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Jeremy J. Glowacki
is editorial director of New York City-based Residential Systems magazine.
For the first time in my eight-year term as editor of this magazine, I
have finally gotten my hands dirty like a true custom installation guy.
Since moving into my first house nearly a year ago, I’ve had multiple
opportunities to learn, through trial and error, how “you do that
voodoo that you do so well.” First I built shelves for my Niles
StageFront LCRs. Then I ran my Tributaries speaker wire and subwoofer
cable, front to back, to my juice-pumping Sunfire TGR surround
receiver.
Fortunately, a drop-tile ceiling simplified most of the wire pulling,
but there were still the wall-mounted surrounds to hang and wires to
hide.
Too impatient to order fish tape or other tools of the trade, I
fashioned a wire-pulling solution out of a clothes hanger. The old
trick of using a “sinker” on the wire wouldn’t work in my application,
because the drywall and insulation are a snug fit.
The clothes hanger worked great when fishing wire a short distance from
the ceiling to the speaker location. Hiding the wires for my LED-lit
iSky acoustic panels would prove to be a bigger challenge, however.
Still too stubborn to invest in real tools, I turned to an oversize
measuring tape this time. After drilling inch-and-a-half holes in the
wall where the four acoustical panels would go, I pushed the tape
behind and up the wallboard until it reappeared above the drop-ceiling
grid. There, I tied the low-voltage power cord to the hole in the tip
of the measuring tape and began pulling it down the wall. I knew when
the tip of tape was about to reach the hole in the wall when I saw the
numbers on it reach two and then one. That’s when I had to get extra
careful, making sure I didn't lose the wire as I pulled it through the
hole. Is this a patent-worthy technique or did some of you already try
this approach back in your trunk-slammer days?
iSky’s acoustic wall panels, as well as the manufacturer’s better-known
starry night ceiling panels, have been some of the cooler additions to
my theater in recent weeks. Jeff Graham, iSky’s president, drove down
to my house from the Chicago area for the initial installation. After
painting the white ceiling grid with flat black paint, I was given a
pair of rubber surgical gloves to protect my hands from the fiberglass,
as well as some simple instructions for connecting the low-voltage
panels together.
The process couldn’t have been easier. After only a couple of hours of
labor, the end result was what looks like a skylight in my basement
ceiling. My wife and I enjoyed the visual effect so much that we wanted
an even more complete solution. Fortunately, Graham, through his
generous StJohn Group distributor, later sent me enough tiles to
expand the star field and to fill in the rest of the white ceiling. The
project is still a work-in-progress, but it promises to create a fully
immersive room and a viewing environment that comes closer to the Tony
Grimani-approved screening room standard described in his column last
month.
Combining this custom exercise with my earlier Screen Research masking
screen installation, Runco projector install, and my control system
programming experiments with RTI, UEI, and Niles Audio, I’ve begun to
learn why this business can become such a passion, and, yes, sometimes
a headache.
I’ll be writing more about this experience on my blog and in the pages
of the magazine as my theater continues to take shape. Be sure to visit
the BLOGS section of resmagonline.com to view progress photos and to
read more about my attempts “to be like you.”
