Ok I've been lurking here for a couple years I guess, reading everything, drooling over everyones crazy theaters and equipment lists, now I've decided to jump in and post up a few construction pics and whatever else. :D
I have a pretty small room (15.5x11, framed) in my basement. The basement is partially finished (there's a hallway and 1 bedroom), so I had this left-over room that was alreadfy framed on 2 sides, and concrete/fake brick finish walls on the other 2 sides.
Its probably going to be 50% movies and 50% gaming (xbox, x360, and gamecube at the moment)
There are no windows in the room or the hallway, so its pretty much 100% light controlled.
There are hvac ducts running the width of the room at each end, so I had to build soffits around those, but I think it is actually going to look pretty nice.
I had "before" pictures of the empty room, but I had a hard drive die and lost them all, so my construction pics start post-framing/insulation. :(

Oh, and I'm also doing this on a shoe-string budget. Probably under $3000 once its finished. So far I've got an IN-72 (ebayed, $450) a Panny xr-55 reciever (picked up on sale for cheap, $130 or so I think), and a pair of the BB Insignia bookshelves. I think the insignia's are going to end up either being rear surrounds, or left upstairs for regular tv watching. I'm leaning towards the Dayton 10" sub from PE, not sure what I'll do for L/R/C or dvd player yet. I'll probably scrape together an HTPC from leftover parts I've got laying around.

Pics will be in the next post or two since I don't have enough posts yet :o
Oh and I attached a quick sketchup model of what I want the finished room to be :D

And here are the pics... :D

Framed and insulated
http://home.mchsi.com/~mbennum/HT/1.JPG

7.1 sound, cable tv, composite, and cat5 wired up. Component and hdmi are suppose to be here today.
http://home.mchsi.com/~mbennum/HT/P2100124.JPG

Ceiling drywall started... Didn't finish it this weekend because the cables didn't come in time.
http://home.mchsi.com/~mbennum/HT/P2100125.JPG

My kick*ss home-built ceiling drywall braces. No way I'm buying a drywall lift, that'd kill my budget :D
http://home.mchsi.com/~mbennum/HT/P2100126.JPG

Two walls done, two to go
http://home.mchsi.com/~mbennum/HT/P2100130.JPG

Oh and that wierd little notch in the back corner next to the couch (in the sketch-up model), is where my drinking water filter is, so I can't close it off permanently. But I decided I'm going to drywall over it, and put an access panel in the closet of the bedroom next to it.

Look forward to seeing it. $300 is about what I have in mine.

Your setup looks pretty nice, Brian.
Its nice to see someone else getting good results without spending $10k+. It gives me hope :D
Where'd you pick up the hd tuner card for $40? eBay or something?

Sweet a low-budget build.....This is my kind of build!

Im envious of the five figure builds, but as the country song goes its allright to be little-bitty.

Your setup looks pretty nice, Brian.
Its nice to see someone else getting good results without spending $10k+. It gives me hope :D
Where'd you pick up the hd tuner card for $40? eBay or something?


Thanks. I broke the cardinal rule. I hooked everything up before finishing the room. Now my rooms is unfinished because all I do is watch movies and play XBOX.


Ebay. The company that makes them sells leftovers on Ebay.

How do you work the drywall braces ?
Can you do it by yourself ?

I'm about to finish my unfinished theater, and I'll be by myself.

They're just big t-braces that are about 1" taller than the floor-to-ceiling height. Actually you can see the one on the right holding up the end of that piece with the light in it.
I had a buddy helping me, one of us held up the sheet while the other one wedged the braces in. You can't really work them solo unless you can manage to hold up a whole sheet of drywall with one hand while you put the brace under it with the other.
So I guess you'd have to rent a drywall lift or something.
Most of my friends work for pizza and beer (cheaper than a drywall lift, and usually more entertaining) so its not too tough to recruit someone for half a saturday or sunday :D

I set my pj up in the family room and hooked up the 360. So I can play a little, but there are 6 windows in that room so during the day its too bright, and I actually get some work done. :P

Mine is similar 15 square that I have to take down now that football season is over.

What are you doing for lighting ?
I have 3 track lights over the couch on the back wall, and dim them pretty good. On too high makes blacks go gray and brown on the screen.
There's no way you can have recessed in 4 corners like your pictures.
The fron t lights by the screen will be too bright.

I have those 4 recessed lights on one dimmer, and 4 sconces on a second dimmer. I plan on having the recessed off and the sconces either off or way down for watching movies. I think it'll work, if not maybe I'll just unhook the 2 recessed at the front or something.

Ok, I'm bored at work today so I figured I'd bring my build thread back from the dead. :D

Screen wall drywall finished off
http://home.mchsi.com/~mbennum/HT/7.jpg

mini-stage thing
http://home.mchsi.com/~mbennum/HT/8.jpg

Back wall ready for paint
http://home.mchsi.com/~mbennum/HT/9.jpg

Screen wall painted. I used kilz one-coat flat black for the ceiling, and 2 coats of Olympic eggshell from Lowes, the color is called Denim. The flash lights it up quite a bit, its actually darker than it looks in the pics.
I may end up painting the screen area black, but my screen has a black velvet border and I like the way it stands out over the blue. :D
http://home.mchsi.com/~mbennum/HT/10.jpg

Back wall painted
http://home.mchsi.com/~mbennum/HT/12.jpg

Got tack strips down, going to try to get the carpet pad in tonight. The carpet I got is blue (a little lighter than the walls) with white in it, and I'm going to go with white trim, and black fabric over the screen wall and rear columns.

very cool!!

im on a budget about the same as yours (and yes ebay is my friend heh)

good luck to you and I cant wait to see the final result!

More pics
I broke the cardinal sin, I hung the PJ before the room is done. But I couldn't wait, and I've got a nursery to get started on (hard deadline of Sept 7th on that project :eek: ) So far we've watched the extended edition of Fellowship of the Ring, and Shrek 2 with my nieces, and I've played a little Gears of War. :p
The picture is awesome, and those little Velo CHT speakers sound great. I'll probably upgrade eventually, but this is working fine for now. and I know you are all envious of my sweet purple afghan. :D

Shot from the doorway
http://home.mchsi.com/~mbennum/HT/13.JPG

Screen wall with speakers in and screen up...
http://home.mchsi.com/~mbennum/HT/14.JPGimg]

The first of my fabric frames that'll cover the speaker columns. One built, 9 more to go :(
[img]http://home.mchsi.com/~mbennum/HT/15.JPG

My sweet AV rack in the next room over :eek:
I decided to leave the equipment in that room, and get an IR repeater. No reason to have it cluttering up my HT if it doesn't need to. I'm building a rack for it anyway, but for now its on that retired end table :rolleyes: I've got an xbox1, gamecube, and htpc to add to it, but for now the 360 is getting the job done.
http://home.mchsi.com/~mbennum/HT/16.JPG

More pics

Shot from the doorway
http://lh5.google.com/image/mbennum/RmYvxRvp7LI/AAAAAAAAAUw/BlPhoU8JVnA/P6050275.JPG

Screen wall with speakers in and screen up...
http://lh3.google.com/image/mbennum/RmYvyxvp7OI/AAAAAAAAAVI/YyjWZdtOyOk/P6050279.JPG

The first of my fabric frames that'll cover the speaker columns. One built, 9 more to go :(
http://lh5.google.com/image/mbennum/RmYv2Rvp7UI/AAAAAAAAAV4/obu3ksSVcdw/P6050289.JPG


Dude - your pics are just little red Xs. All your other pics showed tho. Nice build.

Fixed the pics. Sorry about that, I guess I can't link them from Google. :(