceiling, I put a thin piece of wood on to the back of the piece of cut out drywall. I then put this up into the ceiling with a little more silicone caulk on the bottom side of the piece of wood. This does 2 things. It will hold the piece in place easier than trying to screw through the regular ceiling and into that piece of wood, and it also puts a small layer between that board and the top side of the ceiling drywall, effectively recessing the cutout piece as well. I put some silicone caulk up around that too, and then 20 minutes later, applied the first coat of mud. The idea of the first coat of mud and the silicone is more to solidify all of the pieces so that additional coats of mud are easier to apply.

After that, I decided that it would be nice to have the garage back. It had been about 8.5 hours since I finished spraying the speakers, so I carefully took them down, one by one, and checked them over in a bright light. I then removed the tape and the newspaper, and took them one by one to the basement where I attached the bottom ports so that they could stand on their own without the paint touching anything.

All in all, they turned out really good. The finished surface feels significantly smoother than the primer finish right from Axiom, and it wasn't bad at all. I am still worried a bit about the speakers getting paint "dings" due to it being flat paint and being handled. I know that the paint in the theater is pretty solid for flat paint (on the ceiling) but it has cured for a few years.

Anyway, here they are:


I am going to take a tiny brush and get the inside "vertical" edges around the speaker cutouts with a tiny bit of paint. I just want to make sure that you don't see any white at all. The inside flat surface (with the bolt holes) will stay white since it will be hidden.

I think that next on my list will be getting the speaker mounts made up. Going old school and just using wood. I will need to drill mounting holes into each speaker so that I can put some screws through before putting the woofers in. I will also be putting some counter sunk holes into the blocks of wood to toggle bolt them to the ceiling. I was looking for a pair of reasonably priced speaker mounts, but the cheaper ones get mixed reviews, and everything else seems pricey. I thought about buying another Axiom "full metal bracket" since I have 1 already, but I don't think that it will give me the extension that I need to angle my front speakers (rear speakers will have a really small angle, so they will definitely be just wood blocks.


Farewell - June 4, 2020