Smarter Home Updates

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Happy 2020 to everyone!! Ty and I pray this year will be full of blessings for your family!!


This post is delayed, for that I am sorry. Without further ado, here it is.

I remember when Ty and I were first married we updated some lighting in our first home and installed ceiling fans...with remotes! In our current home our bedroom fan/light has a remote and it's so handy.  Recently I had been looking into smarter home solutions and such.  I'm super excited to have light switches on our main floor that connect to our wifi and I can turn lights on and off from my phone. Even when I'm not home! We scored our first set of dimmable switches from a local store and paid only $5 for the set of 4 switches! Yay! We purchased more switches from the major online store with 2 day shipping that do not dim for our kitchen and front porch light.  Ty was able to install all the switches himself, and no, I didn't get any photos of that to share. 

For our family's Christmas gift we decided to make a few updates to what we already had going in our living room as far as our media set up is concerned.  Our Epson projector was going on 5 years old and our screen didn't want to cooperate easy enough for me to use it without Ty's help. So....We decided to upgrade our projector to a newer Epson 4k projector and purchase a motorized screen.  The projector was a deal through Epson and the screen was a after Thanksgiving warehouse deal from previously mentioned online store.   I am excited to say we can now with the push of 1 button and turn on the projector and then the screen comes down at the same time.  When we turn off the projector the screen automatically retracts and everything is out of sight.  We did have to replace the grate we have on the wall covering the hole for the projector and get a plastic one so the IR sensors worked properly.  We also had to expand the cabinet opening and hole in the wall to accommodate the new projector's size.






Making room for the new projector.
Ty expanding the opening for the projector
Projector is in place tucked up in the wall in my bedroom!

Projector hidden behind the grate and holes will be filled and pained soon!


The New Screen Has Arrived!


The other thing we also purchased is a motorized shade for our skylight!! This has been so helpful when watching movies on Saturday afternoons with the family.  We love the sunshine coming through the skylight most of the time so we didn't want it to always be covered.  This option seemed to be the best option.  Ty and I also opted for a solar charger for the shade so we wouldn't have to get it down and charge the battery every 6 months.  We had to borrow a ladder to reach the skylight as it was so this was just more convenient.


The skylight before the shade.
Ty installing the new shade

Voila! Installed!

Shade opening

Shade totally open

 I am very happy with these upgrades and hope this all works for many years.  I love having the ability to watch movies in the living room but also have it all tuck away so we have no intrusive televisions or other electronics in view. It also makes decorating easier!!



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