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The Frey Theater - DIY, but better every month (1 Viewer)

FreyTheater

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Joined
Aug 29, 2009
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110
Location
Amish Country - Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
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Troy Frey
POPCORN! My first theater room upgrade of 2011 is a new commercial-grade popcorn machine I purchased from an ad on Craigslist.
It is a $600 Gold Medal model 2085, which had been used only ONE time by the previous owner; I bought it in pristine condition for only $250!
Below, I am getting ready to unload it from my car after picking it up from the seller. Along with the unit, I also got a few popcorn supplies:
A Popcorn Scoop, Corn Measuring Scoop, a box of 350 popcorn bags, a 2 lb. carton of Flavacol salt, and a big 5 pound tub of popcorn:

e4786166_75283.jpg



I setup the popcorn machine next to the snack bar on an old metal cabinet I had out in my workshop. It happened to be
the same width and only 2 inches longer than the base of the machine, so I emptied all the power tools out of it and
brought it into the theater room. The cabinet will do just nicely until I can afford to buy a proper popcorn cart for the machine.

d4cffa44_75284.jpg


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The first batch of hot, fresh popcorn has just been made in the new Frey Theater popcorn machine,
here being served up by my daughter... tasted just like theater popcorn, except I don't have any
butter topping for it yet. A 6 oz popper like this makes the equivalent of about 3 bags of microwave
popcorn, per batch...
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FreyTheater

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Aug 29, 2009
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110
Location
Amish Country - Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Real Name
Troy Frey
DISASTER! THE FREY THEATER IS FLOODED WITH 1"-2" OF WATER FROM TROPICAL STORM LEE, SEPTEMBER 7-8, 2011
On September 7, 2011, tropical storm Lee funneled up the east coast between two strong pressure systems, dumping 9" to 15" of rain in the local area. The Frey Theater was inundated with water across the entire basement floor. The rain water pooled in the back yard against the rear of the house, and then overflowed the foundation. Water could be heard gushing like a waterfall behind the wood paneled wall in the bathroom, which then poured out into the basement overnight and covered the floor with 1" to 2" of clear rainwater. Fortunately, most of the water ran out the basement door into the garage area, where a drain in the middle of the floor drew off most of the water, preventing it from rising any higher than an inch in the theater area. But it didn't take much water to do a huge amount of damage to the theater room - 14 wall panels and all of the wall to wall carpeting were destroyed. Fortunately, all the furniture and theater equipment was spared, because most of it either sits up on rubber feet or is stored in carts or cabinets on wheels, up off the floor. Only a few speakers were sitting directly on the carpet, and those were moved to higher ground right away, and their damp bases dried out without any damage.
Here are a few photos of the flood damage...
2e9561f9_flood1.jpeg

The front of the Frey Theater is seen with the carpet saturated up to and over the top surface. The water started seeping in here on Wednesday night, and I had tried using the shop vac to suck up the excess water. By morning though, it was a lost cause... Fortunately, the purple carpeted stage was specifically built up on 1" dowel rod legs with rubber feet for water protection, so it and the speakers sitting on it did not get damaged.
90e94040_flood2.jpeg

Wet feet! The water here is actually covering my toes, even though you can't really see it.
0091d15a_flood3.jpeg

In the rear of the theater, you can see the shiny surface of the water almost reaching the bottom shelf of the media shelves. The wood paneling on the outer walls is already starting to buckle at the bottom from soaking up water.
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Fortunately, I had stayed up until 2:30 am the night before, moving some of my possessions that were sitting on the floor of the room and inside the basement closets to higher ground.
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The water was deepest inside the bathroom, a good 2 inches. Because the water was strictly from rain runoff, it was very clear, making it hard to see in these photographs. But, the water is plainly visible here flowing over the door sill into the garage. It continued to flow constantly for over 24 hours before it finally stopped on Friday morning. Sweeping the water out the door with a push broom really didn't help much on Thursday while the water was still flowing. The floor drain in the garage saved the theater room from much more damage by keeping the water level from rising many inches higher...
 

Adam Gregorich

What to watch tonight?
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Double ouch. At least you had some notice and were able to move some things out. Was this a 100 year type storm where you just replace what was damaged, or do you need to do some major regrading/drainage work around the foundation to prevent it from happening again? I guess a theater really is never truly done...
 

FreyTheater

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Aug 29, 2009
Messages
110
Location
Amish Country - Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Real Name
Troy Frey
I feel this was a once in 40 year event, at the most... So I'm not too worried about it happening again while I'm still living in the house. But, I have taken some preventative steps construction wise, to make it much easier on me if it does ever flood this bad again... I will post up some more pictures of the reconstruction here very soon, so check back regularly! :)
 

FreyTheater

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Aug 29, 2009
Messages
110
Location
Amish Country - Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Real Name
Troy Frey
FLOOD RECOVERY - Carpet and Wall Damage.
3e286467_flood6.jpeg

By Sunday I had almost all of the carpet and padding pulled up from the floor. Fans and dehumidifiers ran constantly for the next two weeks.
60ae6002_flood7.jpeg

Under the carpet, the concrete floor had 4 layers of paint on it - and the top layers were starting to peel...
1f6bf256_flood8.jpeg

My daughter relaxes comfortably with a good book, as her father slaves away at the destruction...
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Removing all this loose paint on the floor is going to be a real nightmare!
0e541be5_walls2.jpeg

The wooden paneling on the basement walls sucked up the water, and warped severely.
aa36f95b_frontrot.jpeg

The remains of a sill plate board that ran along the floor of the front wall - I cut 1 1/2 inches off the bottom of the wall panels and found the sill plate was so rotted from previous water seepage that the deteriorating wood was as black as charcoal in some places.
5f4210ac_dumpster.jpeg

Rented a small roll-off dumpster, had it dropped off in my driveway on Saturday, and began to fill it up.
 

Brian Dobbs

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Thanks for sharing the pictures. That sucks about the flooding. I'll have to take all of your experiences into consideration when finishing my theater in progress. But looking at your website gave me some motivation to continue working down in the basement knowing someday it'll be done and I can have my own theater parties.
 

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