Well on Thursday I got my plans approved and got my Building Permit, so I now declare myself officially started working on my home theater. I've been reading here and planning for about 8 months, and now I finally will start building. To acknowlege the start, I thought I would start my construction thread to document my progress.

I guess what I'm building should be considered more a general purpose room than a dedicated home theater, but just barely. It will basically be a home theater with a ping pong table in the back.

If you're wondering where the name came from, we'll it's a song by my favorite band, Rush, about a black hole. I felt a black hole seemed pretty appropriate for the dark theater in my basement I intend to build.

Here are the plans that were approved:
http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/HomeTheaterv7Electrical.jpg

I'll include the plans with the home theater layout & some before pictures shortly.

Guy

Here are the plans with just the home theater layout info:

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/HomeTheaterv8Plan.jpg

Here are my "Before" pictures. When I moved in there was some framing and soffit around the HVAC already done, presumably by the previous home owner. I'll need to do a bit of fixing up, but I'm hoping to use most of what he already did.

This picture is from the back of the room, over the ping-pong table, looking at the front wall where the screen will be.

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0226_1024.jpg

This one is from the back, over the ping-pong table, at the wall to the rest of the basement. In the center there, under the stairs, will be my AV closet and will hold a 100A sub-panel I'm installing.

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0227_1024.jpg

This one is from the front, looking at the back. Notice the ping-pong table has been indefinately converted to a work bench.

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0228_1024.jpg

Guy

Love the name, but I guess I am biased as Rush is my favorite band. Good luck on your progress, looks like it will be a nice setup.

Drew

I've been playing around with Sketchup to try and capture the ideas in my head to show what I want it to look like. Here is my first attempt. I'm sure it will change over time, but this is what I'm envisioning now. The seating will be black, not red, but when I tried to change the color to black it just looked like one big black blob.

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/CygnusX-1.jpg

What are you using to draw? I like it. Is it shareware? How is the learning curve?

What are you using to draw? I like it. Is it shareware? How is the learning curve?

That's Google Sketchup. It's a freeware program and extremely easy to learn.

DigitalMan,
Nice job on the renderings. Did you do the popcorn machine and speakers yourself?

I would rethink that doorway into the theater near the screen. Any time that door is opened it's going to splash a ton of light onto the screen. Is it a necessary door? Can it be moved? Can it open the other way?
One other thought: I don't know how serious of a table tennis player you are, but that area seems pretty cramped for ping pong.

Overall looks very nice. Keep up the good work and the updates. I love a good construction thread.

The name certainly caught my attention. Man I hope Rush goes on tour again soon!
Oh, nice start so far. The render is pretty good. I messed around with SketchUp a bit and haven't touched it since. Yours looks really good.

The visio plans are very nicely done/labeled. Been looking to update my basic layout with those kind of details. Clarence also has some nice plans, too. I will reference them when doing my plans. Thanks for posting them.

Room looks real nice, BTW.

FYI...www.neilpeart.net has some info regarding the possibility of another upcoming studio album.....


DKaps
(Xbox gamertag "Force Ten")

Your leaving less than two feet for an aisle from ping pong to the seats.

Thats pretty cramped.

Also, did I see that the door into the theater goes thru another room (bathroom)

You might want to rethink those two things.

Just my .02

DigitalMan,
Nice job on the renderings. Did you do the popcorn machine and speakers yourself?

I would rethink that doorway into the theater near the screen. Any time that door is opened it's going to splash a ton of light onto the screen. Is it a necessary door? Can it be moved? Can it open the other way?
One other thought: I don't know how serious of a table tennis player you are, but that area seems pretty cramped for ping pong.



I found the popcorn machine in the Google Sketchup 3D Warehouse at http://sketchup.google.com/product_3dwh.html. The speakers were already included in the program. I do have Sketchup 5, not the free Google Sketchup, but I would expect it is similar. I really like Sketchup. I only spent about half a day completely learning how to use the program and drawing that. Just make sure you go through all the tutorials, they are very helpful.

As for the door, it will almost never be opened, so I'm not worried about the light on the screen. I didn't want to put it there, but the wife wanted access to the laundry room from that side so she didn't have to trip over the toys in the kids playroom by going the other way. If that's the only thing she has an issue with, then I'm happy to put the door there. The main entrance to the theater is down by the popcorn machine.

We are not serious ping pong players, but we have table in place now and it seemed like there was room to play. We do have some flexability to more it any which way when things are done to give more space if necessary.

Thanks for the comments,
Guy

FYI...www.neilpeart.net has some info regarding the possibility of another upcoming studio album.....


Awesome, I'll head there and check it out next. Thanks.

Guy

Your leaving less than two feet for an aisle from ping pong to the seats.

Thats pretty cramped.

Also, did I see that the door into the theater goes thru another room (bathroom)

You might want to rethink those two things.

Just my .02

The location of the ping pong table and the seating is still pretty flexible. I was going to wait until the room and fairly complete to decide exactly where I want the seating, and how much of an aisle I can have, etc. I think it will work out OK.

The door that goes into the big unfinished space (where we may add a bathroom in the future) will hardly ever be used. The main entrance is on the other side of the theater. The reason it's like that is that there are holes in the floor for the shower drain in a really awkward place. Putting the two doors like that was the only way I could think of to make it work. Plus the wall is already framed with the door there, and that's about the only place it could fit due to HVAC and the floor drains in the bathroom.

Thanks for the feedback,
Guy

Well, I suppose it's time for my first update just so you don't think I totally dropped off the face of the earth. I was pretty happy with my slow but steady progress in June & August, but I didn't go down there to work once in July. We totally over-scheduled July, and it was torchure not being able to keep working. Anyway, here is the update:

HVAC: I hired this out and now have two sends and a return installed in the theater room. This should be all the HVAC work.

Electrical: My main 100A panel was full, so I hired an electrician to do a service upgrade. He upgraded my main panel in my garage to 200A. He only wanted $300 extra to install the 100A sub-panel for the theater (that I was planning on installing myself), so I had him do that too. He also installed the electrical for all house air conditioning that we hope to add soon. You don't need it very often in Colorado, but it will be nice to have for a few months of the year. I will do the rest of the electrical myself.

Framing: I have now completed framing and building soffits around exposed heating ducts. The previous homeowner had already framed about half the room which I originally thought was great, but it turned out to be the biggest problem I faced. In Colorado we have expansive clay soil, so you have to "float" the basement walls which means you hang the walls from the joists, and you must leave a 1 1/2" gap at the bottom to allow the slab to raise if the soil expands. Well, most of his framing didn't quite have a 1 1/2" gap, most likely because the slab must have raised over time. So I had to rip down every wall he framed and shorten the studs by a hair. That was WAY more work than the other walls I framed from scratch.

I am now learning about fire blocking, and will do that next so I can get my framing inspection.

Here are some pictures of how it currently looks:

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0303_1024.jpg


http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0304_1024.jpg


http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0305_1024.jpg


http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0310_1024.jpg

Not a lot of description necessary at this stage I guess. The last picture shows a small soffit I built where I will put a 4" or so conduit between the AV closet in the middle of the picture & the projector. I will be building an in-wall rack for my components in the wall so they will face the theater and the back can be accessed from the AV closet. I'll probably put a cabinet door of some type to cover the components and use an IR repeater.


Guy

OK, I could use some advise as I need to make some decisions soon. I have been struggling with the decision between a smaller dedicated home theater (14' x 17'), or a larger multi-use room (14' x 17' HT plus 9'9" x 22'5" Ping Pong Room in an L shape) since day one. My construction techniques would be the same either way, so if I do the multi-use room, the whole big L area would be built the same way I would build the smaller dedicated HT. I would like the smaller dedicated cozy HT for family use, but would like the bigger multi-use room for Superbowl parties and the like. What I REALLY want to do is do both, by having something like a curtain right behind the seating that I could open up when I need the space. As you can see in the following drawing, I have a steel pole & support beam at 17' back from the screen, so that would be where we could hang a curtain. But that idea has its own set of complications:

1) What would I do with the rear surrounds? Ideas I've had are:

a) Buy two sets of rear surrounds, one on the back wall and one directly between the rear row of seating & the curtain, and be able to switch between them. The complication is that I want the rear surrounds about 2' behind the seating, and with only 17' to work with, I really don't think I have the space to do this.

b) Can an acoustically transparent curtain be made? Then I would only have one set of rear surrounds on the back wall, but they could be heard through the curtain if it's closed.

c) Any other ideas?

2) Is my spacing of my two rows of seating OK? Can I fit two rows of seating in 17'? My front row will be a little closer than recommended at 1.38 time screen width if I go with an 8' wide screen. I plan on my second row being the sweet spot, however. We have 5 people in our family, so I have to be able to seat at least that many.

Thanks,
Guy



http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/HomeTheaterv9.jpg

So anyone know the answers to my questions in the previous post?

I especially want to know if an acoustically transparent curtain exists, and how it would work to have my rear surrounds go through it? They would be mounted about 10 feet behind the curtain.

Thanks,
Guy

Well, while it is surely a matter of personal opinion, I would go with the dedicated theater room. In fact before I got to you last posts, I was going to suggest removing the ping pong table and having two rows of seating.

My room is only like 16' long and I still do two rows of setting (I wish I had another 2 feet or so), you 17' would be about idea, I would think.

Also, it has been mentioned many a time, typically you don't want a popcorn popper in the movie room. You got the smell, lights, people getting up and making noise, etc.

Since my rear row is also within a few inches of the rear wall, I put my surrounds near the ceiling and within a couple of inches of the rear wall. This is not idea for the rear row, but it still works well. I have a rear CC in a 6.1 set up and this helps at the rear wall when movies have that track.

Personally, I would just go with your latest plan and put up a wall between the theater and ping pong room. IMO this would ad more versatility as say some could be playing ping pong, while others are watching a movie.

If you moved your rear row over a few inches, you could probably put your door in at the rear of the theater between the pole and common wall to your mechanical room.

Note, these are just ideas more then suggestions. But with the space you have, I would keep everything separate and avoid the "multi use" room, just MHO

edit, you might also consider real theater seats for one of the rows. You can fit more in and still be comfortable. I fit six in my rear row in the just about the same space I could have had four recliners. Tho if you want more comfort in the rear rows, you could put the theater seats in the front row.

OK, if have reached a milestone so it seems like a good time for an update. This week I passed my framing, mechanical and electrical rough in inspections. It's starting to get pretty exciting. The framing inspector seemed blown away that I actually knew what fire blocking was and had done it properly. Thanks goes to everyone here that helped me learn about fireblocking. The mechanical inspector spent the most time there, but passed me too. It took me two tries to pass the electrical insection, however. I read that for rough in you were not supposed to connect any fixtures. You mainly needed to mount your boxes, run the wires, and pig tail the grounds. Well he told me that for rough in you also need to make up your neutrals in switches, and I needed to completely connect my recessed cans, but leave the box open. So I finished that about 20 minutes after he left, and he passed me when he came back out.

Here is a picture of the screen wall. I ran ENT conduit for 7.2 surround, plus one run to a column next to my riser location for future Buttkickers. I also ran a conduit from my AV closet upstairs to our family room TV for future use. I pulled in 14 AWG speaker wire rated for in wall use from HD, but since I have it all in conduit I can easily replace the wire at any time if I want better wire or have any problems. I ran RG6 in the conduit to both sub-woofer locations and next to the riser for Buttkickers. I also ran a conduit to the top center of the screen wall so I can put an IR repeater there and it runs back to my AV closet.



http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0357_1024.jpg

This next picture is looking toward the wall where I'll build my in-wall rack that will open up to a closet behind. The boombox is sitting where the rack will be. To the left of the picture is a column I framed with a box for future Buttkicker installs since it will be right next to my riser. The top of the picture shows soffit I built around a big heating duct, and you'll see many of my ENT conduits heading back to the AV closet. I used Carlon adjustable boxes for all my high and low voltage electrical. I drilled holes in the ones I used for low voltage to insert the ENT conduit. Towards the top of the walls you can see the two boxes I installed for my sconces.

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0358_1024.jpg

This next picture is looking towards the rear wall. You'll see the two boxes for my rear surrounds. At the top right of the picture in the dark, you can see the 3" PVC conduit that runs to one of my two possible projector mounting locations.

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0359_1024.jpg

The final picture is taken from the entrance to the room looking past the AV closet in the direction of the screen wall. You'll see the 100A sub-panel I had installed in my AV closet on the left. Also you can see the second run of 3" PVC I put in that runs from the AV closet to the second possible projector mounting location. You can see all the ENT conduits terminating inside my AV closet, which is already starting to become a mess of wires.

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0360_1024.jpg

I have a question about what I should do with some duct work that I have built soffit around. I can't do much due to ceiling height limitations with building code. All I can do is one layer of drywall right on the framing. My question is would it be good to fill the space between the ducts and the drywall with Linacoustic or something else? Since it's framed with 2x2's, I have 1.5" between the drywall and the ducts. I'm trying to do the most sound isolation of these ducts I can given the limitations I have. Look at the very top of this picture to see the ductwork I'm talking about:

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0226_1024.jpg

The framing looks pretty tight to the duct work. Does it actually wrap it, touching the duct?

Dan

The framing looks pretty tight to the duct work. Does it actually wrap it, touching the duct?

Dan

Nope, the framing doesn't quite touch the duct work. There are places that it gets within a half inch or so, but doesn't touch.

I'm wondering if I should line the outside of the duct with some Linacoustic, basically filling the space between the horizontal framing members. I may also line the sides of the ducts if it will help. I have already covered the bottom of the duct with some 1/8" duct liner by Frost King that I had left over in hopes that might help a little too. I took pictures of the ducts after the duct liner, but haven't put them up yet.

Here is a close up that gives a better view:

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0228_1024.jpg

OK. Great. That had me concerned. Yes, do that. Also, be sure to fill that larger space with some pink fluffy.

Dan

Time for another update. I finished insulating and passed my insulation inspection a few weeks ago. I'm hiring out the drywall, and hopefully he will get started next week. These pictures just document the status of the room right now.

This is looking towards the screen wall:
http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0416_1024.jpg

This is looking towards the back of the theater. At the top of the picture, you see that I covered my ducts with Linacoustic in hopes it will help cut down on noise transfer.
http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0417_1024.jpg

Close up of the ducts:
http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0418_1024.jpg

Looking towards the entrance. You can see the space I left in the wall for my rack at the right of the picture.
http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0419_1024.jpg

Looking from the entrance into the theater:
http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0420_1024.jpg

Inside my equipment closet. I love ENT coduit. I ran it everywhere. To all 7.2 speaker locations, to in front of the screen, to our upstairs TV room, and to my office.
http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0421_1024.jpg

The drywallers I hired should be starting in a day or two, so while we're waiting for the drywall to get done we are planning out the next stages. This includes picking a color scheme, picking paint & carpet, designing & building the in-wall component rack, and trying to make a decision on some of the equipment we want to buy. To help us decide on a color scheme, I updated my Sketchup model to reflect our current plans. We plan to use this model to try out different color schemes to help us decide.

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/CygnusX-1_A.jpg

I just had to share one of those home theater building horror stories with people that might appreciate it. There is another big snow storm moving through Colorado. My home theater is in construction right now. We had the drywall delivery scheduled for this morning to try and get it in before the snow hits. I didn't hear from them in the morning, so I figured they cancelled the delivery since the snow actually started at around 9:30 am. Well sure enough, they called at around 1pm and asked if they could deliver it. I told them our area already had around 3 inches, and that I live on a long gradual hill, and my house is at 7000 feet. They decided to try and do the delivery. It took them a long time and the snow got much worse by the time they arrived. I look out and there is this massive flat bed truck with a boom (crane) across the street. Then they backed the truck up to move it in front of my house by going downhill. They had a hell of a time getting back to my house. It was REALLY scary to see a drywall truck slipping all over the place sliding down my street, almost taking out light poles, mail boxes and fire hydrants. Eventually they got to my house, and delivered it, but it was very nerve racking. All my neighbors were at their windows watching the insanity. I'm sure I'll have lots of explaining to do. I am very glad it's over and the truck made it safely out of my neighborhood. I told them they could give up and deliver it some other time, but once they were up my hill I suppose they thought they might as well make the delivery. Then I saw an RV and a jogger on the same road, that I could barely stand on it was so slippery. Insanity all around.

Guy

Looking forward to more of your updates. I live in Colorado myself - Yes, what a snowstorm that was. Biggest we've had in a while. I'm hoping to start my theater later this year after we buy a home. I may contact you with questions then if that would be alright. In the meantime I'll be following your thread....drooling ;)

Gary

Sure, feel free to contact me with questions if you want. I learned nearly everything I know from reading AVSForum. I was going to wait until I was done with my next step before posting an update, but here is where I am:

The drywaller I hired came out and hung the drywall on New Years Eve and New Years Day. He couldn't make it out before then due to the holidays and these snowstorms we had, and he didn't want to make me wait any longer so he came out on the holidays. I certainly appreciated him working on the holiday to get it done. By the way, when I said "drywaller" I did mean singular. His partner couldn't work on the holiday, so one guy hung all the drywall in my theater alone, using a drywall lift. I used 12' 5/8" sheets, which are heavy as hell. I was impressed. Now the drywaller is taping and mudding and should be done with that this weekend. Then that just leaves priming and texturizing before we can paint.

I built my rack out of white melamine found at HD that will sit in my closet. I got the idea from a post here by R_Willis I believe. I need to go dig up his post and thank him for the idea. All they had was white, so I'm hoping to paint it black using some melamine paint if I can find it. Mine is a little different than his because I made it to sit on the floor behind the wall, not directly on the wall. This is because in Colorado basements you have to float the walls which means hanging them from the joists. I didn't want the equipment weight to pull down the walls.

While we were waiting for drywall and I was off work, we spent a lot of time planning the next steps. We are having a hard time deciding on a color scheme, so we'll need to decide soon on that.

I purchased my speakers from Ascend (3 340SE's in front, and 4 HTM-200's for surrounds, and I purchased a boatload of cables from Monoprice for about the price of one Monster cable.

I have also decided on the following equipment, but I am waiting to see what is announced at CES next week before purchasing. If something much better or cheaper isn't announced to be available immediately, I'll purchase:

Panasonic AX100 Projector
Denon 2807 Receiver
Oppo 981HD DVD Player
Hsu VTF-3 MK3 Subwoofer

As soon as the drywallers are done, I'll take a new set of pictures and post them. It's getting very exciting to see the room really coming together.

Guy

Thanks for the great thread. I have similar plans in mind. The theater portion of my basement will be oriented in the same direction as yours. I will have a space behind if for a game table (pool rather than ping-pong) oriented in the same relation to the screen. My dimensions are a little different, though.

My foundation area for the theater measures 19x26 and the space behind it for the pool table is 22x15.

I too am trying to decide whether to close off the back of the theater, leave it open, or try to find a way to ""have it both ways."

Keep posting plenty of updates! Looks great so far.

Well, I actually have...a room!

The drywallers finished up the taping, mudding and texturing about a week ago. We have since started priming to get ready to paint. We should finish our first coat of white primer today. Tomorrow we plan to go to the Benjamin Moore store in town and buy our paint, as well as some dark gray primer. We did one coat of white primer everywhere, and then we will add another coat of dark gray primer to the surfaces we are going to paint dark colors. The color scheme we are planning is dark red (burgandy), dark navy blue, and gold. Reds are hard to paint and can take many coats, so we are going to use the dark gray primer to hopefully cut down on the number of coats.

This one is standing at the main entrance:
http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0444_1024.jpg

This one is looking at the screen wall:
http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0445_1024.jpg

This one is from the screen wall looking at the back of the theater:
http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0447_1024.jpg

Guy

Guy,

It's nice to see another RUSH fan. I have been a fan of Lerxt, Dirk and Pratt for almost 30 years now. I don't want to start a debate but I don't think anyone can touch them. I can't wait for their new CD.

Your theater looks like it is coming along nicely. Any new pictures? You should name your theater seat the Rocinate. Keep up the good work. I hope to post pictures of my theater soon.

Troy

Thanks for the reply. Here's a short update.

Last weekend we finished much of our painting. We did the dark blue & burgandy painting. We haven't done the gold painting that we will probably do in the non-home-theater half of the room on the ceiling because we are not 100% decided on the color. We want a gold that really looks gold, but most of the paint samples we have seen just don't look very gold. We used Benjamin Moore premium paint. It was expensive, but we are very happy with the results. We primed with gray primer under the places we were going to paint blue & red, and we only had to do one coat of blue and two coats of red. Reds are very hard to paint and I've heard of others having to do up to 7 coats of red. We actually probably could have stopped after only one coat of red, but decided to do another to even it out. This Benjamin Moore paint is great. I'll take some updated pictures when we finish painting but that probably won't be until next week since we're going to go play in the snow in the mountains this week. Oh yeah, after the paint dried I installed my sconces and the trim for my rececced cans. The sconces were the first thing that really started making it look like a theater rather than just a room, so that was kind of exciting.

Next steps include painting my melamine rack I built, mounting my Ascend speakers, figuring out how I am going to do fabric & Linacoustic on the walls and ordering the GOM, ordering doors, and much much more.

I also ordered the Hsu VFT3-MK3 subwoofer and it should arrive tomorrow. I won't be ready to use it for a while, but when I decide on something I go ahead and buy it so I'll quit obsessing over what to buy. Right now I'm still obsessing over what receiver and projector to buy. For receivers I have it narrowed down to the Denon 2807/987 or the Marantz 7001. I'm leaning towards the Panasonic AX-100 projector (largely because I have a challenging room with low ceilings and soffits dropping down in the worst places) but I'm a little concerned with all the problems people are reporting on it.

Guy

I'm leaning towards the Panasonic AX-100 projector (largely because I have a challenging room with low ceilings and soffits dropping down in the worst places) but I'm a little concerned with all the problems people are reporting on it.

Guy
I also went with the Panny AX100, I DID notice a bit of flickering in the "eco-mode," but none in the "normal" mode (lamp settings) I am going to spend some time in the forum room dedicated to the PJ and will decide whether or not to return for "updating" software.

Progress looks great, best wishes on the build!
Tom
Chinaclipper

I suppose it's time to get caught up on my pictures. First, here is one of my dog guarding my Ascend speakers when they arrived on 1/19. I ordered the 340SE's for fronts and center, and the HTM-200's for back and side surrounds.

I used to have my massive HSU VTF3-MK3 subwoofer sitting next to them in it's box and I thought I took a picture but I guess not. I'll get one of it sometime.

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0448_1024.jpg

Now for some pictures as the room is today. We are pretty much done painting, with the exception of some touch up my wife will be doing. As I mentioned above, we used Benjamin Moore's premium paint. This stuff was almost $40/gallon, but was worth every penny. We were very pleased with how thick this paint was. Even though reds are supposed to take many coats, we only had to do two. We almost could have quit after one. The only mishap we had with the paint is that we ran out of blue and bought another gallon and painted half the ceiling...then we noticed that it was slightly darker than the original stuff. Dark enough to easily notice once it dried. So I went back to the BM store and they said that last gallon was clearly mixed wrong, and gave me a replacement gallon that matched perfect.

The paint colors we used were Benjamin Moore Champion Cobalt (2061-20) for the blue, and Raisin Torte (2083-10) for the burgandy. We thought the Raisin Torte matched the FR701 2100 Deep Burgandy (556) GOM we intend to order tomorrow. We originally wanted our blue to be one shade darker (Deep Royal - 2061-10) but they didn't have samples of that color so we went with the Champion Cobalt. I am very happy with the Champion Cobalt, but if I had to do it again I think I would try the Deep Royal.

This is looking at my back wall. We will put a chair rail up at the intersection of the colors. We are initially not doing acoustic treatments on the back wall, but will add them later if necessary. Both the red and the blue look almost black when there isn't so much light shining on them. You can see the Ascend HTM-200's mounted, as well as my sconces I picked up at Lowes. You can also see the table saw I bought yesterday to start the finish work.
http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0449_1024.jpg

Looking towards the equipment closet. You can see my white melamine rack back there. I plan to paint it black. Rather than building it in-wall, I suppose you could say it's behind wall. In Colorado our basement walls have to be floating, which means they hang from the ceiling joists, so I didn't want to have all the weight of my equipment pull the wall down. Instead I made the rack free-standing. I will build a solid door to cover the opening in the wall so you won't see the rack most of the time.
http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0450_1024.jpg

More in next post.

Guy

Here is a side wall. The screen wall and bottoms of the side walls where it's white will be covered with Linacoustic and burgandy GOM, so we didn't paint them.
http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0451_1024.jpg

Here is the ceiling facing the screen wall.
http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0452_1024.jpg

This is the back side of the rack, shot from inside the closet under the stairs. It will just be for equipment and storage, so we didn't finish it beyond taping and mudding.
http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0453_1024.jpg

I also have all of my electrical hooked up and working, so it's nice to have light and power easily accessible.

Guy

In the constellation of Cygnus
There lurks a mysterious, invisible force
The black hole
Of cygnus x-1

(my wife has likened my HT project to a black hole so thought this was a relevant quote from the song ;))

OT -- New Rush album due out May 1st !! "Snakes and Arrows"

OT -- New Rush album due out May 1st !! "Snakes and Arrows"Nice!! thanks for the heads up!

OT -- New Rush album due out May 1st !! "Snakes and Arrows"

Yes! And a tour to follow!

Guy

There's a very short clip of the new single "Far Cry" on the website

http://www.rush.com/php/home.php?f=1

Very Hemispheres-ish.

There's a very short clip of the new single "Far Cry" on the website

http://www.rush.com/php/home.php?f=1

Very Hemispheres-ish.

Wow...that sound VERY cool. They are teasing us so bad. They know that clip sounds exactly like Hemispheres, which is my favorite Rush CD. I don't want to get my hopes up too high, but wow that sounded good.

Guy

I live in Colorado myself.
Where do you live Gary?

This story is for all you Rush fans. My younger brother was always lucky. Once, he called the radio station and won a prize, which turned out to be a demo 45 release of Fly By Night.
A year later, we went to watch Rush play in Traverse City, MI at a place called the Glacier Dome. My little brother and I pressed to the edge of the stage. Geddy looked down at us, when he saw how small (young) my brother was, Geddy, (jamming away) told me to give my brother a boost up on the stage. Where he sat the rest of the show.

Well, progress has been pretty slow lately, but I have a few updates to post.

Since both my wife and I are big LOTR fans, my wife came up with the idea to line the tops of the walls of the back of the theater with a boarder of elvish writtings. She tells me it's going to be Aragorn's poem "All who wander are not lost...", but I'm pretty sure it really says "My #!%!%@%^(! husband is spending us to poverty on this %$!^@!(!@ home theater!!!" She free-handed the letters. She still has to erase her guidelines, but is almost done with this small section on this soffit.

I gotta figure out why all those splotches are on my pictures. I cleaned the lense, but I'm now wondering if these are reflections of some sort.

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0454_1024.jpg


http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0455_1024.jpg

Guy

This next picture shows the pillars/columns I'm making. I framed them using 2x2's and screwed and glued them to the wall. I will then cover them with red oak plywood and red oak moulding, and then stain them.

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0456_1024.jpg

Guy

As I'm sure you are aware, it's absolutely mandatory to create a temporary screen out of blue "official AVS Forum screen tape" tape. Kind of like every band has to have a picture of themselves taken standing in front of a brick wall.

The tape is laid out for a 110" 16x9 screen. That is pretty much the biggest I can fit, mainly because I have low ceilings and I can't fit one any taller. I wanted a 2.35:1 screen, but it's looking like due to limited width a 16x9 picture on a 2.35:1 screen would be too small. I built a shelf for my center channel to sit on above the screen because I want to make sure there is a non-blocked path for the sound of the center channel to the ears of people in both rows of seats. Normally shelves have supports below, but I bought some that allowed me to support the shelf from above so it wouldn't take up more height.

I am trying to decide if I should center the screen to the room width, or move it to the right and center it on the recessed portion of the wall (basically the whole wall minus that PITA 2' wide portion that sticks out 5" on the left due to sewer pipes being there. I have always been planning to center it to the whole room, but since our walkway will be on the left, and that piece of wall sticks out on the left, and our seating will be slightly to the right, I'm wondering if I should move the screen to the right a little. I'd also have to figure a way to move the center channel shelf to the right which will be a pain because the studs don't fall where I need them. My wife is making red velvet curtains to cover the front wall, so those can hopefully mask the extra section of wall sticking out if necessary.

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0457_1024.jpg

OK, one more for today. We'll title this one "all the things I'm spending lots of money on while not hardly working on the theater".

The biggest news, and biggest expense, is that I ordered my Berkline seats today. I ordered 4 - 88's for my front row, and 3 - 187's for my back row in group 3 leather/vinyl combo in dark brown (7061-88). There is a column in the way where our back row will be, and I find the taller backs of the 187's very comfortable, so we just got the 3 - 187's in the back for taller people. The riser height calculator tells me I am going to need to build about a 12" riser to see over the front row since my screen will be a little low (~24") due to my low ceilings, so I wanted to get the 88's in the front due to their shorter backs.

My wife ordered the red velvet and gold frilly stuff at a local fabric store, and it should arrive soon.

I purchased a few more random tools including an electric stapler for the GOM and a roller stand to help me use the table saw.

I ordered my deep burgandy GOM, and you can see a picture of it here:
http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0458_1024.jpg

Guy

Guy, those blobs, or "orbs" on your images are almost certainly created by dust flying around the room, reflecting the flash back at the lens. No worry, as soon as you get to carpet and stop messing with sheetrock/wood, they will go away.

Just another OT post, but Rush's website has the full version of "Far Cry" now available for listen.

It's about time for another update.

I stained the red oak plywood and put the shells on the columns. I still need to add the corner moulding and crown moulding around the top of the columns. This shows the columns on the right side with my wife working on the curtains.

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0489_1024.jpg

This shows the columns on the left side. I also wrapped the inside of the opening for the rack in oak.

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0490_1024.jpg

This weekend I built the riser. I built in in the room next to the HT, so that we can have the carpet installer come in and carpet the entire HT floor, as well as the riser. Then we'll have to carry/drag this monster into the HT. That is going to be a serious challenge. This thing is insanely heavy. Here is a picture of just the 2x12 framing:

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0484_1024.jpg

Then here is a picture of my kids trying out the completed riser:

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0486_1024.jpg

Guy

A few other things have been happening. I ordered a Denon 987 (same as 2807) receiver, and UPS just delivered it a few minutes ago. I also ordered the Oppo 981 DVD player which should arrive Thursday. The only big purchases left are the projector (still undecided) and carpet.

The next step for me will most likely be Linacoustic and GOM installation.

One final picture for today, here are the red velvet curtains my wife just completed. I'm very happy with them, they really add to the theater feel.

http://home.comcast.net/~digital.man/images/hometheater/IMG_0491_1024.jpg

Guy

Guy,

Looks like it is coming along nicely. Good luck moving that riser, I know how heavy they can be because my riser is very similar to yours. BTW I preordered my RUSH tickets for 8/3 in Concord CA and the DVD album and tour shirt yesterday. I can't wait!

Troy

That LOTR script is awesome. Love the work you're doing. Keep it up. FYI, I have the Oppo 981 and a Panasonic AX100, and love the combo. :cool:

Here is an update of where I currently am.

This shows the construction of my most complicated fabric frame. I'm using the method where I build the frames off the wall and secure them to the wall with finish nails with their heads pushed underneath the GOM. Here I am testing the frame fit and glueing the Linacoustic to the wall before taking the frame down and wrapping it with GOM. I wanted to do this as one big frame so I didn't have a seam in the GOM in the middle of the wall, however that meant I had two inside corners and wrapping the GOM on the inside corners turned out pretty bad. Fortunately I'll probably eventually put in a wood window sill that will cover the inside corners.

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0494.jpg

This is a picture of a few of the completed frames. The frames are on the bottom half of the wall and the top half is painted. The color matches well, but not as well as it looks in this photo. There will be some stained wood moulding on top of the frame eventually.

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0652.jpg

I have spent most of my time lately staining and varnishing doors, a shelf & moulding. Here is a picture of one of our 3 doors and a fabric frame on the left side of the theater:

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0651.jpg

Interesting stuff about the red paint on the walls. I also did a burgundy red on my theatre walls (the best available to us, Bristol Paints "Big Red" if that means anything outside Aust.) with a yellowy gold on the cornices and a dark suede effects ceiling. We've just done the last coat of red this past weekend and now there's just a clear coat to put over the top to help protect it (no patching up with a red wall!). Altogether on the walls there were two white undercoats (one oil based, on acrylic), two grey undercoats, then 4 coats of red. I would have killed to have got away with just two red coats!

Guy,

Very nice job on the room! Looks like it'll be a great place to watch the R30 DVD! :)

I'm in the process myself of building a dedicated home theatre complete with a riser much like yours. In fact our sheetrock guy finished with the mudding/taping today so now I'm ready to move onto the painting phase. I appreciate having the opportunity to see your photos. It's always enjoyable to see what others are doing.

Regards,
David

David,

You're welcome. It's nice that I'm at the stage where I can give back a little. I've learned everything I know from AVS, so it's nice to be able to help others as repayment for all the help I've received here.

Guy

hey Guy, a little off topic but are you on xbox live with a 360? i swear i saw someone playing ghost recon 2 on there earlier tonight with the name cygnus x1

hey Guy, a little off topic but are you on xbox live with a 360? i swear i saw someone playing ghost recon 2 on there earlier tonight with the name cygnus x1

Nope, I don't have an XBOX 360 or PS3 ... yet. Hope to get after the theater is complete, however. I'm sure there are millions of Rush fans around the world all sharing a certain set of Rush related handles.

Guy

I'm one of them....Xbox Live ID: Force Ten :)

Things are moving slowly at this stage of the project, but I've made a fair amount of progress since the last update.

First of all my 110" Carada Precision Brilliant White arrived yesterday. It's not quite 3 kids long, but sure was exciting to get a box that huge:

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0705.jpg

Here is a picture of my rack with the door closed. I put Linacoustic & GOM on the door to match the acoustic panels in the rest of the room. There is an air intake vent at the bottom of the door to allow air to be pulled into my closet by the bathroom fan I installed in the ceiling to keep the equipment cool.

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0706.jpg

Here is a shot of the rack with the door open:

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0707.jpg

I finished the acoustic panels on the left wall, including one section of the screen wall. That portion of the wall sticks out more than the rest of the screen wall because there is a drain pipe back there.

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0708.jpg

Today I installed the frame for the Carada screen. I'll wait until I'm ready to use it to put the screen fabric on so it doesn't get marked up.

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0709.jpg

Guy

We also ordered our carpet on Friday, so it will likely be 3 weeks or so before it gets installed. We went with a deep dark navy blue that goes well with the blue paint in half of the room.

I also hung the curtain rods for the curtains that will cover the screen wall. My wife will start sewing them soon.

My next task is to build the fabric frames that will go around the screen now that I have the Carada frame mounted.

Guy

Well, I have certainly been delinquent at updating my thread lately. I'm in the final stretch here, but it seems like I've been "almost done" forever.

The most visible progress is that the carpet is now installed, and I set up the 4 Berkline 088's that will be my front row. I have 3 Berkline 187's for the back row but I need to finish the room & carry in the riser before I set those up.

As you can see in the first photo, my kids got sick of waiting for me to finish the theater and get a projector, so they carried in a 9" portable TV we have and were watching VHS movies in there.

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0753.jpg

Guy

I finished all the linacoustic/GOM acoustic panels on the screen wall, except I may add some small ones above the screen ... or not, not sure yet. My wife is in the process of making the curtains that go above & to the left & right of the screen.

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0754.jpg

The front row Berklines:

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0755.jpg

Guy

In this last photo for today, you can see the chair rail I installed in the back of the theater.

The main things I need to do to finish the room are install my baseboards, install a hand rail on the stairs, install the crown molding & corner molding on my columns, and some touch up painting.

I'm trying to focus on getting the room done before setting up too much of my equipment, but in a moment of weakness I did setup my Ascend 340SE speakers, my Hsu VTF-3 MK3 subwoofer, my Denon 987 receiver, and my Oppo 981 DVD player. I haven't hooked them up yet, but did un-box them.

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0756.jpg

Guy

Here is an updated picture of the front of the theater. Since the last set of pictures I have installed all my baseboards and my wife has finished the curtains on the screen wall.

About all I have left is to install handrails in the stairway down to the theater, install crown molding on the top of the columns, install corner molding on the columns and some touch up painting. Then I will be done with the room and can focus on getting the equipment hooked up.

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0772.jpg

Your wife did a nice job on the curtains. Do you plan to have some curtain material behind your center channel speaker? Will the shelf be painted black or stained to match the rest of the wood in the room?

Originally we planned to run the curtains behind the center channel speaker, but then I remembered that the Ascends are rear ported, and require something like 11" of open space behind them. So I will either build some smaller GOM covered fabric frames for above the screen behind the curtains, or maybe just cover the wall with GOM. One way or another the whole wall above the screen will be covered with GOM so you won't see the white peaking out like you do now.

The speaker shelf is actually stained the same as the rest of the wood in my room, but it's pine vs. oak so it looks slightly different. There are brackets supporting the shelf that are currently white that will be painted burgundy to match the walls & GOM.

Guy

Well the really exciting news is that I ordered my projector! This is my reward to myself for the 2 years of work I've put into this theater (6 months planning and 1 1/2 years building). I ordered the Panasonic AE2000 1080p LCD projector, and it should be here Friday. I can't believe how excited I am.

I plan to order my popcorn machine in the next few days on the recently announced Powerbuy.

I will schedule my final building inspection on Friday, and hopefully be done with that. Then I can carry in my riser and my second row of seats.

I have most of my equipment set up, except the projector. That includes the Ascend speakers, Hsu subwoofer, Denon 987 AVR, Oppo 981HD DVD player, and the Hidden IR repeater.

I still have to finish the trim on the columns and a little touch up painting, but I'm done enough to allow myself to order the projector.

Guy

I still have to finish the trim on the columns and a little touch up painting, but I'm done enough to allow myself to order the projector.

I am impressed you held off so long. Congrats!

I am impressed you held off so long. Congrats!

Thanks, it was all due to the advice I received here from all the people sitting in an unfinished theater for years watching movies. I wanted to use the projector as the "carrot" at the end of the project to keep me motivated. Plus projectors are changing so fast that I didn't want it to sit in the box becoming obsolete. I did buy everything else, and in many cases newer, cheaper models were released by the time I was ready to unbox them, but at least I waited on the projector. Plus I felt that the AE2000 did everything I wanted for a decent price. Once I got close to finished, only then did it become very hard to wait on buying the projector. Time to go check the Fedex tracking info for the 100th time today...

I have my final inspections scheduled for tomorrow, so wish me luck. That will be a huge sense of accomplishment to have all the inspections behind me.

Guy

Two years ago I saw home theater front projection for the first time at an Integrity Home Theater show and I knew I must have one. For 6 months I planned, designed and learned and for 1 1/2 years I built my first home theater. I did most of the work myself, only hiring out the drywall, heating duct work, and carpet. My wife and kids helped with painting, curtains, and things like that.

Yesterday it all came together.

I passed my final building inspections, and Fedex delivered my Panasonic AE2000U 1080p projector. I scrambled to round up friends from work to help me move my riser into the theater room (I wasn't sure if a riser counted towards the minimum ceiling height code, so I left it out of the theater until after the inspection). I didn't have enough cold beer, so I ran by the liquor store and bought a bunch of cold beer and some Oban single malt scotch to bribe my friends to come help me move the riser. I got home and had about 45 minutes before they arrived, so I tried to quickly set the projector up. I was able to get it hooked up, sitting on the box it came in, and had movies playing by the time they arrived. We moved the riser and put my back row of Berklines on it, and then cracked open the liquor and watched a few scenes before they headed out.

We hadn't told our kids we ordered the projector, so my wife took them out shopping while I got the theater set up, and brought them home and we surprised them with Shrek 2 (a family favorite) being displayed on the new projector. They were thrilled like you couldn't imagine. We sat down and watched our first movie together as a family in our new home theater. Yeah, I said it...WE actually have a home theater now.

Today we had all the neighborhood kids over for another movie, and I did much more setup.

I've still got a bit of work to do before I'm really finished, but it's just incredible to finally have a home theater. We absolutely love every thing about it.

Oh yeah, yesterday I also ordered a Pargon Contempo 4 oz popcorn machine on the Powerbuy, and it should arrive late next week.

I'll post some pictures of the (nearly) completed theater soon.

Guy

Guy,

Congrats, on all of your hard work. I look forward to seeing pics of the finished theater. Enjoy!

Regards,
Troy

Guy,

I could feel the enthusiasm in your voice when I read your last post. It is a very exciting time watching that 1st, 2nd and 3rd movie in the room. I still get a smile on my face when I watch a good flick with my friends and family.

Enjoy the fruits of your hard work -- it is well deserved.

BTW -- I waited as long as I could my projector as well. The wife finally made me purchase one so she could see the room in action. The rest is history :)

Digital Man,

Congrats on the (near) completion of your theater. I've been peeking at this thread on and off for a few months now. I'm a big Rush fan and love the name of your theater. I just had to cue up Signals here on the iTunes while skimming the whole thread again. When it's done I'll cue up Hemispheres. I'm gathering AVS HT pics and layouts today and saving them in a file for future reference (I love 4 day weekends). Yours is included!

NICE WORK!

Did you know that Rush's R30 tour was recorded in high def? I have a DVHS copy I made when I caught the concert on INHD. I'm hoping they'll get it out on HD DVD or Blu-ray soon.


Brent

Digital Man,

Congrats on the (near) completion of your theater. I've been peeking at this thread on and off for a few months now. I'm a big Rush fan and love the name of your theater. I just had to cue up Signals here on the iTunes while skimming the whole thread again. When it's done I'll cue up Hemispheres. I'm gathering AVS HT pics and layouts today and saving them in a file for future reference (I love 4 day weekends). Yours is included!

NICE WORK!

Did you know that Rush's R30 tour was recorded in high def? I have a DVHS copy I made when I caught the concert on INHD. I'm hoping they'll get it out on HD DVD or Blu-ray soon.


Brent

Thanks!

I don't think I knew that R30 was recorded in HD. That would be awesome to have that on HDDVD or Blu-Ray. I got the R30 DVD I think for Christmas last year, but I refused to let myself watch it on the crappy small CRT upstairs. I had to wait until the theater was done. I'll be breaking that one out soon.

I plan to take pictures tomorrow when we get it all cleaned up for family coming over to watch a football game.

Guy

OK, here are the "almost finished" shots. I just need to put the crown and corner moulding on the columns and then I can officially call it done.

Here are some shots from the front:

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0799.jpg

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0800.jpg

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0811.jpg

From the back:

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0801.jpg

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0803.jpg

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0807.jpg

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0805.jpg

Here is the in-wall rack I built:

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0812.jpg

This is the popcorn machine. Originally we had planned on putting it in the theater, but then I learned that the steam it puts off when the popcorn cooks contains the oil. I didn't want it to get on the wall, or inside the projector so I decided to just put the popcorn popper right outside of the theater.

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0810.jpg

This is looking in the theater door from outside:

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/DigitalMan43/IMG_0809.jpg

I just realized I never posted final pictures. The only difference between the last pictures posted and now is that I did complete the trim on the columns after I took those pictures. I'll have to take a few pictures of the finished columns to complete the build documentation.

Guy

Beautiful theater, bet your whole family loves it !

Did you put any masking around your screen for different AR films ? Forgive me if you have already answereed this question.

Thanks

John

Did you put any masking around your screen for different AR films ? Forgive me if you have already answereed this question.

Thanks

John

No, not yet at least. I just went with a 16x9 screen and don't have any masking yet. I'm pretty happy with it, and may not even bother to add masking in the future. I wanted to do a 2.35:1 screen, but the screen wall isn't wide enough to put a very big 2.35:1 screen on, so I decided to go with 16x9. I had planned to add some masking to the top and bottom in the future, but I'm pretty happy with it as is so I might not end up doing that.

Guy

Update?

Update?



Thanks for asking. We have been enjoying the theater very much. We've had lots of groups over to watch movies and the kids love to invite their friends over for sleepovers in the theater.

Not much has changed in the theater so there hasn't been much to update. I did put an old computer down there and have been hooking that up. My biggest challenge was pulling a USB cable through the flex conduit I ran to the riser area for the keyboard and mouse. I had to purchase one of the USB cables with the smaller connector (USB A or B, can't remember) and then file it down a bit before I could pull it though. Eventually I would like to put a HTPC down there, so this is just kind of a trial to see how it works out.

Right now I'm struggling to get my Harmony 880 remote to correctly switch the inputs on my Panasonic AE2000 projector back and forth between the computer/VGA input and the HDMI input I use for everything else. It works some of the time, but not all the time.

I still don't have a Blu-Ray player, so that will probably be the next addition. I'm waiting to see how the Oppo Blu-Ray player looks when it's released. I've been so happy with my Oppo 981HD DVD player that I'm sold on Oppo. However, regular DVDs look so damn good, I have not felt the need to upgrade to Blu-Ray so quickly.

Guy