Hello everyone, and welcome to the Schroeder Apartment Theater thread.

Let me start off by saying thank you for taking a look at (and hopefully participating in) this thread. This thread will track the build of what I hope will be a pretty unique theater - at least for a modest apartment.

Over the last 5 months I have enjoyed the research and acquisition process of picking out the components for our new home theater. We’ve now come to the point where we actually have to start building the theater itself. We will be converting the living room of our small two-bedroom apartment into a dedicated theater room.

For myself and those of you who are facing similar challenges, it is my hope that this thread will act as an exchange for information and advice. Many of the purchases we have made up to this point have their origins in the suggestions of members like you. Now that most of the major purchases have been made and assembled, I find I must turn to you, the members of AVS, yet again for advice on finishing the project.

So without further adeu, here we go! :D

Theater Equipment List

So far I have sourced and assembled most of the equipment we will be using for this theater. There are still a few minor purchases yet to be decided upon, but here is what we’ve gathered so far:

Projector:

JVC RS-1

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/JVCRS1.jpg

Ironically enough, the inspiration for this project is the last major piece of equipment that we’re still waiting on. We’re on the AVS pre-buy list for it and hope to have it here along with a Chief mount within the next month or two. Everything else below is already gathered.

Screen:

110in 16:9 (126.8in diag) SMX Cineweave/Pro-Line frame - Still sitting in it’s 14+ foot box taking up my entire hallway. I was lucky to even get it in the door! :o

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/SMXScreen.jpg

Acoustically transparent wonder screen that Ruben developed here on AVS. The use of an AT screen has allowed us to pick a larger screen than we would have otherwise been able to use. It’s also has allowed us to choose 3 identical tower speakers as our L/C/R speakers. That’s something that wouldn’t have been possible with a standard fixed screen.

Pre/Pro/Amp

Rotel RSP-1098 Pre-Amp/Processor

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/RotelRSP-1098.jpg

A key feature of this Pre-Amp is the built in LCD display. Since we’ll be using a projector in our theater, I wanted to be able to make equipment setting without having to turn on the projector. I could of used a small separate LCD monitor with a different pre-amp/processor but decided to give this solution a try first. I bought it on the used market for a fair price.

Rotel RMB-1095 Amp - 5x200@8ohm

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/RotelRMB-1095.jpg

I was originally looking at much more expensive amps than this. Bryston, McIntosh, ect. In the end I decided to save the money and devote it to the video portion of the theater. My basic requirements were that I wanted a mutli-channel Amp that would provide clean, stable power, and that the was built like a tank. I will probably have this amp for a very long time.

Rotel RB-1090 Amp - 2x380@8ohm

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/RotelRB-1090.jpg

More of the same really. I purchased this amp to power the front L/R speakers. I wanted an amp that would allow me to run pretty much any speaker I might be likely to choose over the next 20 years.

Sources:


Onkyo DV-SP1000 DVD/CD/SACD/DVD-A player

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/x580DVSP1K-f.jpg

This outstanding DVD Video player may actually see very little DVD Video use once everything is setup. It was purchased primarily as a CD/SACD/DVD-A player based off of recommendations and strong reviews here on AVS and elsewhere. I couldn’t be happier with it so far.


Toshiba HD-XA2 DVD/HD-DVD player

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/HD-XA2.jpg

Perhaps the best upconverting DVD player out there but with the best HD-DVD player performance thrown in as a bonus?


Sony Playstation 3 Blu-ray disk player and game system

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/ps3black.jpg

Blu-ray or HD-DVD, who will win. I’m format neutral so I win or loose either way depending on your perspective. Games should be incredible on the big screen.


Xbox – Soft-modded for Xbox Media Center (XBMC)

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/xbox.jpg

The King of cheap Multi-media A/V control centers.


Wireless home computer network with Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ (1.3 terabyte multimedia server) – content for the XBMC.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/InfrantReadyNASNV.jpg

Enough current content loaded to provide lots of entertainment. Lots of room left to grow.


Xbox 360 Elite game system

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/xbox-360-elite-long-lg.jpg

Great game system – More games than the PS3 and more users online.


Nintendo Wii game system

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/nintendo-wii.jpg

Another great game system – especially as a party game system. It’s built around being interactive so hopefully it’ll be fun when we have friends over to play on it.

Speakers:


Phase Technology PC-9.1 - L/C/R

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/PhaseTechnologypc-9.jpg

We’ve owned Phase Technology (PC-100 and PC-Center II) since the mid 90s. For the most part we’ve been very happy with them. As we’ve upgraded the source components and amps, they just kept getting better. Now that we were in the market for new speakers it seemed natural to go back to Phase Tech’s latest offerings. Phase Tech is still offering incredible speakers at their MSRP price points. I didn’t pay MSRP, so I got an even better deal on these. I orded mine in Black Ash which matches the rest of my Phase Tech speakers.


Phase Technology Octave 15 - Subwoofer

I found this gem on ebay a few months back and got a heck of a deal for it. It was Phase Tech’s best subwoofer a few years ago and it’s 15in cone is more than enough to shake the walls of our apartment with clean deep bass if I thought our neighbors wouldn’t mind. It’s overkill at this point, but was too good of a deal to pass up.


Phase Technology PC-3.1 II - LR/RR

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/PhaseTechnologyPC-3.jpg

Bookshelf versions of Phase Tech’s PC-9.1 tower speakers. They have the ability to rotate the tweeter section and be used either vertically or horizontally. This allows you to run them as a center channel if you wish. The pair I purchased were returned to the manufactuer supposedly because of a scratch on the bottom of the speaker. I can’t find any scratches (not that it would matter). They look absolutely new. The only difference I found was in the price I paid. I’m not sure if we’ll use these in the main theater room or if they’ll wind up in the bedroom system.


Phase Technology PC-100 - Alternate LR/RR

Our old L/R speakers. They’re still going strong and sound just fine. I would of just kept using them if I hadn’t been able to find such a great deal on the PC-3.1 II and then on the PC-9.1 speakers. The choice to run an AT screen which allowed 3 identical speakers up front is what really made me retire these as our primary speakers. It’s a toss up if we’ll use these as or the PC-3.1 II as the LR/RR speakers in the theater for 5.1 music. The “looser” will wind up as the L/R in the bedroom system.


Jamo Surround speakers

Jamo’s top of the line surround speaker for a few years in the mid 90s. Nice speaker, nothing special. It’s a surround speaker after all. ;) I may replace them with Phase Technology Surround speakers if I can find any on the used market or if Phase Tech releases new ones later this year.

Power Conditioning and Back-Up:


2x APC Smart-Ups 2200VA (1900 watts) - Server class power backups.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/APC2200.jpg

Big and heavy for an APC, these tower APCs provide all the backup power we’ll need. They're about the size of mid-tower PC and weight about 110lbs each. They were donated by yet another friend. Nice thing is he lives right down the street so he’ll be able to come over and enjoy the theater with us once everything is built.


1x APC Smart-Ups XS 800VA (540 watts) - PC class power backup.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/APC800.gif

Smaller APC which currently supports the computer. I may swap it out with one of the larger Smart-Ups so that it can be placed on top of the equipment rack - closer to the projector.


Furniture:


Salamander Designs Synergy System – 80in high singles tower (SU40B/B and SX40B/B)

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/Salamander1.jpg

Beautiful 80in tower to hold most of the above equipment. It’ll be at the back of the room in the dinette area. I need to figure out how I’m going to get power to it and how to handle the remote controls not being in line of sight any longer.


Black Leather Couch – Donated by another friend and only lightly used. We’ve thought about replacing it with Black Leather chairs but so far haven’t made any decisions. We’ll probably keep it and run the seating configuration in an L shape with the couch being placed along the side wall and the new chairs being placed on center of the screen. We’re considering several chairs at this point and will probably buy 3 so we have enough seating for the two of us and a few friends.

Other:

In addition to the above, we also have a few iPods which we can use as sources (though the XBMC and NAS really make that almost pointless).

For solo music and movie watching such as late at night, I plan on easily being able to hook up my headphone rig to the system.

Ray Samuels - Emmeline SR-71 - one of the best portable headphone amps out there.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/SR-71A.jpg

A really nice headphone amp that's perfect for on the go or at home. With a headphone amp, a lot of listeners prefer it within easy reach of where they sit... so in this case, bigger is not always better and a table/rack mount headphone amp wouldn't work very well in my system.


Sennheiser HD-650 - A wonderful headphone to sit down and relax with while listening to music.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/HD650-med.jpg

Sennheiser's top of the line headphone has been around for a while now and is a mainstay of the headphone hobby. It is one of the best choices in the sub $1k headphone market and is notable for it's non-fatiguing portrayal of music.



In additon to all of the above items already gathered, there is still a lot left to be sourced. I need to completely rewire the whole AV system. We need to decide if we're going to go to the trouble and expense of a starfield ceeling. Decide what we're going to cover the ceeling and walls with - fabric or paint. What colors to pick out. What throw rug to choose... so many decisions, the least of which how to frame out the false front wall in a way that is both strong and easily removable.

Yosho,

Any details about the room itself? Good list of gear, and I would include acoustic treatments, seating/furniture for the viewing/listening room, and automation (remote controls, lighting).

A great start if you have already purchased everything listed...

- Steve O.

Yosho,

Nice gear. It would appear from your list of equipment you've spent some time on the forums so I look forward to seeing how it comes together for you.

Cheers

Yosho,

Show us your propose area and some dimensions. Awesome gear. This is just for your apartment, how will your neighbors feel about the sound?

James

Thanks everyone for the words of encouragement.


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/Floorplan.gif


That's the floor plan of our apartment. I flipped and mirrored it so the orientation is correct. I also removed the measurements of the rooms since they're inaccurate (at least for the main room).

Let's see, the main room itself is 160in x 192in (13'4" x 16'). As you can see, behind the living room is the small kitchen and dinning area. We plan to use drapes to divide off the main room from the dinning area and the hall/kitchen. We will also be coving the windows so we should be able to block out all external light from the room.

The screen will be on the far wall opposite of the kitchen/dinning area. We plan on purchasing 3 theater chairs, probably Salamander Matteo since they have a smaller footprint than Barcaloungers. Those will go opposite of the screen. We'll move the couch along the wall so that the seating area is in an "L" shape. In the dinning area we have our Salamander equipment tower right behind the where the theater seats will be and along the far wall in the dinning area we have our bar area setup.

It should look something like this once we're all done. Apologies for the crude drawings ahead of time... I have zero ability in this area and this was the best I could do with MS Paint.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/Floorplan2.gif


We live on the bottom floor and don't have any neighbors on the floor above us (office), so we only have to worry about the neighbors across the hall. Since they're rather noisy themselves, it hasn't been a problem over the last few years we've lived here. From a noise level standpoint, nothing is really changing.


All of our equipment is in except for the projector, which I hope will be here in about a month (come on JVC, fill AVS pre-orders please!). I'll take some pictures of the equipment in its current temporary setup and post them here soon. The setup works pretty well and the distances seem to be about right (though on the tight side of the spectrum). I wish we had more room behind the seating area to setup the rear channels properly. As it is, the rear effects are a bit compressed obviously, but it's still a lot better than what a typical theater experience has to offer.

Even with the major equipment in, there are still sooooo many decisions left to make, here are just a few:

I need to figure out how much wire and what type/brand I'm going to use. I've had good luck with Canare in the past and may just buy a bunch of that.

We have to figure out what we're going to use on the walls and ceiling to give it that bat cave appeal. Some sort of fabric is almost a given.

We need to decide what (if any) acoustic treatments would be appropriate. I'm going to need suggestions here, as I know very little about acoustic treatments and the theory behind their use.

We need to build the front support for the fixed screen and we need to setup blackout curtains on either side of the screen so we can mask it down to 4:3 as needed (a lot of our entertainment is Japanese Animation, and up until recently the OAV and TV series were produced in 4:3).

We need to pick out a dark throw rug that takes up most of the floor since our light beige carpet will reflect a fair amount of light.

Since we're creating a blacked out room, we're going to need to figure something out for lighting the room when we're not actually watching a movie. We'd like to do sconces on the walls, but since we can't rewire an apartment... we need to figure out something we can plug into a switched outlet. Again, yet another area we could use some suggestions for.

We plan to tackle each one of these sub-projects and several others over the next month or two. It should be interesting to see how it all comes out. The key factor in everything we do now is that as much as possible, our construction has to be done in a modular fashion so we can reuse it when we move in a year or two.

Well it's the weekend again, and that means I can do a little more to design/build the theater.

I have a question for everyone... given the above floor plan and layout, what would you suggest for acoustic tiles and other sound control. My main goal is to improve the sound quality - not to totally isolate the theater noise from the rest of the apartment building. Our plan is to use fabric on the walls and ceiling to help control reflected light, so whatever we did for sound improvement would have to be behind the fabric panels. Now, behind the front screen wall it's fair game since there's more room and any treatments won't be visible. I'd like to keep the budget for acoustic treatments to somewhere around $500... though I'd be willing to go higher if needed. My biggest requirement is that whatever we install, it needs to be easily uninstalled so we can re-use it when we move into a house in a year or two.

I'd like to order whatever we need in the next two weeks so that we can build the screen wall and install the screen.

Well I found our camera... so I thought I should take some quick pics.

Here's the screen still sitting in it's box... the box takes up almost the entire hallway of our apt. It's over 14ft long. I was lucky to just get it into the apt.


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/IMGP0680.jpg


Here's a quick pic showing where the screen will go... the 36in TV will be moving to the bedroom along with the TV stand. The Audio gear will be moving to the back of the room and into the tower rack.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/2007-06-01001.jpg


The last photo here shows the back of the room. The kitchen/hallway and the breakfast area that we're using to store our bar and tower rack will be closed off from the main room by curtains.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/2007-06-01012.jpg


I wish I had a better camera as my little point and clicker is rather difficult to turn out good pics with but oh well. ;) Thankfully this board is about A/V and not digital photography right? :D

I'll definitely be checking on this thread from time to time. I have a one bedroom apt and I'm planning to convert my living room into a HT, good luck on your setup.

I will definitely be watching this as well. We're moving into a new place next week, and although we will not be going quite as high end as you, we will still have challenges with the lack of space. Good luck!

Thank you both for the encouragement!

There are some really unique challenges and considerations that we all face in trying to setup a theater in an apartment. I'm just lucky I have an accomplice in my wife. She's really excited about the project and has put almost as much thought into it as I have.

We're trying to work through several problems right now in the design stage...

Chief among them are the lighting issue. Because we plan on covering the room with as much light absorbing material as possible... we're expecting it to be quite dark even when the lights are on. Since this is an apartment, we don't have full access to the electrical system. We can't make electrical upgrades like we would if it were a house we owned. Since our apartment doesn't have an overhead light in the “theater” room, any lighting solution we come up with will need to be able to be plugged into a wall outlet. We can easily hide any cords, so they can still look like built-ins, but the cords have to run to a switched socket at the front of the room. I'm also somewhat concerned that we might overload the electrical circuit as we’re already probably pushing it with everything we’ve currently got hooked up… but one problem at a time.

I've looked into acoustic treatments, but so far I'm not finding a good solution for our needs. Since all of our theater room pieces need to be easily un-installed and taken with us to our next home, we're pretty limited in how serious we can get. We plan on making fabric-covered panels to help control the light, but they won't be more than an inch in depth from the wall/ceiling. Since most effective acoustic treatments are much thicker than that, or do not transfer well after being installed, we're fairly limited in what we can do. I'm also concerned about the benefit of an acoustic treatment behind a panel if the fabric covering it is something non-acoustically transparent such as velvet. Velvet does a great job of soaking up light, but it might be pointless to place acoustic treatment fill behind it. The one area where we don't have a problem is behind the screen. That area gives us enough room to be able to use base-traps and some panel treatments for the mids and highs. I'm not sure what to use yet... I've looked at a few DIY ideas and at the commercial solutions that they attempt to copy. Anyone have some suggestions?

Over the weekend, my wife and I went and sat in some Berkliner theater chairs. They were very comfortable... but also very large. Size is a fairly big consideration in an apartment theater so we'll have some choices to make. Since we can't remodel the floor plan to expand the room ;) Berkline may not be the best choice.

We're considering Salamander Design chairs since they're smaller than the Berkliners, but they're hard to find. Our local Salamander dealer didn't carry any in stock. We'd rather not buy something based on something as subjective as comfort without trying it first.

Here are some sample pics and measurements incase anyone else is facing a similar decision...

The popular Berkline 090 series...

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/Berkline090.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/Berkline090specsA.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/Berkline090specsB.jpg


Salamander Designs Matteo series...

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/SalamanderA.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/SalamanderB.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/SalamanderSpecs.gif


As you can see, the Salamander Designs is a whole 4 inches narrower across the seating area and a total of 7 inches narrower when the arms are taken into account. That's a sizeable amount! With the Salamander Designs chairs we could probably fit an extra chair into the theater.

I've looked into acoustic treatments, but so far I'm not finding a good solution for our needs. Since all of our theater room pieces need to be easily un-installed and taken with us to our next home, we're pretty limited in how serious we can get. We plan on making fabric-covered panels to help control the light, but they won't be more than an inch in depth from the wall/ceiling. Since most effective acoustic treatments are much thicker than that, or do not transfer well after being installed, we're fairly limited in what we can do. I'm also concerned about the benefit of an acoustic treatment behind a panel if the fabric covering it is something non-acoustically transparent such as velvet. Velvet does a great job of soaking up light, but it might be pointless to place acoustic treatment fill behind it. The one area where we don't have a problem is behind the screen. That area gives us enough room to be able to use base-traps and some panel treatments for the mids and highs. I'm not sure what to use yet... I've looked at a few DIY ideas and at the commercial solutions that they attempt to copy. Anyone have some suggestions?

How about Acoustic Shoji screens?
http://www.electronichouse.com/article/theater_gets_asian_flavored_makeover/C206

I've seen sconces with electrical cords on ebay before.

Why not put a Lutron GE 3103 or 3104 in an electrical box, with a plug in chord to take power from an outlet? The output zones could be in a second electrical box, and the lighting plug into standard outlets.

How about a cleat system? Fabric panels would hang from the cleat. Remove cleat, patch a few holes and repaint the room, when you leave. The panels could have a backer board for mounting the sconces to, with some sort of fireproof backing behind the sconce. You could even do a column, and put the GE, or switches in it. It could mount to the cleat also.

Looking forward to seeing this ending.

I hope you have insurance. When word get's out about your theater (and it will) someone may be waiting for you to go to work one day.......

How about Acoustic Shoji screens?
http://www.electronichouse.com/article/theater_gets_asian_flavored_makeover/C206


Ahh, an interested link. Thanks reconlabtech for posting it, I enjoyed reading about that theater. While I really like the asian influence (my wife and I are long time Japanese Anime fans and have been interested in Japanese culture in general for years now), I don't think the shoji screen idea will work for us. We're really focused on creating a dark theater and the lighter colored GOM fabric that's in place of rice paper on the shoji screen runs counter to that. Cool idea though. I could really see using that in a multi-purpose room with a drop down screen.

I've seen sconces with electrical cords on ebay before.

Why not put a Lutron GE 3103 or 3104 in an electrical box, with a plug in chord to take power from an outlet? The output zones could be in a second electrical box, and the lighting plug into standard outlets.

How about a cleat system? Fabric panels would hang from the cleat. Remove cleat, patch a few holes and repaint the room, when you leave. The panels could have a backer board for mounting the sconces to, with some sort of fireproof backing behind the sconce. You could even do a column, and put the GE, or switches in it. It could mount to the cleat also.

Hi Tedd,

You obviously know a lot more about the Lutron system than I do. I did some research after you mentioned it and it's very interesting. My main hurdle is that I can't hard wire the system into my electrical system. Reading your post though, it sounds like that might not be a problem. Could you spell that out for me a little more. I'm afraid my knowledge of what's available for theater lighting is extreemly limited.

As for the cleat system, that's another great idea. We had planned on creating the wall treatments in panels so they could be removed and transported easily, but a track/cleat system does seem to be a good idea to mount them. I think you're on the right track with the modular ideas we should be looking at. Please keep up the good suggestions as you think of them through out this build. ;)

Looking forward to seeing this ending.

I hope you have insurance. When word get's out about your theater (and it will) someone may be waiting for you to go to work one day.......


Since BIGmouthinDC and I have been continuing this in PM's and it's been a very positive and useful exchange, I thought it would be appropriate to bring it back into the main thread here since others may benefit and wish to join in the discussion as well.

Theft concerns are an excellent point that rarely gets discussed. Let's face it; nobody wants to get his or her hard earned stuff stolen. Indeed, I thought long and hard about even starting a thread here detailing our theater build. In the end I decided the chances of someone finding out where I live from this forum were extremely small considering I don't personally know anyone on this forum and are unlikely to meet any of you. Beyond that, I've made a point of not releasing any location information since I moved to my current residence. A much greater danger would be theft from someone who has nothing to do with this forum. As BIGmouthinDC and I lamented in our PM's, it's all too easy for word of mouth to get around when a neighbor, the maintaience guy, a service delivery person, or even a friend of a friend comes by and sees what you have. Obviously I'm not willing to go into what specific measures I have taken or what my lifestyle patterns are but there are some pre-emptive measures all of us can take to mitigate the risk and impact of theft.

If like us, you live in an apartment... make sure you get Renter's Insurance. It's actually pretty cheap and can make a world of difference if the worst were to come true. In addition to theft, this can also cover fire and other risks. My wife and I have had insurance for each apartment we've lived in. I had a cousin who was in the Navy years ago, and at his first duty assignment he moved all of his stuff into his first apartment and took leave to visit family... when he returned back to his apartment from leave, everything was gone. He didn't have insurance. Another unique consideration to renter's insurance is to make sure you have enough specific coverage for the electronics you own. Some general policies have caps and you may want a plan that offers more coverage in this area.

Be aware of your surroundings. This is something that we're taught in the military, but nobody is perfect at it. Here are some things my wife and I try to follow. Don't open the door for people you don't know. Don't answer the phone from people you don't know. Don't invite delivery/salesmen into your house. Ask the apartment complex to notify you if they enter your apartment without prior notice (and hold them to it if you see that wasn't done). Take note of your neighbors’ patterns of life and what cars belong in your complex. Be observant when you come and go from the house that someone isn't watching you. Watch for cars following you when you're close to your house (leaving and arriving home).

If the worst does happen, it's extremely helpful if you've taken pictures of all your equipment, kept the receipts, and recorded the serial numbers. All that information should be kept in a fire safe location, preferably outside of your apartment such as in a safety deposit box.

Does anyone else have any suggestions?

In the end though, no security system, lifestyle change, or gated community can protect your property all of the time. If the combination of steps you take to safeguard your property fails, then remember it's just that... property. If my deployments to Iraq have taught me anything, it is that life is too short and fragile. Enjoy what you have when you have it and don't live in fear of what might be if you've done everything you can to prevent the worst from happening.

:D

Looks great. Can't wait to see the finished product.

Thanks shockemags.

Just thought I'd give everyone a small updated to the progress we've made this weekend. We went out to Joann Fabrics and picked up several yards of fabric samples for the wall panels. We both agreed that the Black Velvet was the way to go. While there were certainly more attractive fabrics we brought home as well as fabrics that would require less cleaning (dust), we couldn't get over how much the black velvet just sucked up the light. Now it's just a question of how much we need and where we get it. It doesn't look like our local store will have enough in stock for us.

We also made a little more progress on the room design. A big challenge for us has been how to incorporate our DVD collection into the room. Since we're tight on space, we don't have the luxury of having a second room to use as a library to store all the DVDs and CDs. As we're building panels for most of the room anyway, we've decided to place the DVD racks on one wall and create hinged panels to cover them up. When the panels are closed, the DVD's should be totally hidden. We'll see what type of challenges that design choice poses down the road. ;)

The big project this weekend though has been in finishing out the breakfast/dinning room area that we'll be using as a bar/equipment room. We had previously painted most of the room a Valspar (Lowes) color called Cut Ruby. We absolutely love the color; pictures just don't do it justice. Previously though, we had chosen a semi-gloss finish... and while that really made the Red pop, it also showed all the flaws from the previous paint jobs. To add to those flaws, the apartment complex recently swapped out our whole breaker box with a new one and in the process scared up one of the walls in that room. We decided to sand down as many of the flaws as we could and repaint that room in with the Cut Ruby, but this time in a Satin finish (the lowest gloss that it comes in). The chair rail is being painted the stock interior color (Sea Shell, a creamy off white).


http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/2007-06-17011.jpg

We also decided that the ugly/cheap ceiling fan had to go (into storage). Not only did we never use the fan, but also the 1 bulb just failed to produce enough light for that room. We replaced it with a 4x50watt spot light fixture. It really brightens up the room and makes the room feel a little larger.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y200/Yosho359/2007-06-17008.jpg

My wife and I just moved into a townhome and are currently trying to figure out a way to knock out light from the walls.

One option we are considering is the combination of Ikea Kvartal Curtain Tracks (you can order online when in stock) along with JCPenny's Cleopatra Velvet Curtains (just the ones we are currently looking at today). Since we have a basement we were considering making a U shaped track, and running "Wine" (dark red) colored curtains along the sides about 12' and Black curtains behind the screen.

The other option we are considering is the fabric panels, if this is the route you are going, I would be very interested in seeing how you end up building your panels. We too are not concerned about dampening sound through the walls, but more concerned with knocking down reflected light.

I will be watching this thread, very excited to see how this comes along.