Well it’s been a few weeks since our Pozible Campaign ended with a total of $3,860.00 in pledges and, amongst being a little bit blown away that people actually believe in Darkness that much, we’ve been hard at work getting the dang thing finished.
As of this evening the first coat of paint has gone on the large darkroom, two of the outside walls are clad, the first safelight has been hung from the roof (then we flicked it on and off a few times like giddy schoolchildren), and we all have plaster dust in our hair.
What do we have left to do? The biggest job left is hanging our ventilation system, which we’ll be tackling this week. Once that’s all in we can really call it a darkroom, and then start putting the finishing touches on by fitting out benches and plugging any last light leaks. The power is in, the water is connected, and it’s really very dark inside when you turn the lights off.
So, you pledged your good money, what has it gone to? All up our Electrician and Plumber came in at a total of $2,000, with another $1,000 in Pine and Gyprock to build the walls. The rest has gone to plaster, stud adhesive, dynabolts, nails, screws, the-surprising-number-of-bits-you-need-to-install-a-door, as well as gap filler, expansion foam and the 4% taken out as Pozible’s fees. All in all we have stayed pretty on budget, with no new massive surprises.
We’ve also been tremendously lucky to have had Ductware donate all of the pieces we need to build our ventilation system. Their support means we can be completely confident that our darkroom will be safe to work in no matter what process you are using.
Thanks are also massively due to Andrew Dearman as well, who has pitched in an absurd amount of his free time in building and just generally doing whatever needs doing. The Lab wouldn’t be nearly as close to being finished without the hundreds of hours he has been there with us, and we definitely wouldnt be in such high spirits.
More pictures to follow, but we are definitely in the home stretch. If you pledged your support, rest assured your rewards are on their way and we’d love to have you come hang out and see the thing you helped make.
Finally, here’s that video of Andrew and Aurelia High-Fiving out the front of the recently-finished front wall again.