Well, It's been a long journey and I'm nearing the end of my Home Theater. I have named it "The PussyCat Lounge" as it just us two women.
This room is in my Basement and we have been finishing the basement and working on the Theater room.
Everything hurts, is dusty, etc. but we are close. I started this as a showroom for my own Home Automation Company after years of IT and designing Unix Networks for a Fortune 500 Company. With the convergence of IT and AV I am hoping to be self-employed--living the American Dream. Enough of the speech.
We moved 2 Load Bearing Walls to extend the room and create the AV room. Also learned builders are not always honest. I am supposed to have 9' ceiling but the project manager for my house was too busy riding around in his new truck vs doing his job so with all of the best framing we could we have a range of 7'.5 to 8' ceilings.
I wanted the design to be masculine enough for men to like it yet, elegant enough for women to like it. Let me know how I've done.
If there are any Acoustical Master out there that want to give some advice---please do.

Specs.

14W x 24L x 8'H

Marantz AV5400
Martin Logan Fresco LCR
Definitive Monitor 100 LRS
10 guage Speaker Wire
Martin Logan Abyss Sub
DirectTV HD20
Optoma H78DC3
Monster HTS3500
XBOX 360 w/ HD-DVD add-on
Sony 777 Changer

Automation, Multi-room Audio , and Scaler Products will be products that my company is authorized to sell:

LifeWare
Netstreams for Mulit-room Audio
Atlantic Technologies in-ceiling speakers
Algolith Scaler
Oppo DVD
FireBall Server

Screen

Between 120 -127 SMX ( Thanks Sandman!) only the Center will be behind the screen.

Ceiling in seating area

rope lighting &
FiberOptic Stars in Seating Area

Ceiling in front recessed area

rope lighting & painted star ceiling

Chairs

Berkline 90's with motorized recliner for Captian Chairs only and lighted cup holders on all chairs ( just arrived today!!! I can post a picture of those if anyone is interested)

There are some other things but, I can't remember them right now. I will share my
album of the pre-construction through today as soon as I find a free hosting site. Comcast will only let me share to specific email addresses.

Looks like it is coming together nicely! Keep it up....you are almost there. Keep us posted.

Awsome....My wife is also a woman that likes A/V....You Go girl !! :D

I went through your pictures, looks like that'll be a nice space! Looking forward to all the detailed pictures as your get a little further along.

Bud

:) Thanks Guys!

Nicely done. :)

Very nice indeed, more pics please...

Looking good...I am jealous.

These may not be the best pictures because my sony camcorder which takes digital pics jut doesn't seem to have the quality it should. Anyhoo, here are some pictures of the side walls. the back walls, the entrance to the theater, my carpet selection, the theatre doors, some of the equipment in boxes ( don't know why but I've seen other people post it sooo... :o ), the back recessed area lighted with rope lighting. All crown moulding in the room is stacked and the front wall and back wall are 3/4 Red Oak HW. I will take picture of chairs later. I look to start painting room on tomorrow night. I have to do this over several post as 3 is the limit

Pictures part 2

Last 2 for tonight

Acoustic advise? Well, I would rethink the location of your LCR's in the coves. You may end up with unwanted resonances, comb filtering and secondary boundary interference response.

Hi Marc! Thanks for your response, where would you advise I relocate the speakers to?

Looks like its going to be a real nice HT. I have just started posting pics through photobucket. It seems to work well and you cant beat the price

Thanks fordfisher ! I was looking at the imageshack and photobucket haven't decided which one yet.

That's a nice looking start you've gpt there. Looks like you're having fun with the name and theme. Maybe add a Josie and the Pussy Cats poster somewhere. :cool:

Craigo

It's been a busy few days. Finish caulking room, paint trim, wood working, painted ceilings, began carpet install on stage. Taking a rest today---well, I may get anxious and do my touch-up painting.
Anyhoo, here are pictures of the room as it stands tonite---they are a bit dark.

More pictures...still a little dark but better.

It's looking great! I can't wait to see the finished product. Do you have any floorplans you could post so we can get a better idea of the layout?

Thanks MBK! I have the original floor plans of the basement from the builder but I moved 2 load bearing walls to extend the length of the Theater room and squared off the adjacent room to create my wiring closet.
The Theater room is 14.5 w x 24' L x 8' ceiling height
The room is double 1/2" drywall with green glue and the top half of the room 3/4 Red Oak HWPW with green glue.
What crazy woman typed in the first entry in this thread that I'm nearing the end...It's just getting started :-}}

Looking good and you're getting closer!

Bud

Hi ChinaDog!

Pictures taken this morning from last night's work. I can't seem to get enough light down there for this camcorder to take a decent picture.
Pictures are of the following:
1. A picture of one of the chairs, they are still in the protective wrapping because they are in harms way down there.
2. A picture of my first acoustic panel on the left wall. It is covered with GOM and behind it is Linacoustic. I am using fabricmate tracks.
3. A picture of the floor moulding on the stage. We added stacked crown to the bottom corners of the side columns to match the top of the columns and I think this really finishes it nicely.
We have began to lay the carpet padding. The subfloor is 3/4 T&G OSB with rubber underlayment. The floor feels really great currently with just one layer of carpet padding down and one can't tell it is a cement floor underneath; I am really happy with my design of that. The carpet padding is Super8 and I will be putting 2 layers of it unless I change my mind by the time I get home from work today.

Wow, this is a really nice looking project. I really like the woodwork so far - - have you decided on a stain? I wonder how "merlot" would look. I used some on a very small project and it looked very nice.


With all the fancy work - I wish you'd borrow someone's camera - this is one HT I'd like to see better pics! (you can post the pics directly into the post, too)

Thanks,

Marshall

Thanks Marshall! I am researching now what type of digital camera to buy this weekend.

Your project looks great! Can't wait until it's done

Coming along nicely. Cant wait to see the final pics.


Randy

Thanks psbfanboy and Randito3. Randito3 your theatre looks great. WOW some project with adding on to the house.

Hi ChinaDog!

1. A picture of one of the chairs, they are still in the protective wrapping because they are in harms way down there.


Can you take a picture of a whole chair for us? What brand, model & fabric are they? I plan to buy Berkline's in a dark brown leather, and it looks like your chairs are dark brown.

Thanks,
Guy

Hi Digital Man! My camcorder must have taken worst pictures than I believed (they just aren't designed for that)--- The chairs are RED :) .
Today I purchased a new digi-cam a Sony Cybershot W100.
They are Berk90's, we probably should have went with the 88's but...we made it work somehow. They are Red Leather with all arms having the new lighted cup holders.
I will take pictures of the full chair on tomorrow as we set them up today and then temporarily ( wink,wink) mounted the projector, which led to reattaching all of the speakers, etc. and that is when all work halted for the day.

Pictures currently are:

I've got to work on my hand stabilization and remeber to take the lens cover off the projector lens :D . In the projector shot it wasn't until after taking the picture that I realized I left the projector lens on the projector. Nevertheless, what a projector---out the box and no calibration vivid colors and black blacks.

1. The chairs
2. The cupholders lighted. They are pressure sensiitive so something is placed inside them then they light when it is removed they turn-off. I thought after a certain amount of time they would turn off but that doesn't seem to be the case.
3. The moulding work at the bottom of the two front columns which matches the moulding we created for the top of the columns.
4. A picture of Tony Dungee on my Parkland Plastic temporary screen. As you can see the image is larger than the temp. screen as the overshot will probably be the size of my real screen. I just mounted projector---so I've not completely decided how large. I was thinking 127", but I will probably go a bit smaller around 120".
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q215/nvarner/DSC00146.jpg
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q215/nvarner/DSC00145-1.jpg
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q215/nvarner/DSC00138.jpg
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q215/nvarner/DSC00154.jpg
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q215/nvarner/DSC00153.jpg

We've got ourselves a history making superbowl!!!!!

Yes, to bad for my Saints

lots of celebration here!

greg

Well, at least the Bucs are in it*











* Both head coaches and a player or two....

The following two weeks we have been getting the following accomplished:

1. finishing laying carpet
2. installation of sconces
3. hang projector
4. hang SMX to hopefully remove wrinkles
5. hang theater doors
We haven't decided whether to paint,stain,or cover the inside of door with GOM.
6. installed bass shakers in Berk 90's

Today we finished installation of Aura's. The configuration is 2 Aura Pro's & 1 Basic in front row. 3 Basic's in back row.
I've read comment that some believe these are cheap but, after installation all work stopped for testing ;-). We put on King Kong and I must admit this was BIG fun! I'd rather save the extra money with Aura rather than buy the others at much more money. This was an easy DIY project.
We still have touch-up painting to do---I guess we will do it during the week.

Pictures:

1. The Red Oak entrace doors hung
2. The Partexpress Subwoofer Amp Plate
3. The Aura installed at base of Berk90
4. Wall Sconces mounted
5. Picture of DiscoveryHD on SMX from H78DC3
6. Picture of subwoofer plate amp
7. Picture of splicing to power the two rows
8. Picture of the Abyss---I love this sub!!

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q215/nvarner/DSC00187.jpg
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q215/nvarner/DSC00188.jpg
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q215/nvarner/DSC00189.jpg
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q215/nvarner/DSC00190.jpg
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q215/nvarner/DSC00191.jpg
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q215/nvarner/DSC00198.jpg
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q215/nvarner/DSC00200.jpg
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q215/nvarner/DSC00201.jpg

Things are looking good .. I like you have been working on the entire basement while at the same time doing a dedicated hometheater. I have had to put some of the work process on hold for now but had until doing that made pretty good progress.. Wondering if you are going to have a get together when you are finished for all of us that may be in the area.. I would love to see some of the things you have done that i may want to incorporate into my theater / lounge.
Keep up the great work..

You are almost there !!!

Thanks holmax! I would LOVE to have something when I'm done. I will start planning it. Oh and I'm not almost done :-} it's never ending !!!!!

Today's goodies are an HDMI FLEA and Dragonfly scaler. I will install the scaler Wednesday.

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q215/nvarner/DSC00203.jpg
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q215/nvarner/DSC00204.jpg
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q215/nvarner/DSC00205.jpg
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q215/nvarner/DSC00205.jpg
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q215/nvarner/DSC00206.jpg

More toys, eh? So the Flea is a powered HDMI switcher?

Bud

Scratch that, I just checked out the Algolith website. Looks like some pricey purchases there.... curious how they work out for you.

Bud

The flea is a noise reducer and that's for my flat panel TV. The bigger box is the Dragonfly. It is a scaler and I'll be using that on the projector. I've got them attached last night but, not configured. I will have to configure and test and maybe post some pre and post pictures.

Did some minor setup of the Dragonfly scaler and all I can say is Wow! I won't have time for before and after shots until probably Saturday. Yesterday, we unloaded 30 boxes of Slate into the basement for the bathroom so...not only sore but we need to be working on the bathroom and not enjoying the Theater room :-)

Great looking room

How is that flea treating you, I was looking at those and was wondering if it really worked as well as they advertise?

congrats, looks good

Hi mrigsby and AnthonyP and thanks for the kind words. I haven't had a chance to play with the Flea yet as I've been in the basement bathroom---hence the 1:30 am post. We are having a few friends over tomorrow for the Superbowl despite our construction. The basement bathroom had nothing but drywall and initial plumbing lines as of last night. As of now it has half of the tile, a temporary door---we need 24" LH swing with 6" frame and the two mega stores only had 4" frames :eek: , a working toilet and a working sink.
http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q215/nvarner/DSC00252.jpg

OK, so the thing around here that people say is "Don't mount the projector! You'll start watching movies and the work will stop!" and I see you've got the bathroom done now and that was the last post in about two weeks! Are we starting a new trend? :D

Just kidding. Great work so far, looking forward to your updates!

Bud

Actually, it's not us so much as it is other people coming by and wanting a demo and then they just don't leave. :)
We've been caught up in the completing the bathroom and caulking the other crown that's in the basement.
Today I'll probably bring more equipment downstairs as I've completed my DIY rack.
I'll take pictures of progress tonight and post.

So what ever happened to this build?

Bud