“Down Under Theater and Bar”-Now under construction.

Just joined today, however been reading on this site over the past several months preparing for the pain of finishing but eventual enjoyment of my basement. A little history, I have always been a home theater fan however never had the space. I was able to take advantage of a foreclosed home that will not only give me the space but a clean slate in the basement. The home was new and previous owner did not invest in landscaping so my system budget was burned up this past spring with about 50 shrubs!!......trying to recover (without help from the stock markets)..lol Bellow is a quick hit list of the initial plan….

1st-Need to complete pool table room (pool table is broke down but sitting in the eventual HT)
2nd-Bar and Poker room- considering I have sat and looked at ceilings, plumbing electrical wiring for hours on end….mind as well have a cold one in my hand
3rd-HT-furniture and system will be on budget
4th- office and bathroom

I plan on Powering system with Denon equipment as I have always had good look including a current system upstairs on 67” HD rear project. I will be gathing info on front projectors soon. Please see list of questions bellow and give feedback…

Here are the initial shots of the New Man Cave!

Here are some initial questions:

1) How do I get the pictures to show up in the message vs. as attachements?

2) Looking for a 3 or 4 zone light controller...preferably with memory. I have looked at some of Graphic Eye products but out of my budget so ...some a little cheaper.

3) Please foward me the link to the best discription of calculating veiwing distance from projection screen. Not having experience with projectors, what is the optimum height from floor of projector.

Thanks all and I will keep ya posted on progress. And thanks for the other great ideas on this site. Some of the theaters are KILLER.

4)

Ahh, the clean slab. Many on here will provide you with some great advice and even better "from the trench" hard learned experience. Take your time and plan, plan, plan! Then be prepared for that plan to get messed up and then alter that plan to a new plan, which will be modified later ;).

To answer some questions for you:

1.) To be able to post pics embedded in your posts you have to have a certain number of posts under your belt. I believe though it's a small number, ten or less. Once you reach that number you can click on the little picture frame icon (it has a mountain on it) and enter the web address of your pic.

2.) Have you looked at the Lutron Spacer system? It is a cheaper alternative to a Graffic Eye for a small number of lighting zones.

3.) To be able to calculate optimal throw/seating distance for a projector you will need to know a couple things. How much control of light pollution will you have? Roughly what screen size do you think you might want (the bigger the screen size the farther back you must sit, otherwise your eyes fatigue quickly. Generally you want to have your viewing distance to be 1.5 times your diagonal screen distance). Having an idea of what PJ you might want be simplify things also.

If you go to projectorcentral.com and look down the left hand column (towards the bottom) there is a thing called "Projector Calculator Pro". Follow the instructions with this and it will guide you to seating distance, etc. Most modern PJ's have a fair amount of vertical shift in them nowadays. Most still advocate having your PJ lens to be at about the level of the top of the screen frame (some say higher, few say lower). You will want your eyes (when seated) to be looking straight ahead at the screen about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom. This gives you an idea of how high to mount the screen from the floor.

There is a free program from Google called Sketch-Up. I have not personally used it but it allows you to get a rough rendering of how your theater will look.

What dimensions are you looking at there? Run the pool table into the drywall did ya (i.e, to make that hole in the wall)?

When looking for equipment shop around and be sure to tap the resource of AVS for vendor names. Especially for cables (monoprice.com, bluejeanscable.com, etc). Can save you a lot of money on the "little things".

Three last bits of advice:
1.) Read the "What I would do differently next time (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=855958)" thread in the dedicated theater forum. It will bring up some things you might not of thought of.

2.) Don't mention to your spouse, significant other how much things for the theater cost. They will not generally understand and may gawk at the costs for some of these things.

3.) Be prepared to work hard, laugh, cry, and bleed (literally...at least once). It WILL be worth it in the end. If there is an end. Most of us are still working on our theaters.


Have at it my man!

To give you something as a comparison I took my clean slab from this...

http://drivinghamster.smugmug.com/photos/133567046_znNQw-L.jpg

to this...
http://drivinghamster.smugmug.com/photos/367862948_LTGUr-L.jpg

Just thought I would share. Be sure to take lots of pics along the way!!!

Thanks for the info.

Noticed the hole in the wall.........actually it was during some of the demo stage. For some reason the builder had completely enclosed the staircase.......that is where I took a look to see what was under the stairs....the following picture is when I decide the heck with wasting that much space and took down some drywall.

By my initial plan.....the hole is the future home of the rack!

Welcome.

You can also sign up for a free photo bucket account and copy the image tags into your post. I think you only need 5 posts to post a picture.

Anyway... Driving_Hamster is right on. Plan, plan, and plan some more and read the "What I would do differently next time thread".

Find a way (soon) to post a floor plan. It makes it much easier for us to get a grasp on what you are working with. I just drew it out on paper and took a close up picture. Many use computer software but a drawing does the trick. Try to incorporate the rough dimentions. When you get the photo thing worked out, you can "Edit" your first post to include the floor plan picture so it is right on top and anyone that reads later will see it first thing.

"Edit"... we were typing at the same time. Now I see your floor plan.

Looks like one of your projects will be to get rid of the heating trunk line acorss the middle of your theater. Pop the trunk up into one of the cavitites and the move the take offs to either side of the room so you can have soffits and a high center ceiling. Water lines could be moved to the side as well.

Lots of the initials stuff can be done with little budget so, plan, plan, plan, and get started.:D

Again, welcome and good luck on your journey.

In picture 6 it looks like that duct could easily be moved against the beam and included in a soffit enclosing both. That would give you more head room in that space.

I think I would try some alternatives in that 1/2 bath you've designed. You are really wasting a lot of space for just a toilet and sink.

Think about making a basic squarish room up front and giving your self a much bigger storage area at the back. Or moving the bathroom to the back and incorporating the front space in the adjacent area.

As I look at it you can actually come up with a 9 x 8 room at the back if you need a small little office or store room.

I agree…..Duct in pic 6 is going over. The challenge is all of the duck work in the theater room (of course it is running perpendicular to the floor joist.)….The helper (my father) advises "put a drop ceiling in the theater"…..I have not given into that Idea yet as a room with 9 ½’ ceilings vs. 8’ would look much better. I have thought of a ceiling design which I would leave the main but move the secondary duct works to the sides. I have added an initial sketch. With this I would make it look more like two tray ceilings vs. soffets. I would then add cove and rope lights around each area for ambient lighting. Open for thoughts on this idea?????..Think 1 room with two “trayed” areas will look good??..this will take some serious planning due the location of the projector. I just cant see moving the main furnace duct as feasible.

As for the bathroom and bedroom on end…….it is very preliminary at this point. What you can’t see on the plan is the sump in the lower right comer behind sink. I also want to get a garden tub in that bath….don’t know yet so that room is becoming a work shop and material storage until the final step. I have a feeling that bathroom is going to be a major expense. Another challenge…..I can't get anything (furniture) down the steps due to the tight set-up at the top of the stairs….(I will post a picture of that later) so everything has to come thru the window in that room…..what was I thinking….or better yet…the builder thinking?? First house with a basement and have added that to my list of “things to look for when buying a house”! Again…fitting a big tub thru that window might not be able to happen.

More questions to come I am sure…..off to the local Menards for duct work….gotta take advantage of the 9 1/2’ available ceiling space!

Thanks.

p.s. Killer basement Driving_Hamster

I agree you want to go for as much height in the room as you can. I'm not a big fan of drop ceilings. Your plan looks like it could work.

Can you post a pic of the entire ceiling for the theater space? I'm a little lost looking at the pics and thinking ceiling. Is pic 6 the screen wall? If yes, stand back to the screen wall and snap a pic so we can see the ductwork that bisects the room.

If not, point me in the right direction.

Thanks for posting the layout. I agree with BigMouthInDC though about the bathroom. My consideration is instead of making it rectangular like that to perhaps make it square in shape, thus taking up the tail end of the nook. You can always build a little bump out of a wall around the H2O heater/furnace if you need more room around them.

Just a little design tip I learned some years ago regarding bathrooms. If you can help it, you want to avoid having the toilet in direct line of view of someone standing outside the door to the bathroom. Stated another way try to avoid putting the toilet directly in front of the door. Sometimes it is unavoidable but here you could just move the door so it is across from the sink. Food for thought.

As far as drop ceilings, I think they have their place. My basement has some drywall and some drop ceiling. If you look above my theater you can see that I too enjoy a visually interesting ceiling:
http://drivinghamster.smugmug.com/photos/303737662_KiApA-L-1.jpg

This is an 18.5 foot long barrel vaulted ceiling. Two tray ceilings would also look good I think. Perhaps you can mount the PJ into the rear tray someplace? (here goes the budget suggestion...) Ever think about making the ceiling portions of the trays a fiberoptic star field? There are some here on AVS that have done it and I think it looks sharp.

I'd redo the HVAC and keep the ceiling height.

For picture 009 ductwork, I'd Y the square ductwork once it enters the theater area. This ductwork would then run along the wall to the front and the rear and be hidden in a soffit. Round top takeoffs would then be run in the joist cavity to the existing vents.

Progress.....

1) studs up in pool table room, bar and poker room and most of the theater room with the exception of the area of future plumbing to the bar.

2) I did not like the stairwell like it was so I opened it up slightly. This will serve three purposes, a....see around each corner when coming down the stairs, b.....direct line of sight to the pool table from bar and c.....a little daylight thru the future French doors in the pool table room from the window in the bed/office.

3) Pool table room is ready for insulation. Can lights installed and wired, outlets placed and wired. Soffit up. I put the recessed lights on a dimmer with a three way set-up on both ends. Florescent lights will be coming down when drywall goes up and a pool table light added over the table on separate non-dimming switch. Insulation is going up this weekend.

More to come as progress moves forward......

oh yeah......moved the ductwork in the theater room.....before/after picture shows that progress.......helper wont like it but.....too bad.

I also wired 110 and extra AV box high on end wall of pool table room for future flat panel TV. Thinking about in-wall speakers in this room so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated..........gotta go...hot date tomorrow night....she wont want to hang drywall although I hope she pounds nails so I better get some sleep!

laters!

Need input:

As I stated in the initial post...I need to get the pool table out of the HT to get started on HT. So.....I am almost ready for rock in the pool room but have run across an interesting delima...

I put a 2 gang box up high on wall for future flat screen tv. I have 110 in the box and am considering what AV cables to put to this tv. It is a very short run (outside wall of closet that will house the future HT rack). 6ft. max to get across to rack. However it will be closed off after rock goes up. This is for future use (watching games ect.) while playing pool. So here are the questions.

a) do I keep it in the 2 gang box with power or segregate to prevent any interference? If I keep them together what wall plate options are there?

b) do I run CAT5 cable to this box and use converter in the future for whatever cable I may end up using?

c) run HDMI, standard cable (again general sports tv ect. although probably watch in HD), 5 RGB cables????

Any advise would be greatly appreciated. I know it will probably spin off 100 different questions on what equipment I will be using but I am not to that point. I do know I will be using a Denon reciever in the HT with about all video switch capabilities, along with HD cable box.

Not that I have done it but here is an idea...
How about putting up a second box, run some conduit to it from the Rack room, and string a fish line through it for now. When the drywall is finished you can cover that box with a blank plate and then put whatever you want in there when you decide to put a TV there.

Rick

Fish line.....what a thought!!! Fish line it is....

By the way....fishing boat for sale to finance HT..lol.....and I am not kidding. Picture attached!

Probably ought to make sure that you use some conduit in there so that it's easier to fish stuff through when the time comes. Also, make sure that your fish line is strong enough and won't degrade over time. Don't use twine or anything like that, but some decent heavy string should work just fine.

I agree with the conduit. However, if you're going to pre-wire for a TV immediately, I wouldn't clog the conduit with wires that could potentially be dated when you need to upgrade. Run your current stuff outside of the conduit and leave the conduit open for future expansion.

If I were putting a TV up, I'd have a single box for electrical and a seperate double for AV. At a minimum, run coax, optical, component and HDMI. Considering how inexpensive Cat5/6 is, I'd have a least 1 drop to the box. You never know what you might need it for down the road and it's probably one of the most versatile wires out there.