See trials

OK, so there’s no screen to see, but I am throwing some light around testing bar ideas!

Spent a couple of hours down in the basement today.  I put on some more of the wood accents, got rid of all the empty slate boxes that were piled up in the corner of the bar, swept the floor, and cleaned up the crap collecting on the bar, and brainstormed.

First up was the wood accents.  The one I’d put up as a test was starting to pull away from the wood.  Apparently the peel and stick ’tile’ is more effective when it’s used on a highly clean (and probably treated) surface instead of the wood I’m slapping it onto.  I put a little bit of the adhesive I’ve been using on the slate on them for extra grab, here’s hoping it works better.

While I was doing the stick-em-up game, a couple of pieces of slate popped off the bar, and I was not amused.  It was then that I realized the rookie mistake when dealing with slate.  I was mindful enough to dust off the backs before gluing them up, but it would seem more wise to WASH the backs off so the adhesive isn’t sticking to a layer of dust. 🙂

I went around and tugged on pretty much all of the tiles, no others came off.  I’m sure they’ll all hold tight… until there’s a room full of people bumping up against them all.  Perhaps I should get an “In Case of Emergency” case with a caulk gun in it ready to go… 😉

At that point it was getting on my nerves to see all the clutter around the room, so I did some cleanup.  While cleaning I had the thought for a mockup of the light boxes.  I went and dug up the two rope lights that were used on the porch pillars for Christmas and routed them in W patterns in a couple of the light boxes.  Then I took some leftover vapor barrier folded over 4 times or so to give a good milky opaque effect and tucked it up in front of the boxes.  While what we end up using will have some color to it like a stained glass, my goal was to see if one would be able to see the light bulbs from the source in the boxes.  Much to my dismay, you can.

Not sure if I want to stick with this idea or try other options.  The brightness is pretty much what I want.  I could paint the insides of the boxes white for reflectivity and build a lip on the front edges and put the rope behind it but I think the centers will be dim.  I could leave the plastic in there to help difuse the light more and put the tinted lexan up and run with it.  It’s just going to take some tinkering I think.

Let the pics speak!

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