Felton Asylum Haunted House

11/02/2014

It continues to amaze me, how much teardown is involved after one of these displays.

Pull and coil up and clean all the extension cords, tie them up and box them.

Pull, coil, clean and box all the power strips.

Pull all the splitters and other AC outlet adaptors, and stack them all back up in place on the AC Parts shelf (AC column, Adaptors row, yes Im serious. It's necessary.)

Pull and coil all the non-trivial pieces of rope, all back in the Rope/String/Wire shelf.

Pull all the dish clamp lights, coil, and store them in the Bat Cave (cuz they all hang from the rafters, saves floor and shelf space).

Pull, sort, and box all the bulbs (low-power CFLs vs high-power vs the Edison specialty incandescents. At least I dont sort by Kelvin color temp anymore.... oh, you know what, I should do that. The 6500 Kelvins's gel blue better than the 5000Ks which gel red better. Hmm..)

Stack all the milk crate risers.

Stack all the random lumber. (Christ, Im gonna spend a hard afternoon relocating the lumber pile to the cement and sorting them all by general size. Who needs a gym membership when..)

Gotta pull and box the pumpkin patch too, all the plastic pumpkins. OH YOU KNOW WHAT, I could redo the pumpkin patch WITH WHITE PUMPKINS WITH RED ALBINO LIGHTS for Xmas! YES.

And when all of the above is done? Gah, still more to do.

11/02/2014

Looks like the racoons got into the remaining candy in the driveway coffin. I didn't think about that.

Oh they must have been CRACKED OUT last night, I'd have paid to see that.

And today they're sugar-crashed and sick from sugar OD.

Happy Halloween, racoons! Hope you learned your lesson from that little raiding party.

Interestingly, they favored the Whoppers chocolate balls. Hmm.

At least they didnt eat much, most of what was left is still intact. They got 10 or 20 pieces in, and started feeling it. The sugar rush. Heh.

11/01/2014

Some rainy-day afternoon cemetery photography

11/01/2014

$85 in candy burned through in 3 hours, not bad. Plus the 3 new fog machines pwned the entire city block - heh.

The rain broke for us, so trick-or-treating was saved.

I think I'll redecorate the cemetery for Xmas during Nov, and then re-light things on Dec 1st.

10/31/2014

Special driveway scene for the trick-or-treaters tomorrow, if any come during the rain. Just threw it together tonight in about 5 hours, complete with (sorta) rain-proof roof. Sometimes having a scrap lumber and sheet metal collection is damned handy.

The large pile of silk flowers we obtained from SC Memorial cemetery a few weeks ago, will complement this scene quite nicely tomorrow.

And if it does end up raining, Im seriously thinking of going rogue the next day putting up a quick sign along the road that says "STUPID RAIN! TRICK OR TREAT DO-OVER TONIGHT!" and just run an extra day. Dia de la Mu***os and all that, anyway.

10/31/2014

Didnt get any good pics of the grave for our favorite Satan's Little Helper, Erin! So went back and moved it to better light.

10/31/2014

At least the yard looks good.

10/06/2014

Reality has sunk in. Out of self-respect and self-preservation, we're canceling this year.

We got in over our heads, and suffered too many unexpected disappointments. While we've made great progress with sets and props, we're too far behind to make an impressive showing in 2 weeks. We're already severely burned out.

Better to cut our losses now, and start earlier next year. At least everything we've bought and built, will keep.

10/01/2014

The modern world. A portable MP3 player for $4, plus an SD card 2$. Testing it now, works fine. I'll probably buy 10 more now. Screw buying a stack of used CD players at the thrift stores, this is the new way to run massive multi-channel haunt audio now. These and a bunch of amplified PC speakers, cheap and simple.

http://www.everbuying.com/product282013.html

I like this. Do you think I should buy it?

09/18/2014

Elisa Berlin's and Erin Laurel Soule-Albridge's "be nice to us or we'll bury you" department. Zach Ackemann has now been warned.

09/18/2014

The Sanitorium continues coming together. Walls and hardpoints mostly up, cardboard going up to support the wallpaper, floor panels placed but not yet secured.

09/15/2014

(Elisa here again)
The vintage, off-white picture frame that I painted last night. (Likely to pair with Michael Hussar's 'Eye' painting, for one of the rooms in the asylum.)
I just need to do a clear lacquer top coat, and then I'm done with it.