It has taken me one year, but I finally decided to tackle my first handyman project around the house: the built-in home theater system. For a few months, I have been thinking about doing this. I even called a local A/V company to come over and give me a quote on how much it would cost. While it was not astronomical by any means, I wondered if it was really worth $600 to pay somebody to do what I considered a relatively easy job. After doing some research online, I finally decided to tackle the project. Did I mention that I started this a few days before leaving for Nigeria? Anyway, I learned a few things along the way.

Look out for studs. Otherwise, you end up cutting a second hole.

Learned that wall plates are nailed to studs. I initially thought that they were *magically* suspended, so I drew a circle around the wall plate rather than on one side of the wall plate.

A Little Giant ladder is the way to go

Pre-mess photo

Diane never complained about my mess

My pathetic attempt to keep dust off the furniture

Lived like this for a one or two nights

In the end, I installed 4 speakers in the ceiling, bought a new amp, a new subwoofer, and am still currently borrowing my friend’s center channel speaker. Once I save a little money, I’ll buy a center channel speaker and install additional speakers in the office and master bedroom. This past weekend, we watched LOTR and The Blind Side–both excellent movies.