I will begin transitioning a large room in my house to a Home Theater room shortly. Right now I'm still in the research stage. I pretty much have a projector, screen, seating, and HTPC setup picked out.

The room is fairly good size, measuring 25ft long by 20ft wide with 10ft ceilings.

The major problem I have is painting the walls. The room will be almost completely light controlled, and I don't want white walls to ruin it. I've done some research on the subject lately and the options I found go like this:

1) Paint the walls (cheap, big no no, won't happen).
2) Hang curtains to the ceiling on every wall (not sure about price).
3) Use Fabricmate tracks to hang fabric on every wall (very expensive, won't happen).
4) Lay carpet ceiling to floor on every wall (could be done for around $1500).

What other options are out there? I know this can't be everything.

Has anyone used the curtain method before? I can't really find much on this. Is carpet a bad idea? How can I lay carpet on the walls and still be able to remove it in the future?

Thanks in advance!!!

5. Use paint and acoustic panels. Not to expensive, looks good and it works well.

Dark walls without painting?

There is no way in hell I'm painting a 20x25 room with 10ft ceilings in a rental home. My own home sure. We plan to be in this house for 1-2 years until we have our custom home built.;)

If you have total light control, the white walls will disappear when the lights are down. Even some black drapes in the screen wall will make your contrast pop from a projected image. I did this in my last theater by simply attaching a 4x3/4 wood strip along the ceiling with velcro attached to it, then have some black velvet drapes stitched with velcro along the top. You could approach your landlord and offer to share the cost of painting the room and then try to agree on a darker color that both of you like. If you are considering curtains or carpet, paint may be simpler in the end. I wouldnt count on having the ideal theater space in a rental unit, and if you do it will be harder to leave later. :)

I thought that white walls were bad on the surrounding walls. Are you saying the surrouding white walls won't bounce light and draw attention away from the screen? If this is the case, since I would have white walls with a black screen wall, would I go for a gray or white screen?

I'm not painting the room. I'm not looking for ideal, I realize that won't happen in a rental. But I would like to get as close as possible and still have a good theater experience.

Seriously, you are contemplating hanging carpet on the walls, but you are turned off by a weekend of painting or just dealing with the slight added brightness of white walls for 2 years?

3 gallons of paint will run you about $75 to $100. 2 coats on a 25x20x10 room can easily be painted in a weekend. We did a 25x15x10 room and two walls of the kitchen in a weekend.

-Suntan

Seriously, you are contemplating hanging carpet on the walls, but you are turned off by a weekend of painting or just dealing with the slight added brightness of white walls for 2 years?

3 gallons of paint will run you about $75 to $100. 2 coats on a 25x20x10 room can easily be painted in a weekend. We did a 25x15x10 room and two walls of the kitchen in a weekend.

-Suntan

Painting the walls black doesn't bother me one bit. It's painting them from black BACK to white when we move that bothers me.

How slight is the added brightness from white walls? If it's really that minimal, I might not have to do anything, which would be ok too.

You don't need to paint the walls black. It's not a pass/fail situation where anything other than complete black will result in bright reflections. A dark brown or even a dark navy color can be both aesthetically pleasing when the lights are on and "dark" when the movie is playing.

And even if you did have to re-prime and repaint the walls a "light" color when you move, I would submit that two weekends of painting would still be quicker and cheaper than hanging carpet on all the walls, then tearing it back down.

-Suntan

Suntan hit the nail on the head. Painting will be cheaper in the end, even adding in the cost of hiring a professional to restore the black or dark colored walls back to a light color in two years.

A middle ground would be to "darken" the screen wall and several feet on the ceiling and side walls that surround the screen. In this alternative you would have the light reflections surrounding the screen tamed. Perfection...no, but I think a middle ground.

I would seriously consider taking some paint color sample cards to the landlord and asking them if any of the colors would be acceptable for permanent application.

I don't imagine something like a medium flat mocha color turning off future renters.

If future touch-ups are a stumbling block to the negotiations, consider offering to buy a 5 gallon bucket of whatever paint goes on the wall, and leave the extra 2 gallons for the owner after you vacate.

I have a medium tan in my living room, and it reflects much less light from the TV than the white ceiling does.

Rob

Yea, I guess you guys have convinced me... my wife will be talking to the management company today to see if our favorite dark mocha color would be acceptable as a permanent color.

Side Note: Does anyone know a good place to pick up some 120" blackout curtains? I've looked all over locally and cant find anything longer than 108". :(

Silly question: Why do you need 120" (100% floor to ceiling) blackout curtains? For a window? Does the window go all the way floor to ceiling? For the front wall? Either way, not covering 12" of the wall (or less) should not be a problem, asthetically or practically.

Good luck!

Oh, and I agree with the paint notion mentioned. If $1500 for carpet didn't turn you off, if you look around it shouldn't cost more than $400-$500 to have it painted - $800-$1000 to have it painted and painted back. If the labor involved is less of an issue, it's obviously less expensive (or just have someone else paint it back to the original lighter color). Some of this is moot if the landlord is OK with your paint color choice.

Best,
Christopher

Silly question: Why do you need 120" (100% floor to ceiling) blackout curtains? For a window? Does the window go all the way floor to ceiling? For the front wall? Either way, not covering 12" of the wall (or less) should not be a problem, asthetically or practically.

Not a silly question at all. The major reason for the 120" curtains is WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor). She wants the curtains to go to the floor. The windows start about 8" from the ceiling and go down to about 3' from the ground, so they are fairly large.

In short, if I can spend $5k-$6k on my home theater room and all she requires are 120" curtains, then I consider myself one hell of a lucky guy.

Fair enough. I know all about WAF. My tradeoff is I can do whatever I want with the theater room, and she gets to do whatever she wants with the rest of the house - her idea. :^)

Back on topic: www.blackoutcurtains.com

They note they make the curtains 24-84" wide, and up to 156" long.

If that's too pricy/not your style, do a google search for "120" length blackout curtains". That's how I got to that site, and I'm sure there are other options out there.

Best,
Christopher

Another thing. You don’t need 120” blackout curtains. You just need blackout curtains that fit your window and then 120” regular curtains that slide closed in front of them. It’s an option.

Optionally, you can get blackout fabric that is designed to be sewn into regular curtain fabric from fabric stores like JoAnn’s. I believe it comes on the bolt and they can cut it to any length you need.

-Suntan

Those are both good ideas. I was trying to avoid shopping online as the wife likes to see them in person. Personally I can't understand this, pictures are fine for me. :D

I wouldn't mind getting smaller blackout curtains to just cover the windows and then 120" curtains that look pretty in front, but I cant find ANY 120" (blackout or otherwise) locally. I've hit up Michael's, Wal-Mart, Target, and Bed, Bath & Beyond.

That's an excellent idea on the smaller blackouts just for the windows, with pretty drapes in front.

If you go to a fabric store, and your wife sees a fabric she likes (most good fabric stores have drapery fabrics), ask around at the store. I'm sure they can give you the card of someone locally who can build custom drapes out of anything that you find that your wife likes, in a multitude of styles.

Anything that size is likely to be custom both locally or over the internet.

Here's another option: http://www.idreamofdrapery.com/Get_started_ordering_custom_curtains_s/80.htm

They build custom draperies to spec (style, fabric, lining, size), and will send out free samples of any of their fabrics. Never used them myself, just exercising Google.

C.

Yea, thats a good idea too. Wonder what the cost on having someone make them is. Likely cheap if its a personal side hobby and not a business I would think.

Here's my solution, this is a rental apartment and I wanted the living room to be light in the daytime and black when watching movies.
The pictures don't show the complete system but you can see the idea. It doesn't have very high WAF but I don't have a wife so who cares :) It wasn't cheap, about 1000e but with this I don't have to rent bigger apartment for a separate theater room. I watch movies with headphones so I don't have to think about the acoustics either.

The screen is board used for adverticing (KAPA-board) painted with matte white paint. I lower the screen with one rope and at the system moves other black board in the ceiling forward so that the ceiling is completely black. After the picture I've installed two black roller blinds in the noth sides of the screen so that the screen is completely surrounded with black. (There's 20cm of white in both of the black roller blinds so when they are in daytime position up, they look white)

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=154146&d=1254410178

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=154145&d=1254410178

The system weights about 60kg so it would be easy to just bolt the middle panel to ceiling but I decided to make this 'easily' movable.

I don't see any pictures... Did I miss something?

here, you may want to check out how i solved a similar problem
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1183345