Hi guys,

I'm about to start working on finishing the "living" side of our walkout basement but I want to have the "fun" side all planned out and ready to go shortly afterwards. I want to make sure my designs are pretty well finalized before I start on anything in case I'm missing something obvious. Basically I don't want to start something and then after the bedrooms are all done realize that I could've done MUCH better if I had just moved some wall 3' or something. Can you guys take a look at these two plans and let me know what you think about them?

Neither plan is what I would consider perfect. In both cases there is a closet area on the right side (bumped out) where I ran all of my low voltage wiring for the main floor. That is basically not moveable at this point. Also note that the images show foundation walls on the top of the plan but in reality this is just a standard stud wall. Here are my current opinions/problems with each plan.

Plan A:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f171/bdmac/Theater.jpg

This was how the basement was originally designed to be laid out when we built the house. The size of the room is great. The A/V closet winds up behind the screen. Could do somehting like an AT screen w/the speakers behind it as shown. Obviously the main problems with this room are the windows, numerous doors, and the fact that it is the main entry/exit out of the walkout basement. Since it is basically a thoroughfare I wouldn't really be able to lock it up when guests with children visit. I worry about the screen attracting kids like moths to a flame. I'm also not sure where to put the A/V rack and there's little chance I would get this room to be quiet. The window/sliding door wall is already sheetrocked because we chose to go with sprayfoam insulation and they require that for code. To get additional wiring I would have to tear out the sheetrock and even then I'm not sure what to do about the foam.

Plan B:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f171/bdmac/Theater2.jpg

This plan is what I was able to come up with to try to remedy the problems with windows/doors/seclusion that Plan A has without MAJOR reconstructive surgery which I am unwilling to do. The only structural change in this plan is moving part of the load bearing wall back several feet. Unfortunately again there are problems. In this case the main HVAC supply and return both run through the width of the room. I do not plan to move them so I would need to build a rather large soffit. Not sure how this would work for sound isolation. Other problems are the dead space behind the screen wall and the fact that it turns the non-theater part of the space into somewhat of an oddball shape.

Does anyone see anything else that I could do in the given space w/out having to move the existing mechanical, HVAC, and low voltage wiring? If not, which layout do you prefer?

I came up with a couple more ideas on this but still not ideal.

Plan C:

Leave the load bearing wall where it is and make the bottom room into the theater. This leaves little room for seating and makes the theater less impressive.

Plan D:

"Remove" the load bearing wall completely and forget the idea of a sealed off theater. Obviously I'd have to reinforce this somehow? Steel beam spanning the width of the bottom room? This really opens up the floorplan but I lose my theater somewhat. Can't seal it off from company and can't keep the sound in the room easily. Light control not as bad cause the windows/doors are so far away then though.

Very interested to hear anyones thoughts/opinions on this.

Some pictures of the last two ideas mentioned above...

Is my initial post too long/detailed or something? I see tons of "help me with my theater" posts w/little to no detail and they get answered with people going "we need details to help you, images, etc." Well here they are so what gives? :(

Plan C:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f171/bdmac/Theater3.jpg

Plan D:

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f171/bdmac/Theater4.jpg

Well here they are so what gives? :(

What gives is that you need to be more patient. People are on here because they're enthusiasts - the people with your answers will answer when they have time to do so. If you want faster answers you're welcome to hire one of the professionals who frequent the forums - I'm sure they'll be glad to help for the right fee.

-drin

drin, you kill me. :D


I like plan B or C best. Personally, I wouldn't want to do a home theater unless I could close it off. So, then your decision becomes, " do I want to move the wall or not?". You mention "load bearing"...that could be big $$$ to move and would need to be done carefully.

My 2 cents...

Drin,

Didn't mean to come off impatient. It's just that if I had not "bumped" my own thread a few times this would've been on like the third page or something by now. I was seriously not sure if I had gone overboard on the verbiage in my posting. I've seen that happen where people get too long-winded and nobody reads their post.

Otay,

Thanks a ton for responding. I agree that I am leaning towards Plan C currently. In your opinion is Plan A pretty much out of the question due to lighting/sound concerns? I think Plan B has merits but I still have to move that load-bearing wall. Plan C I only have to change where the door is (from a centered double door to an off-centered single door).

Hi bdmac. I'd look more closely at plan B myself. If your drawings are to scale plan C leaves the theater almost square, which is an acoustic no-no. It also looks like plan C leaves the dead space behind the screen just as plan B does, so there's no advantage to it from that perspective. C also makes the space quite a bit smaller than B and I suspect you'll find the room quite cramped.

-drin

bdmac - Can I suggest that in instead of linking photos you integrate them into your discussion? I tend to be pretty lazy when it comes to clicking on additional links to pull stuff up. That may help explain why you have gotten limited responses to date.

Hi Cathan,

Thanks a bunch for the suggestion. I have updated the thread to directly include the images and removed the attachments!

Drin,

Thanks for the comments. Somehow in trying to just "make it fit" I completely missed the fact that Plan C winds up being completely square... How bad is that really for sound? I mean will it sound like complete trash or just moderately worse? Would I get like 90%+ sound quality from a square room or is it reduced to like 50% or something?

Plan C is the easiest of the bunch because it's the only one that leaves the load bearing wall in place. Plan B moves it and Plan D removes it replacing it with (I would think) some kind of steel I-Beam overhead. Anyone know how bad messing with load bearing walls is? Am I worrying over nothing or is it as bad as it seems?

Also, would leaving the back wall out (ala Plan D) for a 3-sided room result in better sound than having a square 4-sided room?

Square rooms are bad bad bad. In fact, any time one dimension is an exact multiple of another one (e.g. length is 2x width) you're in trouble. My understanding is that sound reflections off the surfaces will cause 'null' nodes in the room's sound, meaning sound will die at certain points due to destructive interference. Other points may have peaks due to constructive interference. In short, the acoustics of square rooms are nasty and best left alone.

You *could* go with Plan D but the open wall will really impact the acoustics of the space, and in all likelihood it won't be in a positive way.

I'm by no means an expert in these things, so please don't take my word for gospel. It ain't.

-drin

I prefer Plan B, except for the last row being right on the back wall. I would pull the seating forward and shrink the screen slightly, if need be.

This design gives you the equipment rack in the back, with rear access, plus rear entry to the room. I would recover the front alcove (labelled a dead space) which could be used for hiding the subwoofer(s).

Is doing the theater on the other side of the stairs (study area) off limits?

from the pictures, it appears to have no windows, and you can incorporate the space under the stairs for equipment if needed. (that's where my rack is going)

Hi Cathan,

Thanks a bunch for the suggestion. I have updated the thread to directly include the images and removed the attachments!

Much better.

I actually like a modified option A or B. The theater size is good. IJust plan on using the behind the screen "closet" to build an IB sub chamber. It's great space for that and the off-center issue won't be a problem.

Hi Bardman,

The study area on the other side of the stairs is, I think, far to small to do a decent theater in. It's only 11'x11'. :-(

Tedd,

If I put the subwoofer behind that wall in the dead space would I need to have an AT screen? I was planning on making the wall with the screen a full double stud or staggered stud wall to seal things in but that seems like it would also seal out the subwoofer.

Just frame out the room with that alcove space in it. Then you'd use some acoustically transparent black GOM for the front wall, over a stick lumber framework. The real "front wall" of the room would follow the alcove, while the preceived (visual) front wall would be straight across.

I myself have a similar notch in the front of my room and am doing an acoustically transparent wall.

Hi everyone,

I've been working on a revised version of Plan B since that's what most people, myself included obviously, are leaning towards (including my wife!!). Here is the plan and after it are my questions about it.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f171/bdmac/Theater2-1.jpg

1) Placement of supporting columns for the load bearing wall to not be moved? I spoke to the bldg inspector and my builder (we just finished building our custom home in like May so we're still in touch) and per code the load bearing wall must be on top of footings. I'd prefer to not have to blow a hole in our new basement floor already so ideally the rear wall will just be a standard wall w/the current load bearing wall replaced by engineered wood headers and support columns. The header would just be incorporated into the soffit that I will already have running through that area anyways for the HVAC trunks.

My initial thought was to build the columns into some wider columns on either side of the opening and then put the surround speakers next to the column. Then the entire thing would be finished off with GOM or some other material on the front (Columns in RED). My builder just called a little while ago and left a voicemail suggesting maybe building the columns into the corners of the riser so the span is not so large (Columns in BLUE). This could be intersting maybe but would the columns in the middle of the room look strange, block the rear view, or mess w/the sound at all? I don't think the columns would obstruct the view but maybe? If I do the column thing I would build equal sized columns on the rear wall to hold the back surrounds.

2) I modified the screen wall a bit to take into account some suggestions and ideas I got from other builds here. My question though is where to put the center channel in this situation. I can either use a standard screen and place the center channel below the screen in line with the L/R speakers in a "soffit on the ground" for lack of a better term OR I can go with an AT screen and place the center behind it and elevate it to the proper height. My question is will the center being behind the L/R instead of in-line with them cause more problems than the benefit of having it raised to an appropriate height will provide? I don't think I want to move the entire screen wall forward to put the L/R behind the wall due to space concerns.

Another question regarding framing on a poured concrete wall. As you can see in the images 2 of the walls are poured concrete foundation walls. I was wondering what the best sound isolation technique is for walls like that. I was planning on doing staggered stud walls on the other 2 sides with drywall on both sides but I don't think I would be able to get drywall on the backside of the concrete walls... Would just doing a normal 2x4 wall with an air gap between the backside and the concrete be sufficient? Is there anything better I can do there?

Normal wall with an air gap is fine as long as all walls and ceiling are dd/gg.

And I would still plan of using an AT screen. Two feet is all you need and it won't impact your screen size much at all.