Haunted house update

Things are going pretty well at the haunted house. I'd say that 90% of it is finished. There's a lot of last minute detail work to be done, but most of the hard work is out of the way and the fun will be beginning on Friday.

I've been working hard on the pneumatic props. They are working nicely as always... I am a bit tired and wonder about my decision to build an entire haunt with 6 pneumatic props from scratch in 4 weeks... This Friday is opening night. We meet and work with the actors early Friday and then open at dusk on Friday night.

A lot has changed in the past week. The haunt construction is done, painting is almost done and props and the various fun scares have been finding their places in the dark hallways of the haunt.

I am still sick... I've had a bad cold for about 4 days now and today was pretty much the worst I've felt so far. Unfortunately, we open on Friday whether I am feeling good or not. As they say "the show must go on".

I spent the day wiring, cutting holes in closet doors and working on lighting. The only major piece that has yet to be dealt with is the sound system. The original plan was to use a bunch of car stereos that we have on hand, but wiring has turned out to be a serious pain in the butt and I am running out of energy. The last thing I feel like doing is wiring up 7 car stereos all running different soundtracks over 14 speakers spread throughout the haunt... If I was feeling better I would just do it, but being sick has drained the ambition out of me the past few days. Not to mention that I have only burned CDs for 3 of the areas and I'm having trouble locating some of the sounds I need for the remainder of the haunt. What do scary bugs sound like anyway?

Hopefully tomorrow I will have more energy to tackle the last of the projects that need to be done before we open. I only have 2 days left to get the critical stuff done.

The remote controls and cameras for the haunt have not show up yet. They were supposed to arrive on Tuesday, but so far nothing... I may have to hard wire the pop-ups so that the actors can activate them from their hiding places with switches. That adds a few more hours to the work that I already have in front of me, but I have all of the parts. I bought manual switches "just in case" a week ago...

A Haunting we will go...

I am really tired again today. I worked on the haunted house and sprayed 7 gallons of flat black paint throughout the very cramped and hard to ventilate maze portion of the haunt... I don't feel all that great and every time I blow my nose, black goo comes out. My fault for picking the wrong direction to paint the hallways - against the natural flow of the wind. I got almost as much paint as the walls and I'm pretty sure all of the fumes.

One of my pneumatic props sits in a closet waiting to be finished.

Tonight I am enjoying a few beers. A reward of sorts for working hard today. Tomorrow I go back to the haunt to work in the areas that I painted today. I have a lot of pneumatic props to install and automate before this next weekend. There's wiring for sound and electricity and air hose that all need to be run to the various corners and hidden portions of the haunt.

Thankfully almost all of the construction is done. The walls & doors and secret areas of the haunt are in place and either painted or ready to paint in the next few days. I am sick of hanging doors...

In the middle of the haunt there is an oddly shaped room that has 14 doors. Some of the doors will have surprises behind them. One of the doors leads to the 2nd half of the haunt. I doubt that most people will guess which is the right door without hitting a few surprises first.

October is here

For those of you that know me you know what October means - Halloween!

I am working on a haunted house here in Minnesota. I have lots of pictures and things to describe, but tonight I am too tired to share - so tomorrow night I will post some pictures and try to be more giving about the party to come...