It all started about nine months ago, when my wife and I decided it would be a good idea to remodel our home. It took a lot of talking about because neither of us really wanted to take the project on as we both have active business lives. However, one Sunday afternoon, I took the bull by the horns and started to strip the paper off the walls and the ceiling in the kitchen. My wife soon joined in.
It took us a month to finish it, because we only had Saturday afternoons and Sunday, but we found that we enjoyed the physical work, we both have desk jobs, and we actually enjoyed working and planning together. It was a new but agreeable experience for us.
So, on the day we finished, we cooked a special meal and laid the table properly. After the meal, we sat down to watch a film on TV. But neither of us had been able to do that for a month and we both felt restless. My wife said something like: ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to have another project to do?’ and I reckon we both had the same thought at the same time.
The spare bedroom! Well, our kids had families of their own now, so we essentially had three spare bedrooms. We decided to turn one of them into a home theater. Neither of us particularly liked watching TV, but we both liked films which are normally ruined by too much advertising.
We went up to the smallest room, but it was too small so, like Goldilocks we went to the next, but ended up in the largest room, so that we could entertain friends or family too. Neither of knew what to do next about the home movie centre, but we knew that we could clear the room out and measure it, which is what we did. All the furniture went into the garage until the charity shop could take it away and we went to the computer to get advice.
There was tons of guidance on websites and in articles and we soon felt confident enough to take the project on. We transferred the dimensions of the room in scale onto a sheet of paper and drew in where the screen would go and where we would be sitting. The space left between us and the screen would be about 15 feet.
We had read that the optimum viewing distance is between three times and five times the diameter of the screen, so we could choose a screen between sixty inches and 36 inches. Being in our fifties, we though we would make it easier on our eyes and opted for a forty-eight inch plasma screen.
We ordered that from the Internet. We had also read that the Xbox was a good double as a DVD player and we knew that our grandson was always on about one, so that was next. We were a bit stuck with the speakers, but my brother could help me on that one. We had about a week before our equipment would arrive, so we determined to redecorate in the evenings.
Once complete, we installed all our equipment with my brother’s assistance and we were away. At first we used a couple of sun loungers as seating, but we fairly soon got two beautifully comfortable reclining chairs and two couches for visitors. We may upgrade those later and put in dimmable lighting too, but for now we are very happy with our home movie system and so is our grandson.
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with Home Theater Screens. If you are interested in a Home Movie Theatre, please click through to our site.
Memorable Events From January Ten Years Ago
March 2nd, 2010I was looking through a history book and it was going on about memorable events of ten years ago, but I had forgotten most of them. I have picked out some of the events of exactly ten years ago this month – January, in a word. So here are a few things that you may or probably will not remember from January 2000.
1 – on his first day as acting president, Vladimir Putin left to visit Russian troops in Chechnya.
4 – President Clinton nominates Alan Greenspan to a fourth four year term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
5 – President Clinton decides that Elian Gonzalez, a six year old Cuban boy who survived the capsizing of a refugee boat, should be returned to his father in Cuba.
6 – much of Miami is shut down by hundreds of Cuban-Americans in protest against the Gonzalez decision. – the S.E.C declares that most partners of Price, Waterhouse, Coopers, the world’s largest accounting firm, contravened regulations requiring that they may not hold stock in companies that they audit. Five partners were fired.
7 – Vice Pres. Al Gore back-tracks on his promise to ensure that all new appointees to the Joint Chiefs of Staff were sympathetic to permitting gays to serve openly in the military.
8 – AOL announces a merger with Time Warner for $165 billion: the world’s biggest ever.
11 – the British government rules that General Pinochet is medically unfit to stand trial for suspected crimes against humanity in Chile during his presidency.
13 – executives at the nation’s leading drugs companies say they want to cooperate with Clinton to institute Medicare coverage for prescription drugs this year.
15 – Arkan, the notorious Serbian paramilitary leader was shot dead in a hotel lobby in Belgrade.
18 – Helmut Kohl resigns as honorary Christian Democratic Party chairman over suggestions of sleaze from within the party.
24 – the Supreme Court rules that laws limiting political donations to $1,000 in Missouri are constitutional.
25 – the Congressional Budget Office reports that the flood of tax revenues ensuing from the exceptionally strong economy will last for ten years.
26 – ‘The New York Times’ informs that U.S investigators have unveiled links between a group of Algerians charged with plotting a terrorist strike in the U.S. and Osama Bin Laden, the exiled Saudi accused of bombing two American embassies.
31 – Republican Gov. George Ryan of Illinois halts all executions in the state citing a disgraceful record of convicting innocent people and putting them on death row. – top officials n the C.I.A. are accused of blocking an internal investigation into indications that the agency’s past director, John M. Deutsch, mishandled secret information.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with custom wall calendars If you have an interest in calendars, organizers or promotional calendars, please visit our website now at Promotional Desk Calendars
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