Things have changed since I first posted.
UPDATE: Builder used soffit to frame around the HVAC and it results in a drop in ceiling height of 1ft for ~5.5 ft -- the entire length of the basement! It completely wrecked my plans for this room. I have no idea what to do now. I had (finally) settled on just turning the entire room into a HT and going full out w/painting ceilings etc. but this blindsided me.

Please see these pics. What can be done here? The PJ I'm looking at won't throw anything larger than 77" from 10 ft back. I really only want to do it if I can get a 100"+ pic.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v220/nissand/HC12003.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v220/nissand/HC12001.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v220/nissand/HC12002.jpg

http://xs225.xs.to/xs225/08133/basement689.png.xs.jpg (http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs225&d=08133&f=basement689.png)

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Well, for the living room, I'd put the TV location at the bottom of the blueprint (or in the corner there), or maybe put it right in the middle of the long wall depending on how you want your furniture arranged. I'm a big proponent of 7.1, but generally 5.1 is fine for a living room, especially if you'll have a HT for the majority of movie watching (which will be 7.1). Since the house isn't even built yet, I wouldn't worry about hiding wired. Just figure out where you'll want the speaker locations and have the builder pre-wire to those spots. If you're unsure, you could even wire 2 different sets of locations.

The basement is plenty big enough for a dedicated HT (24 X 21, correct?). You could do many things down there. For example, my theater is 20 X 12.5, has a 126" screen, 7.1 sound and two rows of seating. In your space, you could make 2 rooms if you wanted. The theater that's 21 X 14 (for example) and another room for work out equipment that's 21X10.
If you don't want 2 seperate rooms, just put the screen on the right wall toward the top (in the diagram), place your seating at the 14' and 20' back marks - about 14 feet wide, and have the exercise equipment or ping pong table toward the bottom (near the stairs). The problem you'll run into with this set up is where to place the side speakers. You could build a column in the middle of the room to hold the one side speaker without a wall, or build a partial wall (extends half-way into the room) or use ceiling speakers. If going the ceiling speaker route, you'll just need to make sure your builder runs the wires for you.

Why won't you be able to paint anything black? Isn't it your house? You don't have to paint everything black, but I'd recommend at least painting the ceiling black (or gray or milano blue) and the front wall where the screen will go.

Thanks for your suggestions Stew. I'm going to end up putting the TV on the wall in betw. the two windows so that the room won't look too broken up (TV on one end, fireplace on the other). This way I think guests will be able to enjoy both.

As for the basement, I am leaning towards splitting it up into 2 rooms by using furniture only. I'm thinking about putting the screen on the long wall in the very back of the basement with seating 14-15' away to create some sort of separation. While it won't, aesthetically, be the best option, I don't want to build any walls myself and the builder has already passed the drywall stage.

Is there anything out there to create a clean partition..like "fake" walls you can install or sliding partitions? If I can separate it somehow, then it would look ok to paint the ceiling black. I just think it would look weird to only have half the ceiling painted back (the "theater" area only).

Well, you could try to use a black curtain on a rod that can be slid open or closed.

Other than that, you could also just paint a strip of the ceiling (about 4' deep) that's right above the screen (or put black fabric there), so that you won't get any reflections from the PJ without painting the whole ceiling black.

Depending on your ceiling height, you could also build a soffit above the screen (box) and maybe additional ones on the sides to frame the screen in. This could all be painted black. Look at the attachment in the first post in THIS THREAD (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=973041). You could do something like that and just extend the top out a bit further.

It's all about compromises. If you can't paint the ceiling black at all, it won't be the end of the world, but I'd at least try to make the screen wall black.

So, just when I had settled on just turning the entire room into a dedicated HT, I stopped by the house last weekend and wasn't happy. The builder had to frame around the HVAC ducts and this results in a 1ft drop in ceiling height (to 7ft) for 5.5ft of the entire length of the basement. Please see first post for update & pics. Any ideas?

The only thing I can come up w/is mounting the PJ on the soffit which will reduce the ceiling height for that portion to around 6.5ft and projecting it onto the wall opposite the window. Now, no one in my friends/fam is over 6ft tall, but it still would be a little distracting to have it right near our heads.

Can you re-do the blueprint to show where that drop is?

I'm having a hard time picturing the space now?


Also, I don't understand why your builder had to do that and you didn't know? Was it in the initial plans? What did the builder say about it? When I built my house, I was there (or my wife was) almost every day and knew about every nail and screw before they were even used.

Stew, thanks for sticking w/the thread! Here's the blueprint showing where the drop is http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v220/nissand/basement689-1.jpg (black area = portion of space which has 7ft ceiling, rest = 8 ft).

The builder isn't doing it as a "custom" because the home's in one of their "communities" and they pretty much build all the homes in it the same way (though, for 95% of them, they haven't done a finished basement). It wasn't in any plans but, admittedly, I didn't go through everything with a careful look. The builder said it was unavoidable and it's how they have it in one of their model homes too. I didn't realize that until they pointed it out to me after I brought it up. Part of the problem is the home is out of state & I don't have much time to go out there even on wknds.

I'm considering using a LCD PJ which I've read allows for more placement flexibility. I could do it so it's off-center..but I'm still not seeing how this is gonna work properly?

Can you please detail the question????

Large space, lots of ways to go here with where you would mount the screen and place the seating... 7' is still plenty high for a cieling.

Lens shift on the LCD projectors works very well. You just make sure the image is square then shift it right on the screen.