My Dad always wanted a home theater in his house but he has never had a dedicated space. The only option we had was to use the existing family room. We wanted to keep the room dual-purpose and yet still enjoy the benefits of a truly cinematic experience.

The total room size is 13.5' wide x 23' long x 9' high (no back wall, opens to kitchen, dining room, etc). Flooring is all tile and we have both a side window and a sliding patio door on one wall to deal with. These were solved with some fairly thick curtains. The color scheme was a nice way to keep my Mom involved in the entire process. It also helped alleviate the pain of seeing the massive Epik sub show up at the front door.

The room lent itself to have seating 15' back from the front wall. We decided on a screen in the 110-120" diagonal range. Due to other floor-space contraints, it also had to be acoustically transparent. We accomplished this with an H100 (115" diagonal) electric drop-down screen from Chris Seymour at SeymourAV. The acoustically transparent material allows the speakers to disappear when lowered and provides the theater experience by combining the audio and video into one seamless presentation.

The video side is a ceiling-mounted Panasonic AE2000U projector. After reading some of the discussion on this forum, we covered the bottom vents with static filters from Home Depot. So far we've had no occurrences of dust blobs.

We chose the Jamo D7 THX Ultra2 system because of its ability to be mounted on the wall and take up no floor space. We were definitely challenged in terms of surround placement due to sliding glass doors and the lack of a back wall, but I think we managed fairly well. The front, center, right, and back surrounds are identical D7 LCRs. The sides are D7 SUR dipoles.

There was no shortage of options when it came to choosing a subwoofer. We decided on the Epik Conquest after seeing some of the reviews and results people were getting in their rooms. Chad at Epik has been a pleasure to deal with even when the amp on the Conquest died. He quickly sent out a replacement.

I wanted to run only a single HDMI cable to the projector so we needed an HDMI switching receiver. The Marantz 7002 fit the bill and we didn't need to spend any extra on the 8002 since power was being provided by the Sherbourn external 7-channel amp. At the time (late 2007), the Marantz 8003 preamp was not yet available or we may have gone that route.

The final component of the room is acoustic treatments. We are planning a large rug in front of the seating area as well as some acoustics tiles on the side wall and ceiling. If this was my personal theater, I would probably still keep tweaking, but I think we can officially call this room complete after these treatments.

It took about 6 weeks in late 2007 to plan and source all of the components. I did all of this remotely as I live in the Bay Area and my Dad lives in Orange County (about 400 miles away). Installation and calibration took place over a long weekend in early 2008. We are both very proud of the result and I'm sure he will enjoy this system for many years.

Equipment List:
Video
Panasonic AE2000U Projector
SeymourAV H100 115" Diagonal Acoustically Transparent Screen
Panasonic DMP-BD30K Blu-ray Player
Toshiba HD-XA2 HD DVD Player
Motorola DCH3416 DVR with Cox Cable

Audio
Marantz SR7002 as Preamp
Sherbourn 7/2100 Amplifier
Jamo D7LCR (5) and D7SUR (2) THX Ultra2 Speakers
Epik Conquest Subwoofer

Cabling/Misc.
Blue Jeans Cable Series-1 Belden 50' HDMI Cable
Speaker cable and interconnects from MonoPrice
Harmony 890 Universal RF Remote

Pictures:

http://www.benzandbeamer.com/~vishal/images/tustin_ht/theater_01.jpg

http://www.benzandbeamer.com/~vishal/images/tustin_ht/theater_02.jpg

http://www.benzandbeamer.com/~vishal/images/tustin_ht/theater_03.jpg

http://www.benzandbeamer.com/~vishal/images/tustin_ht/theater_04.jpg

http://www.benzandbeamer.com/~vishal/images/tustin_ht/theater_05.jpg

http://www.benzandbeamer.com/~vishal/images/tustin_ht/theater_06.jpg

http://www.benzandbeamer.com/~vishal/images/tustin_ht/theater_07.jpg

http://www.benzandbeamer.com/~vishal/images/tustin_ht/theater_08.jpg

http://www.benzandbeamer.com/~vishal/images/tustin_ht/theater_09.jpg

http://www.benzandbeamer.com/~vishal/images/tustin_ht/theater_10.jpg

http://www.benzandbeamer.com/~vishal/images/tustin_ht/theater_11.jpg

Very nice! I love the clean look and great equipment.

I'm a fellow Sherbourn 7/2100A owner!

The big question is: what does Dad think?

Thanks for the compliments! My Dad absolutely loves it, I think it exceeded his wildest expectations. The best part is that my Mom might love it just as much as he does now ;)

They are having a great time with it and are the envy of all of their friends.

Wouldn't have thought that the particular shade of green would've worked, but it all looks really sharp!