Month: October 2017

Today is the day and we are nearly ready.

First things first, I need to make all the shop signs. No worries though, I have some old cabinet doors that will do the trick. Just need to cut a custom one for Ollivanders and we are good go go.

Time to revel in what we have created, together.

We had nearly 2700 visitors tonight. Success.

Today was adding a lot of finishing touches, detail painting and interviews. Oh, and it was my Birthday, best birthday ever really.

Both King5 and Komo showed up today for lengthy interviews. Think we are going to have quite a crowd tomorrow.

A gaggle of painter showed up today to get it all done! Sabrina, Cyndy, Adrienne, Bennett, Lukas and Bill all slung paint today.

I put my cracked and sore hands on the decals today. Cramped up a number of times, once right in the middle of an interview question.

Haley’s potions look completely magical.

I stared the day by applying 5 bandaids to my cracked and sore hands, then took a couple of Aleve to help ignore them.

My goal today is to get all this painted and up…

James showed up with the boys and were a huge help today. Along with Chris they put these things up high on the Ollivanders wall.

I managed to get the scissors done before help showed up.

Another long day today and even more help! I love my circle of friends, I love my community, this is an amazing outpouring of help and support.

Bill with more junk from his backyard that was perfect!

He got to finishing up the roof lines today as well.

Michael and Zoe were back and brought their friend Preston. Together they rocked more bricks and we ended up getting it all painted. The kids that showed up painted all the bricks after the base paint was on.

Q13 Fox crew showed up today to shoot and interview. Avery loved it but Haley and Jennifer not so much.

Yesterday April Parrish went home and said she was making all the vinyl lettering for the shops that I was planning on hand painting today. Thank goodness she took over because I wouldn’t have got them done, no way no how. Her and her family showed up late with a box full of goodies and they are freaking perfect!

I capped the day off by getting back to some of the 3d printed effects. I can’t wait to put up the Golden Snitch, it turned out perfect! The wings are 3d printed in NinjaFlex so they are flexible and will flap in the wind a bit.

Ok, this day was completely nuts. I had tons of help, so much that I spent the entire day delegating.

Joe Simpson showed up early and got started on shaping bricks for the wall. Sorry Joe, not the funniest job.

Zoe and Michael showed up in the afternoon to relieve Joe, after his fingers fell off.

The result of all their hard brick making work really paid off. The #diagonalleyproject now has a proper entrance to match how epic this thing is going to be.

The Waddell’s dropped Lucy off and her and Haley got to painting Madam Malkin’s.

There was a lot of brown paint to finish today, so the Miller-Klein’s were the lucky ducks to get that assignment.

And then my Sister Martha showed up with the grand kids and they took over the brown sky bridge painting, with the help of Avery naturally. 🙂

Achim and Bill were all over the place working their magic today.

April & Matt Parish showed up with their girls and got to painting, starting with the remaining purple then moving to the green. Florish & Blotts, Magical Menagerie and Madam Malkins all painted today!

Today is the Whittier Elementary annual fall carnival, so around 5pm we are going to crack open some beers and take a well deserved break. But first, lets get to work!

Wade Ambrose reported for duty today and tackled the remaining items to be painted on Ollivanders.

Wade hit Quality Quittich Supply as well.

Mike Walker dropped the rest of the brackets by today and OMG, these things are amazing. His attention to detail and the curves are brilliant. The funny thing is, he never did this kind of bending before this week and went out and bought a bender specifically for this project. This dude is uber talented!

I was able to finish up the Madam Malkin’s detail piece last night, and got it up today along with the door trim.

Nate dropped the corbels by today, so I put a couple together, sanded, up and ready for paint.

Time to enjoy some beverages and pose for photos.

I have been posting pictures of our little projects progress on social media, and now the list of volunteers is growing.

Adrienne Berman came by excited to get started on a little project we talked about earlier in the week. John Helman cut a bunch of bricks for the project last week and now they are going up!

Cyndy Eng-Dinsel and my neighbor Richard came by to help. Together they slapped a lot of paint on Ollivanders today.

Mike Walker stopped by today and delivered the first sign bracket. Holy cow these are awesome!

I managed to get a couple things done today on the list, Magical Menagerie received all its trim and I slapped together the upper windows for Ollivanders.

It was a shop day for me building a couple things for Madam Malkins, which hasn’t got much love until now. The detail above all the Malkins I have seen are ridiculous, and I tried to capture it the best I could.

Was able to throw together Malkins window frame.

The doors are going to need some realistic looking details, time to print!

Haley put some red paint on Quality Quittich Supplies after school.

I prepped some art for Nate over at Kerf Design who is going to cut a bunch of corbels for me with his massive CNC machine. 🙂

Busy day today!

Today was more trim on some of the shops. Finished up the Ollivanders door trim.

Put up some trim around the Quality Quittich Supply windows.

Went over to Bill’s yard today and grabbed these downspouts that were perfect for Ollivanders. The bottom section was already bent and no modification was needed.

Tim came by today to help out, so I put him to work on the door steps and shop trim. Before he got started I need to draw out some plans on each of the shops he was working on so that I could get down what was in my head so he could have something to go on.

I finished up the Eeylops trim today and Haley got started on paint first thing when she got home from school. We have all been giddy with anticipation to start seeing paint go on.

Bill worked on the sky bridge roof today and that added a lot to the sight line down the alley.

Mike stopped by today to talk about metal sign brackets. He is excited to make some for the project and is going to get started right off, so stoked!

Kurt from Geekwire stopped by this afternoon and dug the project. He is going to come back later in the week for an official interview and some photos.

Today was a great day and the weather is supposed to be amazing all week, so excited. I was able to put up the Ollivanders door and trim it out. I completed a lot of the trim on the Ollivanders turrets.

I found a really cool Hogwarts crest on Thingiverse, printed it, painted it and got it up on Quality Quittich Supplies.

I have been saving all the scrap pieces of 2×3’s and 2×4’s to use on the brick wall entrance. I slapped some on today.

I received and email today from Kurt Schlosser over at Geekwire and he is interested in writing up a piece on this project, how exciting!

Bill and James, along with his son Conor, came to help today. We managed to get a roof on Florish and Blotts as well as some really cool structure to the sky bridge roof. I found these really cool circular columns in Bill’s yard that I salvaged.

I found and printed some really cool lanterns from Thingiverse, these things are perfect!

Tyler, a Celtic soccer coach and now family friend, brought by some goodies from his brothers shop in Ballard, Ballywho Curiosity Shop. These things are going to add so much great character and detail to the #diagonalleyproject!