Well, got approval from the spousal unit to finish the basement. Bought the house two years ago and have a 1300 sq ft unfinished, clean slate basement to build my man cave in. I've been reading tirelessly all the construction threads to gather ideas on what to do. The home theater portion will be shared as a Rock Band playing area as well, so tier seating may be out, I duno. I plan on using a projector and screen setup. Right now I am thinking about building some kind of inclosure at the front right of where the screen would be for my components. Then build a matching colum or box or whatever on the other side to match.

As I get further into this maybe some of you all will have some fresh ideas for me to ponder. I unfortunately have two large windows that will be in my theater so I will have to get blackout drapes of some sorts. I also have an 8inch wide by 5 foot deep by 5 foot high load bearing concreate wall to work around. Thinking about incorporating the bar into it with a lower and upper counter. The upper counter would span in front of this concrete "thing". The home theater/rock band/bar area that I have to work with is 12'x30'. With low hanging HVAC trunk lines, 6'10" from floor to bottom of trunk to wrap in soffets. The rest of the rooms in the basement include a pool table room, full bathroom, and workout room. I've attached our mostly finalized floor layout, and some pics of the messy dungeon as we start to move stuff out of the way. My hope is to get the final measurements on the plan by tomorrow so I can submit my plans for approval and permits by Friday.
Bob

The Floor Plan:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/Basement.jpg

The Theater Room:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/Theater.JPG

The concrete 3/4 wall that I have to work around:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/Workout.JPG

The Hallway to Pool Table Room (2x4's are just free standing to help me figure the ceiling out for the hallway):
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/Hall2.JPG

The Pool Table Room:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/PoolRoom.JPG

The Workout Room:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/Workout2.JPG

And last but not least the location of the bathroom (and house plumbing that I'll need to move. What brainiac thought of placing the main water shutoff and sprinkler shut off IN the bathroom right near the crapper??)
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/Bathroom.JPG

Welcome to the forum, we are here to help.

Before you get hell bent on getting a permit and sticking up some framing I think you can come up with a much better design.

First off that stub of a concrete wall looks like it was a mistake. I would investigate some more. If it is as I suspect you could rent a jack hammer and remove. That would give you a lot more flexibility on wall placement. I also wouldn't raise a single wall until you finalize a plan for the interior of the theater to make sure you have the right space for seating and all the gear. I don't understand the concept of the wet bar as drawn It looks too small and you might be better off with it outside the theater.

If you put up that beginning of a wall with those first few studs I think you may be in for a surprise because I think (I could be wrong) you are in the area of Colorado with expansion soil issues. That means that you have to use a special floating wall technique.

I'd look at a layout that swaps the game room and the theater. Except the theater would go north-south to give it some more room. Then you aren't putting too many windows into your HT.

Thanks for the response!

I should've put a note on that hall pic that the 2x4's are just free standing and not secured. I'll see if I can go back and edit my post. We originally were using the 2x4's to help us figure out room sizes on the floor and then running tape along the floor to mark the outline. I was using it to help me judge the hallway space between the utility room and HT and how I could work around the hvac in the ceiling. You are right, I will have to do floating walls with pressure treated bottom plates through out the basement.

When we bought the house we were told by our inspector that that cement wall is part of the structure and cannot be removed or else the foundation could become weakened. He stated that it is there because the wall is so long. Our other house had a foundation wall that long and didn't have one of those... Maybe a call to a structural engineer or similar might be in order...I'd love to get rid of it if I could as it's been a pain trying to work around that and the poles that don't line up due to the two different beams holding the floor up.

Sorry about the wet bar confusion. There is more to it, but I haven't been able to figure out Visio enough to do it. The wall that is in front of the cement wall is only going to be a 2x6 half wall so I can put a counter top on top of that and run the drain line for the sink. This way I'll have a tiered counter top effect. The space is tight behind the bar, about 3 feet, and I didn't like that, but we weren't sure how else to make it work. Would you move the end of the HT and not make it so long, or just put the bar in the workout room??

I appreciate any and all help and am open to suggestions on a different layout. I tried using Good sketch up for a mock up of the theater, but have found it more frustrating that Visio so I don't have a good mock up to show what I am trying to accomplish in the HT. This is my winter project to keep me from being bored. :D

Looks like you've got a lot of work ahead of you :) I couldn't agree more about not putting up any walls until you are totally sure of your layout. I made a layout in Visio a couple months ago and it has changed a couple of times. (I too found Sketchup to be a pain and much prefer Visio.) Good luck!

Looks like we are going to hire a designer who specializes in basements and home theaters and see what they come up with. Anybody by chance have experience with John Browning?? He has a lot of references both in the state of Colorado and outside.

He charges $.50-$.75 a finished square foot for CAD designs of the entire basement as well as complete floor plan to submit for permits and contractor bids. Seems like a small price to pay if the general concensous is that my planned use of space is not very good.

His site is located at: http://www.thebasementdesigner.com/

I would wonder if he is conversant with sound isolation techniques or acoustic treatment. Actually, looking at his pictures I might see panels in one pic, and the open layouts he favors are not going to be isolated.

The look of the rooms are very nice though. I'd make sure all the decorative spaces he creates on the ceiling (stepping down the beams) are filled with insulation so not to resonate like a drum.

Depends what you are looking for. I didn't care for the hallway in your first draft (I like to try to use as much space in the rooms as possible on second look its not too bad), and I am guessing he will re-work that.

For what it's worth, I like your plan. Other than moving the wetbar out of the theater and maybe putting it by the corner where you say the main water shutoff valve is.

The space that you have with the bar could be used as projection booth. This will help in not having projector noise and venting. You can have the equipment in there facing towards the hall or into the theater yet have easy access for cable management if you put an access door on the gym side.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

I would wonder if he is conversant with sound isolation techniques or acoustic treatment. Actually, looking at his pictures I might see panels in one pic, and the open layouts he favors are not going to be isolated.

The look of the rooms are very nice though. I'd make sure all the decorative spaces he creates on the ceiling (stepping down the beams) are filled with insulation so not to resonate like a drum.

Depends what you are looking for. I didn't care for the hallway in your first draft (I like to try to use as much space in the rooms as possible on second look its not too bad), and I am guessing he will re-work that.

I am actually just looking for room layouts and placements at this point. I am planning on doing all the work myself, as well as all the acoustic treatments (DD, GG, etc) for the HT. The wife and I just can't seem to figure out the best layout for the basement given the low hanging HVAC and beams running down the not so center, center of the basement. If the HVAC and beams were out of the way, then we could design the HT first, and fit the rest of the space for a rec room.

I didn't give the designer my current plans so I could see what he would come up with and go from there. I just hope this works out as I am starting to lose confidence that we can make anything work in this basement...what a downer. :confused:

For what it's worth, I like your plan. Other than moving the wetbar out of the theater and maybe putting it by the corner where you say the main water shutoff valve is.

The space that you have with the bar could be used as projection booth. This will help in not having projector noise and venting. You can have the equipment in there facing towards the hall or into the theater yet have easy access for cable management if you put an access door on the gym side.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

It's funny you mention moving the wet bar near the shut off. My coworkers were saying the same thing as well. I definitely think there is a good chance to make that work. The wife and I also kicked around the idea of not having a workout room and just selling that gym thing. Then we'd move the treadmill upstairs to the loft. That would give more space for a better bar, and maybe a back entrance into the HT instead of having to walk under the beam and hvac soffet from the side. HMMM... maybe I need to start getting some napkins from the breakroom and start designing like BIG does! :D

Don't be discouraged. My comments are nitpicks. You have a lot of room, and your needs aren't too outrageous. I like the look of what the guy has done, but just cautioning you that his standard approach doesn't seem to incorporate some of the things we focus on. If you get to the point of drafting plans you may need to educate him, or put him in touch with us and we'll do it. Again, depending on what your sound isolation needs are.

Here are two of my thoughts.

The first rotates the rooms to keep the theater away from the windows. You don't have dimensions, so I had to kind of guess on size. I only flipped the game room and workout room because I was worried about how much room the pool table needs and if it would fit.

http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u129/dc_pilgrim/helpful/optionA.jpg

The second approach leaves the workout room alone, then makes the gameroom an entertaining space with a cutout for bar stool seating overlooking the theater. An accoustic compromise, and if you want sound isolation I added a door between the stairwell and the bigger room, but make a huge space to "seal the aquarium if sound isolation is a priority.

http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u129/dc_pilgrim/helpful/optionb.jpg
The best example of the cut out bar is "The Getaway (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1022589) seen here:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3047/2573758555_a1f5f4618c_b.jpg

A third thought would be to remove the side and rear walls for the HT (accoustic compromise) and merge the spaces into a giant entertaining space. One inspiration for that kind of feel is Buff Baker's (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=628588) space seen here:
http://gallery.avsforum.com/data/507/HT3pano.jpg

These are just alternatives. Your original design does work well if you are trying to keep the HT as dedicated as possible.

Don't be discouraged. My comments are nitpicks. You have a lot of room, and your needs aren't too outrageous. I like the look of what the guy has done, but just cautioning you that his standard approach doesn't seem to incorporate some of the things we focus on. If you get to the point of drafting plans you may need to educate him, or put him in touch with us and we'll do it. Again, depending on what your sound isolation needs are.

I appreciate yours and everyone else's comments. I know that you guys truely are trying to help me to avoid common mistakes. Nitpick away as it's better to find out now, then after I have put up the framing and have to redo it all. I just hope that after we find out how much it will cost and pay the guy that he returns some good floor plans and CAD drawings. My thoughts are to post the CAD drawings in this thread and see what you all think and have him make any suggested changes before giving the final nod of approval.

So that's what you meant about switching the HT to a north-south orientation. Those are some great ideas!

So that's what you meant about switching the HT to a north-south orientation. Those are some great ideas!

Something to chew on. You'll have to figure out if the lally columns and whatnot make it a bad idea.

Looking at Dave's N to S design may still offer you some isolation benifits from the rest of the house as well. Nice!

I really need to post some measurements of the spaces. I measured the foundation walls for the design dude and sketched up something on paper, but of course left it at home. The cool part of the N to S HT thing is that on the right side where the bump out is, is 4 1/2 feet. The distance from the corner to the first pole is something like 12 feet, I don't remember that off hand. So there is the potential for a 16 1/2' foot wide by however far I want to tak it across the area (probably about 20-25 feet so as to not be too far behind the beam/HVAC). The beam and HVAC in the middle can be soffeted, not to mention the HVAC is about 3 inches shorter and about 6-8 inches narrower in that area so that gives more headroom. Man, I'm getting nothing done at work right now as I'm going over this in my head. :D

Just got the quote back from the designer, $668.20 for 1,028 finished square feet. I forgot about the crawl space so that is probably why the finished square footage came out lower.

Now I just need to figure out if we go through with the designer, or chew some more on the cool ideas Dave gave. That's a lot of money...

Nice layout. What program did you put that together in?

Bobmyster, I just saw your pics and that concrete wall sticking into the basement and thought, "I wonder if he lives in Colorado?" Sure enough, I saw that you lived in Aurora.

I used to be a Realtor in Colorado and saw those walls all the time when the exterior walls were long. I was told the same thing by builders, that they're required for structural purposes.

Even if you could remove it...DONT! You just never know. If anything ever happened structurally and the worst happened (wall caved in, upper floor collapsed, etc) and your insurance company discovered you had removed it, you could be SOL (Sh!t Outta Luck) and they could probably deny coverage and paying for repairs.

It's just not worth it. Go the safe route and design around it.

Nice layout. What program did you put that together in?

I used Visio 2003.

Looks like the N to S theater is probably out. I neglected to tell you that the wall that the screen would be on houses the sub panel and media panel I put in last year, as well as the entrance into the crawl space, and alarm panel. In all my excitement about the change I totally spaced that out. :mad:

The wife is onboard for the designer, I'd just hate to spend $670 to find a similar floor plan to what we came up with. At least I'd have some cool CAD drawings of each room so I knew what it would look like, but still.

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/crawlspace.JPG

Here is a pic of the foundation measurements of the basement:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/Preplan.jpg

Bobmyster, I just saw your pics and that concrete wall sticking into the basement and thought, "I wonder if he lives in Colorado?" Sure enough, I saw that you lived in Aurora.

I used to be a Realtor in Colorado and saw those walls all the time when the exterior walls were long. I was told the same thing by builders, that they're required for structural purposes.

Even if you could remove it...DONT! You just never know. If anything ever happened structurally and the worst happened (wall caved in, upper floor collapsed, etc) and your insurance company discovered you had removed it, you could be SOL (Sh!t Outta Luck) and they could probably deny coverage and paying for repairs.

It's just not worth it. Go the safe route and design around it.

Thanks for that info, I'll stay with the original plan of working around it.

There is this thread about making a lift up screen to access electrical boxes and whatnot. He had a rigidity issue in his screen frame, but it could work with some beefing up.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1139467&highlight=electrical+panel+screen

Not an easy road though. I am not willing to screen over my panel either.

Interesting read, thanks for that Dave.

Played around with the floor plan a little, moved the bar out and by the bathroom, put the back wall of the HT in line with the concrete stub. Also put measurements in for the various rooms. Also deleted most of the electrical as it was in the way and cluttering up the floor plan a bit. Would need to incorporate that beam into an arch or something that maybe spanned the entire beam or something as it won't be hidden in the HT wall anymore.

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/Basement2.jpg

Rather than have the door on the short side of the HT room, where it might interfere with seats and getting in/out of the room, could you put it in the middle of the longer wall, off of the game room?

That way, you wouldn't have a door and ingress/egress interfering with either the seating or the screen wall?

Depending on how you do the interior of the HT room with color schemes, lighting, etc, it might be a cool view from the game room into the theater room, through like french doors or something.

My vote is for something along the lines of Dave's second approach in post #13. All the various items you mention that would be behind the screen are easily accomodated with a hinged screen, or like I did with it hanging on a french cleat like a large picture frame. In a few seconds you could have access.

The relationship of gameroom to theater room with the open bar as the third row is growing in popularity and for good reason. Research and be aware of some of the drawbacks though. Tougher light control and sound control being some of them.

Well, we've spent the better half of the day in the basement trying to figure out how to make any of this work. We have given in and hired the designer. He expects to have some floor plan samples to us by Tuesday. Once we have them I'll post 'em up here to get peoples' thoughts on 'em.
Thank you everyone for your help so far. I really just want to get started building down there, but agree with you all that we need a good plan first before one 2x4 goes up.

Bob

OK, here's what our designer, John, has come up with:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/Preplan1.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/DollhouseView.jpg

Here's what he included in his email to me:
"Here's something to look over. These attachments are showing a plan well thought out to make sure the two biggest obstacles fit, pool table and the sound theater room. Notice the double walls with an air gap around this room too. Ceilings including all ducts can be sprayed with Tiger Foam which I can send you a link on. You can add "R" channel or what ever other sound proofing you wish to this. I don't show any ceiling treatments/lighting until we are done moving things so please try to look past all that for now. I picked up on the crawl space door and those panel boxes in that room that wasn't on your first sketch but it'll look fine with nice access doors. I'll show views of that room later but give me dimensions to some of those ducts in that ceiling in there. I always suggest to clients when they first get this to not respond for a day or two to let it all sink in. Oh and yes, the bath has to be moved but there's a stand pipe by the window there and my local guy can move that for under 700 bucks. Well worth it to have this layout. Thanks and enjoy."

I can post up some of the CAD drawings of the other spaces if interested. Now I just have to tape it out on the basement floor and see what I think. I'm nervous that the HT is not as deep as it should be. It'll be somewhere around 16' by 13' 9". One good thing is that my component rack would be built into the crawl space wall with access to the back of the equipment from the crawl space. Another option is to swap the pool table room with the workout room, workout room with the HT and move the HT into the pool table room. This would give more space and an opening into the bar, but will completely sacrifice accoustics and introduce natural light into the area. Guess I need to figure out how important having a "closed in" HT is.
Thoughts??
Bob

Some quick, random thoughts.

16' depth would be a concern. If you always kept seating as shown on the plan, you'd be alright, but even then the seats are shown right on the back wall (not desireable). What if you choose in the future that you want multiple rows?

The door opening onto the screen wall may interfere with speakers and/or screen if you ever decide to use a projector (and you likely will). And a larger image will present more concern for the depth of room as well.

The central "connecting" space for the basement is the gym? seems like you'd want the hub to be a higher use room? At least in most homes, the gym ends up being a catch all room. And you're dedicated a large percentage of your space to it as well. Do you need all that space for it?

Hope all this is taken as constructive. You're doing the right thing to hash through the designwork!

Tony, thanks for the response, I appreciate it.

I do plan on going with a projector and I mentioned that to the designer when I filled out the wish list. I was hoping to go with somewhere around a 105"-110" AT screen. But, with this current design there won't be any room to put the speakers behind the screen, a stage would be out of the question. I sat in the basement for quite a while trying to see this layout. I kept going back to having the HT where the pool table room was and the pool table going where the gym was and the gym going where the HT was. This puts the gym in the corner and not in the main area. I just afraid we are going to be crammed in that HT as it sits right now, then bring in the Rock Band stuff (which I also told the designer about) and things get REALLY tight.

Ok Bobmyster, The new cad drawing shows better dimensions and bigger possibilities which wern't evident in your 1st layouts. The layout your designer came up with is nice but not ideal if your main goal is a dedicated HT and then the finished space for entertaining and working out which you have been proposing and leaning towards.

I like you suggerstion of flipping HT -> Pool, Gym -> HT, & Pool to -> Gym. What I would do though is still enclose the HT and perhaps flip the bar one turn clockwise. You can have a great concession area prior to entering the HT. You can either enter from the rear, side or even create an angled entrace. You can design it so you step up to riser level before entering.

As Dave suggested early in your thread you could do the open back wall for 3rd row seating of the bar, but I would simply mount a flat panel on one of the walls for mirroring the HT or alternative viewing i.e. baseball and football...

Anyways, it looks like you have a great space to work with and whatever you do it seems like you are formulating a great plan to do what you want. Just be sure to do what will ultimately suit you and your family best. Good luck.

We can move the bath?

In that case, I'd definitely move the HT over to that corner. and the Gym into the place where he put the HT.

Then, it would come down sound isolation, and decide if you want the pass through like the pic I posted, or an enclosed space. In any event, Ted White talks that stairs can be a real flanking path so you will need to make sure you decouple your wall from the stairs.

Also, the guy was better than I expected on sound isolation (+1 for the double walls, and communicating doors no less). But his reference to R-Channel is dangerous (resiliant channel isolates at the easy vocal ranges, hurts you with the difficult LFE ), and if he thinks that foam will help with sound any more than regular insulation he is mistaken (it should perform the same). If he feels it is a better insulator, that is possible. Get in touch with Ted White before you finalize these plans.

A final question - pool tables take up a ton of space, you sure you want it? You can make a better entertaining space with other game room items that aren't so space needy. Thought I'd mention it.

Hey Dave!

We hadn't even considered moving the bath at all initally. When the desginer asked if he could move the bath at that point I told him that nothing was set in stone and to feel free to move whatever he wanted. I would've never thought to move the bathroom...and for less than $700 it's a small price to pay and I'll just sub that out to his guy.

Thanks for checking back in on my thread to provide feedback on the designers plans. I should probably post the CAD drawing of that pool table room (or should I say old pool table room, LOL). He proposed taking down the wall next to the stairs and putting a matching railing and spindle combo. We loved this idea, but this probably wouldn't work so well for the HT I would assume?? Thanks for the suggestion on Ted, I will contact him as we get this finalized.

On the pool table. I've always wanted one. I suck at the game, but always enjoy playing pool when I go to other peoples' houses. I'm sure the alcohol helps to. :D
We thought about getting a ping pong table over lay so it could pull double duty. However we weren't sure where we would store that overlay when not in use. I also want to get a pinball machine as well at some point in time...because they are fun to. Not sure how much either will get used. Hell, the foosball table hasn't been used in nearly 1.5 years. :-(

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/poolroom.jpg

WOW, did I really start this in Oct of last year??!! I guess I've got some catching up to do here... We finialized a plan with the designer and work started in early Nov. Being as that most everybody likes to see construction pics I lay 'em on ya. In the end we decided to go with the open concept instead of a dedicated HT room. This will work best when we have Rock Band/Guitar Hero parties and the bar is VERY close by. We have also swapped the game room with the workout room as I didn't want the workout room to be the center of attention. Lets roll with the pics! This post outlines the floor plan layout as well as the CAD renderings that the designer provided us:

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/BasementRenderings/PREPLAN3.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/BasementRenderings/VIEW1.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/BasementRenderings/VIEW2.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/BasementRenderings/VIEW3.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/BasementRenderings/VIEW4.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/BasementRenderings/VIEW5.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/BasementRenderings/VIEW6.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/BasementRenderings/VIEW7.JPG

can't see photos.

HMM..not sure what is up with my pics. I can see 'em from the web, just not when I use the IMG tag...
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/BasementRenderings/PREPLAN3.pdf

HMM..not sure what is up with my pics. I can see 'em from the web, just not when I use the IMG tag...
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/BasementRenderings/PREPLAN3.pdf

PDFs are not image files. IMG refers to jpeg, tiff, gif, etc.

Oh, DUH!! <<slaps forehead>>
Forgot I had to do a screen shot of the pdfs and save 'em as .jpg. I'll get that done now, thanks!

I'm wondering if this thread will need to be moved as it is not only HT but the entire basement build. I guess we'll wait and see.
Anyway, on with the build....
So, first order of business before I got too far building walls was to relocate the ground plumbing for the bathroom to be on the other side of the house. I had a company come in and mark the location of the main drain so I knew where to cut the concrete.

Bar Plumbing
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/GroundPlumbing/P1010518.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/GroundPlumbing/P1010520.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/GroundPlumbing/P1010521.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/GroundPlumbing/P1010522.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/GroundPlumbing/P1010523.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/GroundPlumbing/P1010524.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/GroundPlumbing/P1010525.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/GroundPlumbing/P1010526.JPG

On with the framing.... Being as that this is the HT thread I'll start with the HT room! Thanks to our expansive soil I have to build these walls with a minimum 1.5" "float" between the bottom plate and the wall. I moved the main water line from near the front of the HT to the back as I felt it would be more asthetically pleasing. That and I was able to sweat in a couple of shut off drain valves that I could hook a hose to. This way when I need to drain the sprinkler system or the house I can hook a garden hose to it and not pi$$ water all over the drywall from those side saddle screw thingies.

Front wall started:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Framing/P1010515.JPG

Side of HT:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Framing/P1010516.JPG

Arched screen wall inset:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Framing/P1010015.JPG

I thought I had a pic of where the A/V rack would be, but can't find it. Anyway off the above pic, to the left is the stairs and landing, I will be using that space under there as my A/V closet. I'll have full access to the back of the equipment for wiring and it will also be vented...somehow. But that is not a topic for today!! Moving on to the bar!!

OK, these pics are a bit too large, I'll resize them. Sorry guys, I've got a case of the Monday's I guess... :(

OK, bar is up next.... The only thing we will change from the original plan is to add a dishwasher. Yup..too lazy to take glasses upstairs. But then again isn't that why you put in a mini fridge and microwave?? Probably going to go with black appliances, but at this point, it's a few months away so I haven't given it much thought...or the countertops for that matter.
On with the show!!
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Framing/P1010540.JPG

Nothing exciting to see on this wall, I have more pics of the serving counter but only with the sub floor down... Don't want to give it away so the above ugly pic is just a teaser...

Pics of the game room, bathroom, workout room, and utility room:

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Framing/P1010519.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Framing/P1010529.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Framing/P1010530.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Framing/P1010543.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Framing/P1010544.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Framing/P1010527.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Framing/P1010528.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Framing/P1010541.JPG

Decided to install a whole house water filter. What better time than now to get stuff installed now that the utility room is framed. Good thing to...this is what the filter looked like after 16 hours. Go city water!

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Framing/P1010020.JPG

Pics of the bathroom plumbing rough in and sub floor install. I am using a product called Delta FL and then 3/4" T&G on top of it for my sub floor. This will keep it warmer on the tootsies as well as preventing moisture coming up into the carpet padding, etc. More pics after lunch!


http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Framing/P1010048.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Framing/P1010049.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Framing/P1010050.JPG

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Looking good!

You may have mentioned it somewhere and I missed it but whats with the space between the sill plate and bottom of the frame?

Looking good!

You may have mentioned it somewhere and I missed it but whats with the space between the sill plate and bottom of the frame?

Thanks! We have expansive soil here in Colorado so building codes dictate a 1.5" minimum space for the floor to move. Other wise it is possible for the floor to heave and push the house up via the walls. What is really great about this is that I can have the wall be a little too short and not have to rebuild it.. :D

Time for some soffit treatments... Used 2x6 to go around the rooms so it would take care of the fireblocking as well all in one step. I ran 2x4's under the beam and just up to the HVAC trunk lines. In hindsight, maybe I would've done the soffiting around the HVAC lines differently but I wanted to have a good secure way to attach the bottoms of the 2x4's for the ceiling. Didn't want the 2x4's to twist over time and feared toe screwing wouldn't hold tight enought. Anyway I committed to doing it that way so this is what I have to deal with. Each one is bolted to the metal I beam so it doesn't sag in the middle. I still have to go back and fill the spaces in with 2x4's where all the gaps are for the HVAC framing.
I also extended the HVAC trunk line to the end of the workout room so I could rerun the feeder lines next to the wall so the soffit would be more managable and not lose more headroom than necessary.

I did my arches with 1x4 pine in hopes that I could cheat a nice bend while having a nice arch out of it. I still have to put some backing for the drywall to attach to. I also want to router out the 2x4's at the center of each arch so they are flush with the ceiling at that point. I think that will look much cleaner instead of seeing the arch as an after though. It will just go from the walls and dive right in with the ceiling.

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Framing/P1010550.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Framing/P1010551.JPG

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Getting closer to caught up. Next few pics outline the Delta floor and T&G installation and how the basement looked a few weeks ago. I had to pull some of it back up, but the reason probably isn't what you expect. Why you ask?? Well....not quite ready to tell.
Bathroom:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/SubFloor/P1010047.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/SubFloor/P1010051.JPG

Home Theater:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/SubFloor/P1010052.jpg

Bar:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/SubFloor/P1010053.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/SubFloor/P1010080.JPG

Shot looking in at the HT and Bar from game room:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/SubFloor/P1010082.JPG

Shot looking from the Bar to the game room with bathroom in the distance:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/SubFloor/P1010083.JPG

Finished shot looking at HT and Bar:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/SubFloor/P1010084.JPG

Looking into the workout room with crawlspace in the distance:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/SubFloor/P1010085.JPG

So, why did I have to pull up some of the floor you ask?? Well last minute decision. We were going to build a deck in the crawl space so we'd have a nice level floor to put some carpet on. I was going to dig down about a foot so the finished floor would be just a little lower than what it is currently. Expecting to find the footer for the foundation I dug down a foot. No footer yet, just foundation. Dug down another foot, still no footer, and another. Found the spread footer, 4 feet down at the depth where the rest of the basement was at. Curiously I dug at each corner as well as other spots. Yup, we have a full foundation that the builder back filled in to make it a crawlspace. The cement the builder wasted pouring that half wall could've been the floor in that room. How can you let that gem of a room stay as it is?? Nearly 200 square feet of storage! Got a few bids to see how much it would be to dig it out and put in a floor and the rest is history. I decided to let someone else do the grunt work. They started last Monday with the concrete cutters to cut an entrance into the wall. The next day the great big little dig started. A crew of 6 guys had this thing dug out in 3 days! Saturday they dug out for the parameter drain and sump pit and laid the mesh. Today they are to put in the sump basin, finish cutting out the entry way, and pour concrete. My MIL who has been house sitting during all this called me a while ago to tell me the concrete truck and the pumper truck had arrived. Yup, making a floor baby!!
Total cost $3960. I'm happy to write that check and let someone else do that! You might notice the 5 gallon buckets in the pics. Why all the buckets you ask?? Their conveyor belts were tied up on other jobs and my job was too small to pull them off. They took all the dirt out using 5 gallon buckets. I don't even want to know how many it took to get this all out. I can tell you it took 4 dump truck loads to empty this out.... Yeah, even happier that it wasn't me. Awesome group of guys though!

Day 1 Floor pull up, stud removal, and concrete cut
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/CrawlspaceDigout/P1010089.JPG

Day 2 Plastic off the surrounding area to keep the rest of the basement clean and the dig begins. They popped the window out for more space and so as not to damage it.
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/CrawlspaceDigout/P1010090.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/CrawlspaceDigout/P1010091.JPG

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Day 3 They found the front half of the crawlspace foundation walls!!
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/CrawlspaceDigout/P1010095.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/CrawlspaceDigout/P1010096.JPG

What they have left for the next day
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/CrawlspaceDigout/P1010097.JPG

Day 4 they find the back half of the crawlspace foundation walls and the entire room is dug out!
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/CrawlspaceDigout/P1010098.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/CrawlspaceDigout/P1010099.JPG

Day 5 they installed the parameter drain and rebar mesh stuff
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/CrawlspaceDigout/P1010100.JPG

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http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/CrawlspaceDigout/P1010105.jpg

My only piece to this was the 2x10 header that the engineer requested per plan
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/CrawlspaceDigout/P1010106.JPG

OK. Caught up now. Next up. Finish fireblocking, move the sub panel into the new storage room, and get my electrical roughed in. I'm hoping to have my mechanicals (done), rough in plumbing (done), and rough in electrical (not quite) inspections at the same time. If the county can wait a couple of days on the crawlspace permit then I can take one day off and have them all done at the same time. Then I can get my framing and fireblock inspected the next day. They will not let me do them all in one day as the plumbing and electrical have to be approved before they will pass the framing and fireblocking. Oh well, just playing by the rules and burning vacation time because of it....

Decided to install a whole house water filter. What better time than now to get stuff installed now that the utility room is framed. Good thing to...this is what the filter looked like after 16 hours. Go city water!

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Framing/P1010020.JPG

If the water is that bad (and it looks like it is! :eek:) I'd suggest doubling up - move one of the lines a bit and put in two filters side-by-side. Then one filter can have the cheaper paper filter while the second has the more expensive carbon filter. This is what I did in my house and it really cuts down on the number of filter changes.

Funny you mention that. The wife and I have discussed doing just that. Use the paper filter as the sticks and stones so the carbon filter will last longer. I can't believe our water is this nasty...'specially for city water.
This is what the filter looks like with about 2 months on it.
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Framing/P1010113.JPG

Concrete floor is done! The guys finished up about 2 hours ago. Tomorrow they'll be back for clean up and to put the window back in.
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/CrawlspaceDigout/P1010111.JPG

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Very nice! Nice to see another Colorado build! Subscribed.

Well, my basement looks like a basement again. The guys finished their clean up work yesterday morning and it looks almost like they were never there! I don't know if I can post their info, but if anyone in the Denver Metro area wants their crawlspace dug out, these guys are top notch!

Last night I was able to put the delta floor and sub floor back down in the area that I pulled up for these guys to work. Friday I am having the rough plumbing and mechanicals inspected and will have the electrical inspector come out for a consulation. The consulation is free so why not make sure I do it the way he wants it so I have no problems during inspection.
I plan on moving my sub panel into the new storage room for its final resting place and doing my rough in electrical this weekend. Then, on to the fun stuff, wiring up the HT, game room, and workout room.

Thanks! We have expansive soil here in Colorado so building codes dictate a 1.5" minimum space for the floor to move. Other wise it is possible for the floor to heave and push the house up via the walls. What is really great about this is that I can have the wall be a little too short and not have to rebuild it.. :D

Ah - that explains it!


This is what the filter looks like with about 2 months on it.


Good lord! I definately second the second filter - that is nasty!

Hindsight is always 20/20. I wish I would've put those shut off valves vertically instead of horizontally. Would've made adding a second filter less painful. I didn't think our water would be this bad to need a second water filter. Oh well, looks like 2 new shut off valves and unions to go with another whole house water filter setup. I'm just glad I'm able to do this myself, I'm still out less $$$ than if I had someone else doing all this. Can't say I won't have enough to do this weekend! :D

Hindsight is always 20/20. I wish I would've put those shut off valves vertically instead of horizontally. Would've made adding a second filter less painful. I didn't think our water would be this bad to need a second water filter. Oh well, looks like 2 new shut off valves and unions to go with another whole house water filter setup. I'm just glad I'm able to do this myself, I'm still out less $$$ than if I had someone else doing all this. Can't say I won't have enough to do this weekend! :D

Why not just remove one of the shut off valves and replace it with the filter. The whole house filter should have a on/off/bypass lever on it so you don't actually need to have the shutoff valves on both sides, do you?

Why not just remove one of the shut off valves and replace it with the filter. The whole house filter should have a on/off/bypass lever on it so you don't actually need to have the shutoff valves on both sides, do you?If you don't want the pressurized water in the pipes after the filter to drain out of the filter housing while your changing the filter you'll want that 2nd valve. (This assumes the filters don't have some sort of backflow prevention to stop that)

The filter housing does have an on/off/bypass lever on it. I think I could get away with not having a shut off valve before the filter assembly, but would want one after to hold the water in the pipes of the house as Stereodude states. I seem to err on the side of overkill on most things which is why I put the shut off valves on either side. The house main shut off is before the filter assembly so I really don't need that first valve. Either way it's not very expensive to put new ones on. I'm not really sold on the idea of reusing fittings.

Last night I got the doorway rebuilt from the workout room to the storage room that had to be cut out. I'm hoping tonight to get the Delta floor in the storage room and lay down the T&G subfloor. The wife is getting antsy to get all the crap out of the spare bedrooms and back into this new storage space.

Sweet find on having an almost entire extra room in the house!!!

For those wondering about the concrete short walls. They used to place them on the outside of the house, but if the ground would heave, it would lift the short wall and collapse into your basement...

Now if the ground heavs, the wall pushes outside, and with all the dirt out there, the wall will have nowhere to go.

My basement has 2 of them, I put them both in the utility space and had one of them be a partial wall to the back of my AV closet.

If you don't want the pressurized water in the pipes after the filter to drain out of the filter housing while your changing the filter you'll want that 2nd valve. (This assumes the filters don't have some sort of backflow prevention to stop that)
I have two of these filters in my house, shutoff valves outside the filters are unnecessary. When you want to change a filter you move the lever to 'bypass' and the filter area is no longer part of the water's path (the water flows straight through the top of the filter assembly). You remove the plastic cup where the filter is, replace the filter, and reinstall the cup. Move the lever back to 'filter' and the water again starts flowing through the filter area.

The only issue I have had is that air gets into the pipes and you have to run the water upstairs to flush it out. A but of advise - worn the other people in the house, it tends to be a little scary the first time they hear it (ask me how I know this :D).

I can't tell from your picture, but you should try and get a version of the case that has a pressure release button on it. Even after switching the case to' bypass,' the water in the plastic cup is under high pressure, which makes unscrewing the cup very difficult. If the case has a pressure release button, removing the cup is must easier. I had one of each, and eventually replaced the case without the pressure release valve because it was getting too difficult to remove the cup with all the water pressure.

Well, just got through with the inspectors. Rough plumbing and mechanicals passed with flying colors. The electrical inspector came by just as the plumbing inspector was finishing up. Was VERY helpful and was all for 12/3 multi wire circuits for the bar area to save on wire runs. I was a little bummed to find out I have to do a drop ceiling due to the zoning system we had put in a couple of months ago. Or, I have to put cutouts for each damper for access in the ceiling. What a bummer. I just don't like the looks of a drop ceiling. But doing 13 cutouts in a drywall ceiling will look pretty stupid. :-( Gonna have to think about this a little more I guess.

I can't tell from your picture, but you should try and get a version of the case that has a pressure release button on it.

This version does have the pressure release button on the side so looks like I could do just as you suggested and wouldn't need those shut off valves at all. HMMMM....I like! :)

Well, gotta get back into the new storage room and finish putting the floor in. Progress pics to come later!

Well, just got through with the inspectors. Rough plumbing and mechanicals passed with flying colors. The electrical inspector came by just as the plumbing inspector was finishing up. Was VERY helpful and was all for 12/3 multi wire circuits for the bar area to save on wire runs. I was a little bummed to find out I have to do a drop ceiling due to the zoning system we had put in a couple of months ago. Or, I have to put cutouts for each damper for access in the ceiling. What a bummer. I just don't like the looks of a drop ceiling. But doing 13 cutouts in a drywall ceiling will look pretty stupid. :-( Gonna have to think about this a little more I guess.

Wow! What type of zoning system did you do? I was thinking of doing the same thing if it is what I am thinking.

We went with the Arzel zoning system. Each duct line gets its own damper to control which zones get heat/air. It all runs on air to move the actual flapper so there are no motors or gears or anything like that to wear out.
The basement, first floor, and second floor now have their own thermostats to control the temps independantly. We used to have nearly a 10 degree temp difference between the first floor and the second floor in the winter time. Not no more!

That sucks! I was thinking of doing a system like that from Smarter home, but like you I don't want a drop ceiling and I won't want to have all of those access panels either.

I am curious to what you will end up doing.

Another system that may be of interest, but I don't know the name, is one that uses air bags right at the vent in the room. I saw an episode on this old house where they were showing it being installed. Basically they use a big vacumm to pull the air line from each vent down to the utility room and then each vent gets this air bag installed, the other end gets connected to the control panel. That might be worth checking out as nothing gets installed in the ducting at the trunk lines.

Time for some more updates. I finally have my electrical pulled and can light fixtures installed. I have hot wired them all together for testing and it looks GREAT! All I have left to do is run wire for the light in the A/V room (basically under the stairs), and run wire for the light fixtures that will go in the workout room. Then I just need to tie all my grounds together and make pigtails in the outlet boxes to finish my rough electrical. Moving right along! I have also pulled speaker wire for the front speakers...boy was that a good feeling. Went with monoprices 12/2 speaker wire. In the interest of lack of space we have decided we'll go with an AT screen and do some nice in wall speakers with enclosures.

I need help with sub woofer placement so I can run some coax behind the walls. I am wondering if maybe I could build a cubby in the lower right part of the screen wall to stuff one in there. It's only 12" deep so the sub will obviously stick out. My only other option would be at the back of the home theater at the stub out wall. Just curious on any thoughts or suggestions you all might have.

Screen wall:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Electrical/P1010126.JPG

Back of theater/opening to Bar:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Electrical/P1010129.JPG

Game Rooom:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Electrical/P1010128.JPG

A/V Room:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Electrical/P1010130.JPG

Looking good Bobmyster,

I haven't kept up with the thread so I'm not sure if you have the Subwoofer yet? If you do is it straight or down firing? Can you hook it up and give it to do some tests at the locations which you mention?

I guess the best way to test and maybe someone else can chime in, is to put the subwoofer at the listening position, and then getting on hands and knees at the areas where your sub would be and seeing where it performs better.

Now all things being equal I'm eyeing the space underneath your steps where in one of your renders you show some shelves. You could hide the sub in there and cover the opening with a fabric panel. Just a thought.

Thanks for the response. I have not purchased any of the A/V equipment as of yet. I can however take the sub and receiver from upstairs and play around with the location from that. Sounds like I need to start doing some sub research as I have no idea what the difference between a straight and down firing sub is. :o

I have deviated from the renderings a little bit and that shelf is now going to be the built in A/V rack. I'm not sure if I'm gonna do a rack or built in shelves yet.

I see on the opening. Down firing simply means the woofer is facing down towards the floor vs a traditional foward facing woofer on most subs.

Good idea about bring down the existing sub and receiver, but I just thougt of something so a bit of warning. With everything opened & simply just framed it's gonna be tuff to truly see what position will be best. May be totally different once everything is insulated and sheetrocked, but may still be worth checking out.

Just another though also, you may still have room to the left of where the shelving/rack would go so long as you keep it accessible somehow and use fabric panels on that portion of wall. All depends on what size sub you end up going with.

yeah, open walls will not allow you to do the ear to the ground sub woofer test. After Drywall is better, after treatments even better.

Be careful, placing subs in cubbies will usually cause issues.

What kind of issues could I expect if I placed the sub in a cubby?? Is there something I could build differently in the cubby to overcome the issues??

Not completely sure, since I am not a sound guru. I plan on having mine out with no side walls around it. I think the issue is having the side walls there all around effects the sound. this may be a question for the Sub forum, or a sound expert like Bryan Pape.

Some guys say to not even use inwall subs, and those guys who make infinite baffles, they have a huge room open behind the sub to deal with the back waves.

No worries, thanks!
I'll do some searching and maybe post a new thread in the subs forum to see what they say. Better to find out now what I need to do. Once that sheet rock is up I am committed to the location I pull the cable to!

On a side note, thanks for the cabinet info on your thread. Gonna check those guys out in a month or so when I'm ready for cabinets.

Bob

Can't believe I missed another Colorado build. I'm tired just from reading your thread. Was this all done in a month, mostly by you? Whew. Keep up the good work.

Thanks for the compliments. All the work has been done by me so far. I've been working on this since around the end of November when I started gluing up the XPS foam sheets.

I am hoping to have the drywallers come in mid June to close it all up. I've saved enough doing everything else myself that I'm splurging. :D

Well, looks like I jinx'd myself hoping to get to drywall by mid June... :(
My carlon 2" conduit came in today and I got it installed between the projector and the A/V room. Pulled the 40' HDMI cable out of the box, tested it upstairs, then proceeded to pull the HDMI/2 CAT5/1 RG6 cable combo through the conduit. Got it all pulled up to the projector location to find I had about 14' extra cable in the A/V room. GRRR!!! I don't want to coil that much extra cable so I've got a 30' cable ordered up and an RMA request to monoprice for their 40 footer to go back. At least the other 40 footer was perfect to get from the A/V room to the workout room. Oh well can't win 'em all I guess.

I finished up all of my electrical over the weekend and I was going to have my electrical inspection on Thursday. Now I will have to wait a couple of weeks as we are leaving for a much needed vaction Saturday.

All the work has been done by me so far. I've been working on this since around the end of November...

Me too, now I don't feel SO bad.

...then proceeded to pull the HDMI/2 CAT5/1 RG6 cable combo through the conduit.

You may want to consider running this outside the conduit. That way you can use the conduit for future cable replacements or upgrades.

Keep the pics flowing!

enjoy the vacation, I have one coming up too. Definitely needed.

Me too, now I don't feel SO bad.

You may want to consider running this outside the conduit. That way you can use the conduit for future cable replacements or upgrades.

Keep the pics flowing!

Would it be better to just run the HDMI cable in the conduit and the rest on the outside then?? I just wanted to make sure I could get at this cable if need be, but if most don't run anything in there, then I'll go with the masses. I'm only doing this 'cause other people have done it. :D

enjoy the vacation, I have one coming up too. Definitely needed.

Thanks! I can already hear the warm waters crashing on the beach of Mexico...and the taste of much needed alcohol! It's all inclusive so I need to get my monies worth! :D

Enjoy your vacation as well!
Bob

Most run everything outside before they close up the walls. The conduit then is just for either replacement (problem cable) or future upgrades (who knows what'll come next).

Ditto on the vacation. Last September we went to an all inclusive in Mexico and had a blast.

Start tapping those toes! (NSFW ;))

lB8Nkn3Xjes

BWAAAHHAHAHAAAAA!! Nice video!

I'm hoping to remember most of the vacation this year as we are not going with friends this time around. :D Not sure how I will feel about not diving hung over....that'll be a new one for me. :p

Got my shipping notice early this morning my 30' HDMI will be here tomorrow so I'm gonna try to get these last few cables done tomorrow afternoon so I'll be ready for inspection when I get back. I've got the 40' HDMI boxed back up and it will be on its way back to Monoprice this morning. I really want to get to drywall as I'm ready to move to the next phase of this build. I'm sure I will be second guessing myself just before drywall starts wondering if I missed anything.

Looks like we are all vacation bound! Heading to Bermuda via Royal Caribbean June 12th!

Wow, I think I am on the wrong vacation plan. I'm taking a road trip to Yellowstone... Nothing included.

For my HDMI, I installed a large grey PVC conduit. (2-3 inches if I remember.) I did not put it in first because I didn't want it to get messed up with drywall and finishing. I will run it after. But yes, most people run it outside then only do new ones and replace bad ones in the conduit. I think mine will be large enough that I can get this and others through.

I did run some cat 5 from the rack to the projector for IR repeater and possible future internet, and those are run outside the conduit.

Wow, I think I am on the wrong vacation plan. I'm taking a road trip to Yellowstone... Nothing included.

Well, Yellowstone is also our destination next month..."for the kids". That way we can tell them in the winter why mom and dad are going to the islands again, alone. ;)

The wife and I went to Yellowstone two years ago, about this same time. Had a great time and the park wasn't very crowded for the week. We took the 5th wheel up, but couldn't stay in the park due to it being a 35' rig. Lots of pics, lots of animals and the occasional road hazards. :D

I'm thinking about going with the Hot Link setup as I want to be able to run the TV in the workout room off the same direcTV receiver and this seems like a good option. Only trouble is, you have to use RG6 to extend it and you can only go so far. I need to do some more research on CAT 5 IR repeaters that I can put a remote eye in two separate rooms to operate the same equipment. If anyone has any suggestions I'd gladly take 'em. Other wise I'll continue to search the forums and see what has been working for folks. If I can find a good one, I won't need to run the RG6 cable to the projector then.

Bob

cable is cheap... Especially before the drywall.

I am looking at Buffalo Electronics for the IR repeater.
You would need power - DV9-500
Connecting Block - IR-100
Repeaters - IR-350
Flashers.

I only plan on 1 repeater (eye). But you could research if you can do 2 separate ones.

I think I plan on using 2 connecting blocks. They can be linked for more items.

The flashers are mainly generic. You can get any brand, then you have to splice them into your cat cables.

Wow, I think I am on the wrong vacation plan. I'm taking a road trip to Yellowstone... Nothing included.


I'd LOVE to go to Yellowstone, being an amateur wildlife photographer! But my wife isn't the nature type and our kids are still young (5 and 19 mos). I'm hoping that when they get older we can convince her to take the trip. :rolleyes: If not, maybe we'll just go without her! :p

Well, got some more work done last night. Decided being as that I had some extra conduit to run it from the utlity room to the a/v room so I could pass cables easier if I decided to change something after the fact. So I pulled out the sat lines, ethernet lines, and phone line from the wall so I could use the hole saw to make some room! :D
So I got all that run and pulled the HDMI cable for the workout room through it as well. I then repulled the nylon pull string back through so it is all set for the next time I have to run wire through it. Today big brown delivers my 30' HDMI so we'll see if I can convince the wife to let me work in the HT or not...being as that we leave tomorrow morning.

My MCM order:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Electrical/P1010511.JPG

A/V room pull:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Electrical/P1010512.JPG

Both conduits (left one is for projector, right one for cables through utility room):
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Electrical/P1010513.JPG

Projector run:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Electrical/P1010514.JPG

Conduit behind screen wall:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Electrical/P1010515.JPG

Nice screen wall.

Nice screen wall.

Thanks!

Well, electrical inspector just left. Passed! It was the same guy who did my info inspection a little while ago so that was cool. He went to Mexico just two months ago so that was all we talked about while he walked through the rooms.

The wife and I had a blast on vacation. Now it is time to get the basement finished up so we can go again! I'm hoping to get all my fire blocking finished up this weekend and have it inspected next week. Then I'll get the itchy stuff up and start getting bids for drywall.

Glad you had fun AND passed electrical!

Also glad to see that I'm not the only one who wasn't able to get the Ramset nails to go in all the way. I used the trigger gun after completely failing with the hammer approach. I started to go around and drill/screw Tapcons because my nail heads were peeking over the orange. Did the framing inspector mention anything?

Did you spray foam in between the joists yourself, hire it out, or was it already like that? I wonder if that would be a good way to seal any air gaps and stop high frequency flanking.

When I had the framing inspector out to give me info on fireblocking he did not mention anything about the nails sticking up. He stated my framing looked good, but I'm not sure how closely he was looking. I'll find out next week though!

I spray foamed in between the joists myself as I had extra left over. My original intent was to spray the rim joists all the way around the house and use it for fireblocking. In the winter time the fiberglass was getting wet with condensation and the rim joists were wet as well. We were afraid that it would start to mold over time Problem solved with the spray foam! The extra was used for fireblocking and sound deadening above the HT area. The product is called Tiger Foam and it is fire retardant and also states it has sound proofing capabilities so it was perfect for all my situations. It was really easy to use.

Thanks to our crapy weather over the weekend I broke down and decided to secure the sub floor. I had only secured the HT and bathroom a few months ago as I had burned through about 7-10 bits and one hammer drill and gave up for a while. This time I went with a rotory hammer drill and SDS Plus bits. What a difference. This thing cut through the concrete like butter unbelieveable...hammer drills should be outlawed! :) Best $55 rental fee spent!

Anyway, the bits I bought online ended up breaking just above the flutes of the bits at a rate of about 100 holes per bit. Not sure why that happened as the tips of the bits still looked like they could've gone much much longer. At any rate, got the sub floor pulled back up so I could glue the T&G together and put it all back together. Used 8 tubes of PL glue and just over 500 screws to secure the floor. Was also able to get the low pile carpet installed in the new storage room so the wife could start reorganizing her "stuff" in there.

All I have left to get done is to fireblock the remaining two columns and the bar area and I am ready for my framing and fireblock inspection. I think it is just about time to start getting bids for drywall. :D

I was excited to get done with those inspections and onto drywall, unfortunately the drywall enthusiasm fades quickly. Are you looking for someone to hang and finish, or just hang?

At first I was planning on hanging the drywall and then paying to have it finished to save money, but the wife has convinced me to hire the whole thing out. She feels I deserve a little break. Not to mention a good crew could probably get this done in a week or so, where it would take me a couple of months.

You'll be surprised, they may be able to hang in a day or 2 tops. Finishing is the long process. First day is a long day, then shorter days for each return.

After their first day of finishing, get fans in there to dry it out. My area was still too wet the next day, so they had to skip a day before they could hit it again.

You may even try to uncover the vents and get the air circulating, but make sure you get them covered again before they start sanding, or you will definitely regret it.

Thanks for the tips on the fans, we've got a couple so I'll put 'em to good use! Our HVAC contractor that installed the zoning system said the same thing. Don't run the A/C or furnace while they are working as the compound dust will go right past the filter or get sucked in at other unsealed parts of the fan assembly and damage the coils, motor, etc.

What a busy weekend and hope dad's had a great weekend.

Friday I passed my framing and fireblocking inspections so all my rough inspections are done! Audixium- the inspector seemed only concerned with my fireblocking and seemed to just glance over the framing and maybe the bottom plate in passing and mentioned nothing about the ramset nails. Friday afternoon I had my insulation delivered. If anyone in the Denver Metro area is looking for Roxul it can be had from a place called R-Factor (35th and Chambers in Aurora). VERY nice people down there. We decided to go with a product called Eco Bat for our wall insulation. It is made with more recyled materials and is less itchy. They delivered both products for $25 fee which I thought was reasonable for two pallets worth of "stuff". We put the Roxul up in the home theater ceiling for some sound deadening. I know this is not going to be extremly effective, but we did notice voices upstairs are muffled and vice versa. We hear most of the noise coming from the stairs now as opposed to the HT so it did help some.

I got the shower pain thinsetted down and is ready to accept the shower walls which I plan on doing tonight. I just found out yesterday that my folks are visiting next Thursday and staying for 10 days. So the push is on to get everything done before then so hopefully we can have drywall started. One company I talked with stated they just needed two days' notice and they could start. I figure if I can have the drywall finished before my folks leave I've got slave labor for painting...er...I mean help with painting. :D
Anyway, here are some progress pics:
Workout Room:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Insulation/P1010035.JPG

Bathroom
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Insulation/P1010036.JPG

Game Room:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Insulation/P1010037.JPG

Home Theater:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Insulation/P1010038.JPG

Bar:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Insulation/P1010039.JPG

Bar:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Insulation/P1010040.JPG

Well, it's been a busy week getting stuff finished up and ready for drywall. The drywall was delievered yesterday, 70 sheets of 4x12 in fact. Today the hangers are set to rock the entire basement, possibly spilling into tomorrow morning, then the mudders/tapers take over the reigns and work their magic. I did have to make some last minute modifications to one of the walls though... I wasn't satisified with the bump out I made for the kitchen plumbing and clean out. So I decided to put another layer of 2x4's on the wall, laying flat, to push the entire wall out another 1.5ish inches. Made a nice inset between the two windows for a future picture. Wouldn't you know it, one of the 4" can lights is directly centered between the windows...finally something going my way. So the light is centered over that inset and should look really nice when it is finished.
Updated game room wall:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Insulation/P1010041.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Drywall/P1010037.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Drywall/P1010038.JPG

Sweet, now is the time to pop a cold one and watch someone else sweat for awhile...

Yesir, it will be nice to take a break! Had to go back and edit my post...that would be 4' x12' sheets of drywall, not 4x8x12. That would be a heck of a large piece of drywall to hang...guess the lack of sleep the past couple of days is catching up to me... :D

Simply amazing is all I can say... The guys are probably 90-95% done and will finish securing the drywall as well as putting up the last couple of sheets and the corner beading. The "crew" is 2 guys. It was amazing to watch them work when I got home yesterday afternoon. I am filled with smiles!

Only one problem. I mis-measured the opening for the projector to fit into. So, looks like I'll have to go with plan b and do a pole mount for the projector. So I told the wife to tell the guys this morning to cut out the drywall I had them run across the bottom of that opening. Oh well...was a good idea in theory.

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Drywall/P1010039.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Drywall/P1010041.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Drywall/P1010040.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Drywall/P1010042.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Drywall/P1010043.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Drywall/P1010044.JPG

Looking good! Do you mind sharing how much they are charging? I'm trying to nail down that cost as there is no way I'm doing it myself.

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Drywall/P1010041.JPG


Why 3 ABS drains in this pic?

Looking good! Do you mind sharing how much they are charging? I'm trying to nail down that cost as there is no way I'm doing it myself.

Sorry I dropped off the radar for a while...Probably too late of a reply for you, but we paid $3,056.00 for the entire job. The company we went through was South Valley Drywall. I can get you contact info if you'd like. Again sorry for the late reply.

Bob

Why 3 ABS drains in this pic?

Chia, my apologies as well for the late reply. The bottom will be the drain for the dishwasher, the middle will be the drain for the sink, and the top is for the studor (sp?) vent. The plumbing inspector stated I could've just T'd the center line and put the vent on top of that and saved a couple of bucks. I set it up like our kitchen island is setup.

So I have some updates and pics I need to upload. The drywall came out AWESOME! We ended up hiring the painting out as well and it turned out great as well. There are some problems with the black ceiling in the HT, but these guys have vowed to make it right and are talking with Sherwin Williams as to why, after 5 coats, you can still see the lap marks.

Stay tuned...pics coming...

The finished drywall pics:

Home Theater
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Drywall/P1010556.JPG

Bar Area
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Drywall/P1010557.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Drywall/P1010558.JPG

Game Room
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Drywall/P1010559.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Drywall/P1010560.JPG

Workout Room
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Drywall/P1010561.JPG

Center wall
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Drywall/P1010562.JPG

Pictures of the painting. Sorry for the bad pics...I'm going for operator error here... :D

Home Theater
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Painting/P1010563.JPG

Home Theater (trim rings all painted black, just need to paint the register)
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Painting/P1010566.JPG

Bar Area
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Painting/P1010567.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Painting/P1010564.JPG

Workout Room
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Painting/P1010565.JPG

Bathroom is also coming along nicely. I've got the vanity installed, floor tile in and grouted, the crapper in, and the door hung. All I have left to do is install the tile for the counter top, install the sink and faucet, install the shut off valves and drain stuff for the sink, and trim and it's done. I'm hoping to get the counter top taken care of this weekend and get the sink up and running. We'll see...


http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Bathroom/P1010571.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Bathroom/P1010572.JPG

Looks like it's coming along nicely!

Looking very nice! Big jumps in progress from the raw drywall to mudded/taped to painted - screen wall and cove ceiling look great.

oh, I'm jealous. A toilet next to the wall, and not 8 inches out like mine.

Sorry I dropped off the radar for a while...Probably too late of a reply for you, but we paid $3,056.00 for the entire job. The company we went through was South Valley Drywall. I can get you contact info if you'd like. Again sorry for the late reply.

Bob

Thanks for the info - too late? Ha, I haven't even finished framing yet! When I get to drywall I may ping you for the contact info.

Everything is looking great - good job.

Bobmyster,

Everything is looking very good. Hopefully you will be in there soon enjoying everything.

I have to say I do get bummed looking at these nice rooms since the cost of me just getting down to my basement is so high:mad: Otherwise I would probably be calling up Dennis to come by for an estimate on a theater and a few other rooms.

Keep those updates coming.

James

Thanks all for the compliments! I am VERY happy with how the basement has transformed in just over a month. It's been a lot of hard work, but so far it has been paying off as the finished product looks very nice.

Here is a pic of how the A/V room is coming along. Nothing too spectacular, but I'm trying to keep everything as neat and organized as I can. Once I figure out whether I am going with an MA rack or am building one I will cut the opening into the HT just to the right of the wall plates.
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Painting/P1010557.JPG

Also, all of our cabinets came in yesterday! Attached is what the upper cabinets will look like. In the distance is the base cabinets and the glass inserts. Now we just need to make up our minds on flooring in the bar so I can get it installed and get the base cabinets installed. Once that is done the templaters can come in to do the counter tops. We have decided on quartz for the three counter tops.

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Bar/P1010556.JPG

Been a while since I updated you all with some pics. Doors are hung, bathroom is nearly finished (just have baseboard trim and counter top trim to install), and we got the upper cabinets installed in the bar area. I am hoping to get the hardie board thin-setted and screwed down on the sub floor this week in the bar and get the tiles dry fit and maybe set them down next week for good. My goal is to get the base cabinets and dishwasher installed over Labor Day weekend so we can put a call in to the counter top folks to come out and make their templates.

My buddy asked how you can tell when the most important work is done...there is a fresh roll of toilet paper! :D
Enjoy!
Bob

Da Bar:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Bar/P1010558.JPG

Da Bar, glass inserts installed into doors:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Bar/P1010561.JPG

Bathroom sink:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Bathroom/P1010560.JPG

Sconces:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Electrical/P1010562.JPG

Wow, I'm jealous. Seeing that toilet actually next to the wall and not out in the open like mine is a thing of beauty...

LOL! Thanks Michael! In your case though, you'd be the center of attention, no??

Well if you don't mind waiting Michael, one day you'll see my toilet practically touching the wall because I framed at 10.5"...:o

Bob, count me as jealous too!

Well, time for some more updates. Got the hardie board thinsetted and screwed down, tiles installed and base cabinets installed in the bar. We are now ready to have the counter top folks out to do their templating, hopefully I get a call today to schedule that. Also have the under cabinet lights on order, might have them in time to install this weekend. I cut some 1x12 pine and routered the edges to make some nice window sills. We've decided to paint them as that is what the rest of the house has. Oak base board trim and door casing trim is ordered and should be here in a week or so. When that stuff comes in I'll go ahead and pick up the oak railing and spindles. Yup, getting down to the end of this build, then I get to start the second half of the build...the HT! We are still hoping to have carpet installed no later than next month.

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Bar/P1010563.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Bar/P1010564.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Bar/P1010565.JPG

Got a call from the counter top folks, have an install date of Monday Oct 4th so at least that is some good news.

Bad news: the painters still cannot get the HT ceiling painted black without showing lap marks. They tried spraying on Wednesday and now I see every spray line on the ceiling. There is about 10 coats now of paint on the ceiling with two different brands of black. I feel bad that they are having to keep coming back out, on their dime with worsening results. I called them today and told them that I am not sure a black ceiling is in the cards anymore as this is really holding things up. I've thought about trying the Mickey Mouse ears black that others on this forum have talked about and see what that looks like. I just don't know what else to do. Might have to settle on a dark brown for the ceiling or something. :confused:

Anyone have any insight as the painters are out of ideas and don't know what to do next.

Have you tried Sherwin Williams paint yet? I got pretty good results on a very dark flat blue on the ceiling. It's not perfect and there may be some lap marks, but they are impossible to see unless you shine a 500 watt light on the ceiling. :) Nothing is noticeable with the normal room lighting. I know SW has a nice flat black base paint, contractor series, that I have used for my screen wall and I see no lap marks at all. This flat black is the core base color, no other coloring needs to be added.

I rolled it on and made sure that I always loaded the roller with the same amount of paint and covered the same amount of area. I had to roll it on from one edge, working my way across the ceiling.



Robert

The painters used SW paint. I believe it was called Promar 400. They stated it was their base black paint that nothing needed to be added to. They tried two different gallons of that and then came back with something else on Wednesday. You can't see the lap marks until the 4 75watt can lights get turned on. Then you can see it all. Turn on the 1800 watt light and look out! :D I should say, that is when they rolled it. The sprayed attempt you can see the overlap lines under natural light and looks horible when you turn the lights on.
This last attempt was the first time they tried spraying it and looks the worst of all. :( The screen wall they painted black shows no lap marks at all and looks great.

One thing that has been consistant is that each time they over lapped their rolling or the spraying so I wonder if that has anything to do with it. When they rolled, the first coat went one way, the second coat they would roll perpandicular.

Bummer... the Promar 400 is the stuff I was talking about. Did they prime the ceiling before they started? I put two coats of Kiltz on mine.

Robert

They did prime the ceiling along with all the other walls, but not sure if they did two coats of primer before the two coats of final. Then, after several "failed" coats of the black it was recommended to them by the SW rep to use this thicker primer that I can't remember the name of. Then they rolled two more coats of the promar 400 with the same results. I decided to give it a shot and roll it myself with the left over paint they tried spraying with a little bit ago. I rolled it just as you outline, so we'll see how my first shot at rolling black goes.

Loving the build, its coming along great.... But am I the only one who thinks its gonna be a little distracting watching a movie... the cat comes down the stairs and takes a dump right in front of the screen?? please tell me your gonna move those things??.... jk. Love the build.

What do you mean?? I plan on having a crapper box flanking both sides of the screen for effect! LOL!! Yup, I plan on moving the kitty crapper boxes into the storage room once I get all the shelves built in there. Thinking about installing a kitty door in the door to the storage room so we can leave the door closed while still allowing the cats to do their thing... :D Thanks for the compliments on my build!

As an update, I got the light rail trim installed under the upper cabinets and it looks great! Also got the handles installed on all the cabinets and drawers so the bar is pretty much done...just missing the counter tops and the tile back spash.

Also started work on the crown molding in the HT. Finally I get to work in the HT!! I got some 3/4"x3/4" stock installed for the rope lighting to sit on as well as have a second mounting point for the crown molding. Got the front piece nailed in and it looks good...even if it is white right now. There is a 1 3/4" gap from the top of the crown molding to the ceiling so hopefully that is enough as that is all it is gonna get...

Oh yeah, an update on the ceiling. It looks sweet! I took my time, used light even pressure, kept the over lapping to a minimum and it turned out great! You can barely make out one lap mark and you really have to look for it so I think we are good to go. Finally!!

I'll get some pics uploaded shortly.

The bar:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Bar/P1010567.JPG

HT:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/P1010566.JPG

OH MY GOSH!! :eek: Is that poop under the ladder?!?! jk I love the color scheme your going with, I plan on using similar colors in my room. Looking great, I also like the crown moulding... What color are you going to paint it??

...and skid marks next to the air hose... :eek: :D LOL!! The painters left quite a few interesting "paintings" on the floor. At least one of them was a smiley face.

We took a chance with the colors, and we are just thrilled with the combos as well. I am thinking about painting the crown molding black so it blends right in with the ceiling and soffit. Its only real purpose is to hide the rope lighting. I am, however, open to any suggestions you, or anyone else for that matter, might have for color choices. I am hoping to get the rest of the crown molding installed after work tomorrow and maybe start painting it on Tuesday.

Bob

Its hard to tell how low the soffit comes down from the ceiling with both of them black... How far down is your soffit from the ceiling?? I agree though, black crown moulding will look good IMO.

The soffit hangs down about 5 1/2" from the ceiling. They are just 2x6's that I boxed in. It made it real easy to soffit the entire basement this way as well as giving me a good cavity to install the 4" recessed lights where ever I wanted them.

I was planning on having the crown molding all installed last night until I pulled a @#$% moment... I cut the angles the wrong direction for the side wall on my last full piece. DOH!! I don't want any seams so I'll be going back to HD tonight for one more 10'er. I also have one more outside corner to do where the projector will be. Boy is it tough doing those with bullnose corners! The 22.5" cuts were the easy part to go around the bend...compensating for not getting the crown molding exactly at the right angle on the wall so it will match the crown molding on the wall on the other side of the corner sux!! If all goes well I'll get that last piece up and then finish that last outside corner so I can get it sanded painted. Bet Holmes would've had this done in an hour.... :o

those bullnoses are why I am planning my columns to be rounded up to the moulding, then stop the router and use just 90 degrees. Of course in the rest of the basement, I will have the rounded the whole way, but there is no way I would attempt crown on those.

The bad part is, it will be black on black so most people probably won't see the detail anyway....especially once I put the projector up in that area. Oh well. This is only my second time doing crown molding, the first time was about 5-7 years ago. I hated it then...still hate it now! :)

OK, so I got the last outside corner finished last night. Unfortunately the rain wouldn't let up so I could get the new piece of sh...er...crown molding for the other side. So, the crown molding installation project goes on for one more day...and hopefully the last!

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/P1010568.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/P1010570.JPG

Hey Bob, things are looking spectacular! I feel for you on the crown....I'm still experiencing some psychological issues from mine (at least I think it was the crown;)).

Two things...you have stolen both my step ladder and our recently acquired cat. You can keep the cat, but I'd like my ladder back. You can never have too many ladders :)

Thanks for the compliments! I'm wondering if a shot of crown will help with the crown?? :p

Which ladder?? The painting guys left their ladder accidentally last week, so technically I've got two stolen ladders now! :D

Thanks for the compliments! I'm wondering if a shot of crown will help with the crown?? :p

Which ladder?? The painting guys left their ladder accidentally last week, so technically I've got two stolen ladders now! :D

Certainly wouldn't hurt! It's the red step ladder (first pic just above), I have the same one. Seriously, the cat looks exactly like ours as well.

Funny story (maybe)....

WAF and daughter "surprised" me not long ago bringing home a cat from the animal shelter (they often surprise me when they both have the day to themselves...idle time you know?). Not being a cat person by trade, I bought off on it with prejudice. Well, last night the pussy decided to open up a small hole in the screened in deck area and escape into the night. After wondering around the house calling "here kitty, kitty, kitty" (like any normal cat owner would do) and coming up empty I ended up rousting the WAF to advise. She wasn't very happy and advised me to find the cat before turning in (it was already 11 PM mind you). Well, that wasn't going to fly so I went to bed with the assumption the cat would turn up after it's fill of being out ho'in around.

Well, guess who was meowing at the sliding door at 6 AM this morning? He seemed quite pleased to be able to get back in the house again, and a bit shaken up by the experience (as was I). Needless to say my screen door will be patched up....I don't need the additional stress.

Bummer...was hoping it was the shorter one that way you and the painters could fight over it! Oh well. :D It's a pretty sturdy unit though. Has held up great from the occasional throw across the room (I'd never do such a thing), hammer full swing slam on the step (again couldn't be me) and other such stress relievers I could think of at the time...if that ladder could talk... :eek:

My coworker has a cat identical to ours as well, just a bit thicker shall we say.

Your story brings back memories of our dog. She is a german sheppard mix and could jump the 6ft fences in our backyard at our old house. She'd see a squirrel or a fox and boom she was gone! I gave up running after her as I certainly can't jump 6 ft fences in a single bound like her...the wife didn't like it when I would stop looking for the dog after a while either. Thankfully the dog would come back within an hour or so with her tongue hanging to the ground.
Now it seems age has caught up with her so her fence jumping days appear to be over...thank god!

Your design and progress looks great!. I'm a fellow customer of Mr. Browning's.

Your design and progress looks great!. I'm a fellow customer of Mr. Browning's.

Thanks! Do you have a build thread going?? I'd be interested to see what plans he came up with for you. It seems he really likes those ugly blue light fixtures as I've seen them in quite a few of his plans! :D

Another crown molding update...the install is finally done! Just needs a quick sanding and couple of coats of paint. Last night I finished the last piece and filled all the nail holes and added a little filler to the inside corners to finish them off and give a nice clean look.

On a negative note, our oak trim came in yesterday. The baseboard trim was supposed to be 16' lengths of oak. Instead I got 260 feet of hodge podge crap from the vendor that HD orders from...some were 7 foot pieces others were 10 foot pieces. Boy was I pi$$ed. Four of the boards were warped so bad that I would've had a 2" hump in the middle of the room. What a joke. They are supposed to call the vendor and find out WTF today. So, I might end up waiting another 2 weeks to get my trim. I was hoping to get the carpet installed before the snow, but now I am starting to doubt this will happen... :mad:

We are going to the lake this weekend to sneak in one last outting with our friends before they hybernate their boat. Should be a good time of drinking, wakeboarding, kneeboarding, and tubing. Did I mention drinking??? :cool:

This is only my second time doing crown molding, the first time was about 5-7 years ago. I hated it then...still hate it now! :)

Well it came out nice - last time I tried crown molding, I gave up halfway through and hired a professional. :rolleyes:

Thanks, Brad I appreciate it!

Well, just got a call from HD. They order from a vendor that gets the wood from another vendor and they have no control over the lengths of wood they get. They could put the order in again, but no guarantees on what sizes I would get this time and it could take 3 weeks this time because the vendor is out of that trim and are waiting for more. What a bunch of crap. So, they will be refunding my money and I will look elsewhere. :(

Time to start looking around at actual lumber yards and see if I can source out the 260' of trim I need. I think I'll start looking next week so I don't get bummed out and ruin the weekend.

GRRRRR...

Let me know what you find... I would like some longer lengths of trim too.

Will do!

Just some more updates. Crown moulding is painted and rope lighting installed! I plan on doing one more coat of paint on the crown molding. I installed a black outlet and cover in the ceiling for the projector and for the rope lights..the bridges are broke as they are controlled by different sources. Next up is to install the LV box for the projector cable(s) and build a nice door to cover the main water valves and drains.

Thinking I'm just gonna have to jump between all the HD's and/or Lowes to get the oak base trim I need as I am getting impatient. The HD by me has like 10 16 footers so I'd only need to source a few more sticks elsewhere and then the painters can get started on staining it all so I can get it installed and move on to carpet.

Sorry for the bad pics, my camera is not very good at "night" pics....

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/P1010571.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/P1010572.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/P1010575.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/P1010576.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/P1010577.JPG

OK, I just pulled the ultimate FAIL. I was taking measurements for my screen only to find out I grabbed incorrect measurements when I built the enclosure. I have enough room for a 105" screen width-wise, but not height wise. Not sure where I got my numbers from as they are hand written. I was planning on a seymour screen and the 105" screen frame dimensions are 111.7" x 65.7" for a 16:9 screen. My measurements...112.5" x 52" :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

After looking back over their dimensions page it looks like I can go with the 2.35 format as a saving grace. If I am reading their site correctly I can still go with the 105" screen as the total width is 111.7" regardless of format and 51.3" in height. I guess Rock Band and Guitar hero will still look good...hell it looks pretty good on our 65" tv upstairs.... I just don't think it would look good if I took out the entire arch and extend the walls of the screen enclosure all the way up to the soffits to stuff a 105" 16:9 screen in there....

SCREW!!! :o :( :mad: :rolleyes: and any other pi$$ed off icon I can find!! :D

Definitely go scope. You can build some masking panels to plavce ofer the ends for 16:9 showings.

I'll bet your heart skipped a few beats until you found the Seymour 2:35 dimensions would fit :eek:

Definitely go scope and leave the arch....based on how things fit, it was meant to be :)

Have ever thought of building your own screen?? I used Seymour's AT screen material and built my own with their DIY tutorial. Turned out better than I thought, saved me lots of $$$.

Yes, I definitely got lucky the 2.35 fits in there, apparently it was meant to be! After the wife got home yesterday and I explained the problem to her (before telling her about 2.35 option) she told me the arch stays with a couple of other choice words! She was totally against taking it out as that whole wall really flows nicely. Scope it is!

I thought about the DIY route for the screen, but after my last screen door screen replacement I'll pass. Sometimes the frustration I cause myself ends up being worse than just writing the check so to speak. I'm also thinking about just paying the $300 for the masking panels they sell as well. They'll match, fit perfectly, and most importantly the wife was totally onboard for the idea regardless of the cost. After telling her the total price of the screen setup and the Panny 4000 she didn't bat an eye lash and said, ok if that is what will make you happy. Gosh I love her! :D

Bob

Counter tops were installed yesterday! They look awesome!! Had to wait 24 hours before I could do any of the plumbing so today I will be installing the faucet, garbage disposal and all the plumbing stuffs and hopefully have a working wet bar by the end of the day. If I am lucky maybe I'll get the pendulum lights installed over the bar island as well. If I am not lucky I'll now have an indoor pool with a kick ass under water bar! :D

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Bar/P1010578.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Bar/P1010579.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Bar/P1010580.JPG

Sweet!

any swimming this morning?

Some good news and some bad. Good news is, the plumbing is finally done and everything is hooked up. I am also now ready for my final plumbing inspection! Bad news is, no indoor swiming pool! :)

I ran into some problems with the under mount sink and the drain connections. I ended up having to plumb the garbage disposal into the bottom stub out and not the middle as I had originally intended. I also decided to just put a clean out cap on the middle stub out and not make that a dedicated DW drain. I left enough pipe to cut and install at a later date if I changed my mind and wanted to stop draining the DW through the garbage disposal. My fear was not using the DW very often and having the water in that P-trap drying out and smelling up the place.

I was also able to get the pendulum lights installed over the bar island last night as well. Just need 7 more 4" can light trims for the game room and my electrical will all be ready for final inspection as well.

The painters have not called me back yet so either they are on vacation or the black ceiling in the HT made them not want to do anything for me again... I may end up having to stain all the trim, doors, railing, etc myself. :( I'm hoping they are just on vacation.

Well, had a heck of a start to the week last week. About 5am we heard one hell of an explosion and it sure got me right out of bed. It sounded like water was running, so I ran downstairs to find out WTF happened and got the water shut down to the whole house until I could figure out what happened. There was water all over the utility room, so when I stepped in it to shut the water off to the house it was rather hot. As I looked around the water heater and the plumbing to it to see what happened and where the problem was, I was stunned as to what I found...the water heater burst...that's right burst. So, I shut the water off to the water heater and turned it back on to the rest of the house and started getting ready to go to work. Later that afternoon my brother came over to give me a hand getting the old water heater out and the new on in. After that it was time for the disection!
So, here is a pic of what the outside looked like before we took it apart:

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/P1010586.JPG

And here is the "blow out":
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/P1010587.JPG

Not really sure how it all happened, but decided to put a thermal expansion tank in as cheap insurance...that and apparently it is code here as well. Water pressure on the city side is 100psi, after the pressure regulator it was 50psi. I did bump up the house pressure to 60psi though after the install and man that made a nice difference in the house! I also put the new water heater in a pan as the concrete is not sloped to the drain...nice, huh?? Had a nice mess to clean up as the water was making its way towards the floor under the stairs. I'm just greatful that we were home when it happened.

So, here is the "new" stuff:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/P1010585.JPG

I finally heard back from the painters early last week. He told me to shoot him an email with the skinney and he'd write me up a quote. Still haven't heard from them. :-(

Saturday we selected carpet!!! They are also going to be able to install it next week so that was an added bonus. Knowing that the time table jsut got pushed up a bit on the trim we headed out to HD and picked up stain, poly, brush, etc needed for all that trim. I decided to just do it myself as I cannot wait any longer for fear it will not get done in time. We also got a call Saturday morning that the oak spindles had come in...what timing!! Was up 'till late on Saturday night getting everything stained so I could put down poly on Sunday. Spent late Sunday morning into the afternoon laying a coat of poly down on everything. Tonight I will get it all sanded and will apply the second coat of poly tomorow night. Boy am I sore! This is why I wanted to hire this out! Everything was done on the floor so I'm paying the price for being too cheap to buy some saw horses...

The fruits of my efforts:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Painting/P1010590.JPG

Some more updates. Last week was an abusive push to get ready for carpet which was installed on Friday. We took advantage of our Fall Break and had a staycation to finish the basement. I got all the trim installed (I still hate bullnose corners for trim!), speakers installed, paint touch up, etc completed. Only thing I have left to do is build the handrail, tile the backsplash in the bar, cut and stain/poly the doors for the mechancial room, and make a nice cabinet door of some sorts to cover the water shut offs in the HT.

I also passed my final plumbing and heating inspection! I'll probably do the final electrical and final building inspections over xmas break.

On a fun note, I ordered some toys over the weekend as a birthday present: Pany AE4000 (arrives Thurs), Onkyo TX-NR1008 (arrives Wed), and Emotive XPA-3 (haven't received shipping notice yet). Still waiting for my SVS sub (SB12-NSD) to ship. Wife wants me to start looking into HT furniture next...awesome!! Now I just have to remember who that person is on the forum everybody keeps buying their chairs from....

I will order the screen once I get the panny hooked up and verify there are no problems hitting the screen wall at the 105" size I want at the distance it is at (12 ft). According to the calculaters it won't have problems, but I just want to be 100% sure before I pull the trigger...

Pics of the padding installed:
Workout Room:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Carpet/P1010591.JPG

Home Theater
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Carpet/P1010592.JPG

Game Room:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Carpet/P1010593.JPG

Bar Area:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Carpet/P1010594.JPG

Pics of the carpet installed:
Home Theater:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Carpet/P1010595.JPG

Bar Area:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Carpet/P1010596.JPG

Game Room:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Carpet/P1010597.JPG

Workout Room:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Carpet/P1010598.JPG

Mechanical Room:
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/Carpet/P1010599.JPG

looks great!!!

Chair guy is Roman
AVS user RSH
rtheaters.com
Ultimate Home Entertainment

Thanks for that info Michael! The only thing I could remember was his name and that was it. Next up...spend more $$$$ until the wife changes her mind! :D

Looks great!

Well, yesterday was an emotional roller coaster ride for me as well as the wife. We had to put our cat down yesterday evening. Our little girl has been fighting some form of aggresive cancer and in 3 weeks it pretty much took her from a healthy, playful cat to one that couldn't do anything. She wouldn't eat, drink, couldn't walk, etc. She weighed just 3lbs 11oz and turned rail thin. The vet tried everything they could to try and find the problem, but couldn't pin point it to treat it. We got her shortly after my wife and I got married so it's hitting us pretty hard.

On a positive note my Onkyo and XPA-3 arrived yesterday. Maybe this weekend I'll hook it up...I don't know. The basement just doesn't seem all that important right about now... :(

Well, finally tried to get back in the swing of things last night and took the projector out of the box and started playing with it. Set it up on the ladder right around the spot I "thought" it should go and fired it up. Messed with the focus so I could actually read the menu and worked the zoom. It looks like I have to move the projector back at least 2 feet as I am fully zoomed out and still missing about a foot on the left, right and bottom of the screen area. I really wished I hadn't listened to people who said not to buy the projector until after you are done. :mad: I would've known the location wouldn't work and could have reframed further back and reran the electrical and cabling. I'm gonna put a post in the panny 4000 thread to confirm my findings but I'm pretty sure it is too close to the screen wall. Crap..

I also took the Onkyo and XPA-3 out of their boxes and hooked it all up. I am still sub-less at the moment (might ship next week) so I didn't bother to run Audessy. I brought down the HDDVD player and put Transformers in and the wife and I watched 30 minutes or so of it. Was very impressed with the picture and it was on the black wall. Can't wait to order my screen and see the real thing. Looks like I'll be needing that 40ft HDMI cable I returned a few months ago from Monoprice that was too long.... :rolleyes:

Just waded thru the entire thread and must congratulate you on your job. Outstanding!!

Sounds like the water heater relief valve failed.

If you have humidifier and A/C drains going to your floor drain, consider pouring a bleach/water solution down it about every five years. Mine has clogged twice in 24 years and always appears to be a slimy growth. Also might caulk the floor/plate joint so if the drain does clog, the water will go towards the door.

How did you wind up handling the HVAC actuators since you went w/ the sheetrock ceiling?

Looks great with the carpet and trim in! :)

Sorry about kitty. :( I love cats, unfortunately my wife doesn't, and she's winning that battle.

Just waded thru the entire thread and must congratulate you on your job. Outstanding!!

Sounds like the water heater relief valve failed.

If you have humidifier and A/C drains going to your floor drain, consider pouring a bleach/water solution down it about every five years. Mine has clogged twice in 24 years and always appears to be a slimy growth. Also might caulk the floor/plate joint so if the drain does clog, the water will go towards the door.

How did you wind up handling the HVAC actuators since you went w/ the sheetrock ceiling?

Thanks for the compliments and the advice on the drain. We do have both the A/C and humidifier drains going to the floor drain.

As for the HVAC actuators I created cutouts and trimed around them like an attic access openning. You can see one of them in the pic of the workout room towards the back right. They blend in pretty nicely and don't look like much of an eye soar. I also placed the rear speakers in the vicinity of the dampers at the front of the house. I will eventually need to add two more speakers in the rear for more access to the front dampers (not really 7.1 sound but the best I can do in a ceiling configuration) but the inspector was cool with what I had done. With that in mind I'm off the hook for two more speakers for now...

Looks great with the carpet and trim in! :)

Sorry about kitty. :( I love cats, unfortunately my wife doesn't, and she's winning that battle.

Thank you on both accounts. We decided to adopt another to replace our fallen friend and so far this little guy seems to love his new friends. He's a little too playful for our other cat right now, but I'm sure he'll grow on the new guy. As an added bonus this kitten likes dogs so now are dog has a friend to play with as well. The other cat hates the dog.. :D We've named the new kitten Storm and he is 3 months old. I can't get the pics to upload as Comcast seems to be having problems, so I've attached a couple of pics.

Bob

Have some more updates for those interested. I managed to pull new electrical to the new location for the projector and bought a 3' hdmi extension cable from monoprice that was the same gauge as what I had up there. Also taped up our red neck screen, 2 king sized sheets so we could start watching some movies. I ordered the seymour screen last weekend so hopefully I get a shipping notice the end of this week or beginning of next week for that. Also got our theater chairs ordered from Roman! They will be in state on Monday of next week, then just have to wait for them to be delivered (decided to go with white glove delivery to save my back). Finally I got the railing fininshed up. Looks beautiful! Have a short list of things to get done before the Holiday parties so we'll see if I can get 'em done. I am hoping to do the tile backsplash in the bar this weekend.
Some pics for you all:

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/P1010626.JPG

A pic of the "ghetto screen" and projector
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/P1010627.JPG

Some pics of The Expendables
http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/P1010628.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/P1010630.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/HomeTheater/P1010631.JPG

I love everything about your build. Very nice work. What paint colors did you use? I apologize if I missed it somewhere in the thread. I am wanting similar colors and the dark color in the bar area is awesome.

Thanks for the compliments. The brown color is Brevity Brown from Sherwin Williams. The beige was a color match from the rest of the house, but they did not put the codes on a label...I didn't notice that until now. Should be interesting when I need more paint in the future.

Bob

Been following your thread from the beginning, love what you are doing. Your space so far is turning out awesome. Hadn't seen any updates for a while? Any pic's and info coming soon?

Keep up the good work

Sorry for dropping off the radar for a while. The Holiday's came and it was a mad rush to get stuff done for final inspections during my time off from work. Passed all my finals the last week in December and turned in my permit card! My folks came out for Xmas so we spent a lot of time in the theater watching movies. Anytime my mom and wife went shopping, my dad and I went downstairs and streamed Netflix movies! Much different this Xmas than last when my dad was helping me mix 20 some odd bags of concrete to patch the floor for the ground plumbing. :D

Cool part was, my in laws bought us a pop corn machine for Xmas! My father in law was dead set on getting us one ever since he started seeing how the basement was finishing up. Nice! :p

My wife and I spent a few hours in Lowes trying to figure out a pattern for the back splash in the bar and I grungingly started work that same day. The diamond pattern was a bit of a challenge, and made for some extra cuts, but in the end I'm glad I gave in and did it that way.

We tried to have a few parties for new years eve, pro bowl and super bowl but they all were pretty much a bust with only a few people coming over. Oh well..their loss.

I need to take a pic or two of the A/V room and get them posted as well. I ended up building a "rack" out of shelving MDF at Home Depot. Ended up costing me less than $50 as I just couldn't convince myself to spend a grand on a MA rack. That and I ended up returning my SB sub and going with the PC-12 Plus sub... :D :D :D

Here are some finished pics of the basement:

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/FinishedPics/P1010652.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/FinishedPics/P1010653.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/FinishedPics/P1010654.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/FinishedPics/P1010655.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/FinishedPics/P1010656.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/FinishedPics/P1010657.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Construction/FinishedPics/P1010658.JPG

Congrats man, you sure flew through this build. but now you get to sit back and enjoy.

Thanks Michael! Only problem is, I may have done this too quickly... I'm bored now!! We have plans to build shelving and stuff in the new storage room so at least I have that coming up. I did buy a new truck to help with the boredom, accessorizing it will be fun. :D
The new 5th wheel hitch just came in today so I have something to do this weekend.

http://home.comcast.net/~therenwicks/Truck/P1010684.JPG

Looks great! And the finished basement isn't too bad either. ;)

looks very nice. if you don't mind, how long is your bar?

looks very nice. if you don't mind, how long is your bar?

Sorry for the late response. The bar is 9' on the cabinet wall and the island is 7'.