Finished Pics of the "Golden Era Theatre"

[GrantOv]

The Golden Era Theatre
Grant and Cathy O.

While out house hunting eight years ago, we were in the market for a home that was a little outdated but in a good school district. We figured if the basic size and layout fit our needs then we would be able to make it our own by gradually remodeling. We happened to come across a 1950’s home for sale with a very intriguing description. It described a home with the right number of rooms, size, and price we were looking for and highlighted that a “party room” in the home was previously featured in a Better Homes and Gardens magazine. Wow, this one might have potential we thought.

As we entered the house, we were immediately struck by a sudden time warp that encircled us. It’s a little difficult to describe without accompanying music by Sonny and Cher, but that house undeniably had 1970’s style. After looking at the majority of the home, we finally reached the much-anticipated, special main level “party room.” As we entered the room, we noticed two other couples do a 180 degree turn and head straight for the door. Hmmm, that wasn’t a good sign. One look and we understood why others couldn’t get past its overpowering decor. Clearly, the seller’s had failed to mention that the magazine article about the room occurred in the early 70’s. The room had certainly been “well-preserved” in its original décor and hip, shag “glory days.” It still had huge dark stained ceiling beams, dark oak cabinets, shag carpeting, burlap wallpaper, and original light fixtures. Half of the room was a sunken living room with a large brick fireplace. The upper level contained a dark oak buffet counter/wet bar and large maritime chain as a space divider. We later learned that this was referred to as ‘Mediterranean Style’, but we affectionately called it ‘Brady Bunch Style’. At that point we really had no idea what we would do with the space but we knew the house, as a whole, had a lot of potential.

To make a long story short, five years went by and the home gradually became updated and modernized. In fact, every room was touched in one way or another – except one. We spent countless hours trying to figure out what we were going to do with our ‘party room.’ We tried converting it to a den, then an exercise room and finally a meeting space for my children’s school groups. All of them seemed like a waste of space for a 26x18 room. Finally, it dawned on us that what we had on our hands was something quite unique. A bi-level large main level room that we could remodel into a state of the art home theater with stadium seating!

It’s really hard to say what the trigger was that first planted the Home Theater seed in our heads but once it was there it stuck. I’m a researcher and DIY’er type and my wife loves to decorate and entertain. It seemed that this project would be perfect for both of us. After two years of reading forums and learning everything I could about this relatively new type of family room, we felt we were ready to finally dive into this large project. In August of 2005, we had a concept and what we thought was a pretty decent layout. We still had a fair amount of questions left and details to work out but we charged ahead and managed to get the demolition completed before the snow flew. Seasonal timing can be a very big deal for Minnesota remodels. The room’s former patio doors and windows were a thing of the past and wiring discussions soon became a part of our family dinners. Trying to figure out what wiring we wanted and where seemed so premature. The design just didn’t seem that concrete to make those lasting decisions yet. Along the way we found a few products and techniques that really seemed to pull things together for us. PAC International’s RSIC isolation system reduced our concern about disturbing our neighbors with our anticipated powerful 7.1 THX sound system. Sound deadening material normally used for automotive sound control helped control the sound of existing plumbing and ventilation. New products in the area of zoned lighting control was another area that provided high-end effects for a reasonable cost. It really seemed like we were learning something every week. This was exciting and also a bit nerve-wracking because many decisions were made on information just learned the prior week. Clearly we were novices, but with my engineering background the technology and design rules seemed to start to come together before the drywall arrived.

What a major turning point drywall was. My wife was convinced I simply must have miscalculated when I ordered eighty sheets of drywall for one room! A layer of 1/2” over a layer of 5/8” seemed excessive but there wasn’t much about sound isolation that made sense at first glance. My wife never quite bought into the whole idea of “floating walls and ceiling” but figured it couldn’t hurt. Equipment purchases soon became my sideline focus at this time while décor became my wife’s. It seemed like our conversations were a constant compromise of what I viewed to be technological needs versus her aesthetic concerns. Fortunately, we both agreed that the room should take on an ‘Old Hollywood’/ Art Deco theme. The décor developed little by little. First, the walls and ceiling; we needed something bold with character. One day over Happy Hour we happened to notice the cool tin ceilings at our nearby TGIF Restaurant. But then, it hit me that this wouldn’t be practical in a home theater because tin ceilings rattle. With more web searching I found faux tin ceiling panels that were paintable. After talking to the distributor, I found out something even more interesting – TGIF’s ceilings weren’t tin either, in fact, they used the exact same product I stumbled upon. Painted embossed anaglypta wallpaper was the ticket for the walls and we decided to go with a bold vintage golden color paint on the upper half of the wall and black fabric over acoustic panels on the lower half. This was clearly a compromise that worked!

My equipment deliberations were no less interesting. There were many pros and cons on the choices of whether receivers or pre/pro amp combinations were the way to go. Couple that with a tremendous range in prices for either route made deciding difficult. In the end I found a good deal through a friend that allowed me to buy better quality equipment than I thought I could previously justify. Speaker selection was also difficult. Luckily, to help simplify my decisions, there weren’t many in-wall speaker companies at the time that integrated enclosures to their speakers. In-wall surround speakers were the only acceptable option in my wife’s aesthetic opinion and luckily they fit the bill technically. For my front three speakers, I choose speakers that normally reside in DVD mixing studios. They are near field speakers that are very accurate. Since I was going to be sitting about the same distance from my speakers as technicians normally sit in studios these made perfect sense to me.

Our two last big design choices were centered on floor covering and lighting. To say that this took more than two months would not be an overstatement. Art deco style lighting and carpet isn’t in high demand these days. Persistence paid off, but neither came cheap. Our budget by now was over but the lighting from Rejuvenation Hardware was too perfect to pass up. The floor covering decision was a combination of carpet and black granite tile. The carpet that we found after an exhausting search brought everything together. It was again very bold and just screamed theater to us.

A few more interesting finds were discovered on Ebay and the Internet. Where else could you find an early 1920’s silent film projector, a 42” Goldberg movie reel, or a 1944 Hollywood Map of the Stars? To top it off, I found a great hobbyist in California that made custom theater clock replicas like I remembered from my hometown theater growing up. Ken-Glo replica clocks are a dead ringer for the very collectable Glo-Dial Neon clocks of the 40’s and 50’s. We also found a very nice old Hollywoodland photograph in Bruce Torrence’s Hollywood Photograph Collection. After working out the details with Bruce and with Environmental Graphics, a local wallpaper mural company, we extended our theater theme into an adjoining bathroom. Clearly, these authentic “Old Hollywood” ebay finds helped bring our vision of the “Golden Era Theatre” into reality.

Finding quality chairs at mid-level pricing was another multi-month task, which didn’t get finalized until the very end. These final purchases were tough. Even though we did all of the labor ourselves, the project took on a life of its own. In our hearts we knew it would all be worth it. It was our last major remodel project in this house and we knew we would enjoy it for years to come. It was a very involved remodel but one that I won’t tire of recanting to all my friends and relatives that enter the room and say, “Oh my, this room is over the top!” Our project took 13 months to complete. Luckily, we could contain the debre and construction. It also didn’t cause us to eat microwave dinners for 3 months like our kitchen project did. The first operational month we entertained more than we did the prior two years. The space is now the best modern-day “party room” we could have hoped for!

Pictures?? You want Pictures?
I didn't include the pictures of the wiring or sound isolation but I did include three 'before' pictures to bring you back to the 70's.
Click on this link to Fotki!

http://public.fotki.com/GrantOv/

Below are the costs estimates - most are retail estimates so don't be alarmed. I paid less for quite a few buying used equipment, calling in favors from some distributor friends etc. etc. My guess is that I paid as low as 50% off retail on 25% of the equipment but in aggregatel probably paid about 25% off retail. Not a cheap remodel but it helped by spacing the purchases over a couple years.

The Golden Era Theatre Budget/Gear List

Rebuilding Demo, Framing, Wiring, Ventilation, Insulation, Drywall, Trim $6500
Flooring Granite 12x12, Black Galaxy $1000
Carpet w/Installation, Royal Dutch $4300
Walls/Ceiling Faux Tin, SurfacingSolution.com $700
Anaglypta Wallpaper and Paint, Hirshfields $400
Fabric, S.R. Harris $500
Acoustical Treatments Cotton Insulation, WallMate, AcouStik, ASI Pro Audio Acoustics $2500
Sound Proofing RSIC-1 and RSIC-EXT04 from PAC International, Inc. $2500
Lighting Art Deco Reproductions by Rejuvenation Lighting and Hardware $2800
Lighting Control 1 - PCS – Programmable UPB 6 Button wall mount Controller $240
4 - HAI – 600W UPB Dimmable Light Switch $360
Projector Panasonic PT-AX100U $2200
Screen 4 yards of SMX Acoustically Transparent Screen $400
Preamp B&K Reference 50 Rackmount $2000
Power Amps 2 – Parasound HCA-1500A (LCR) $2000
2 – Parasound HCA-1000A (Surround and Rear) $1200
1 – Parasound HCA-750A (Exterior – Zone 2) $400
Speakers 3 – JBL Professional LSR32 (LCR) $3000
4 – Triad InWall Silver/4 MiniMonitors (Surround and Rear) $2800
2 – Boston Acoustics (Exterior – Zone2) $300
1 – Velodyne Subwoofer, ULD-15 $1000
HD-DVD Toshiba HD-A2 $450
DVD Sony DVPCX995V 400 DVD/CD/SACD w/HDMI $400
CD Sony DVPCX985V 400 DVD/CD/SACD $300
Surge Protection and Power Conditioners
2 - SurgeX SX15-NE/RT, Nema $600
1 - SurgeX SX2120-SEQ, Rackmount $600
Rack Hardware Middle Atlantic - fans, custom shelves, rails, vents and blanks $600
Theater Chairs Brando Series by Palliser $5500
Table and Bar Stools Custom table by Amisco $1500
Clock Custom Glo-Dial Reproduction by Ken-Glo Neon Clocks $450
Graphics Custom Mural by Environmental Graphics $300
Appliances Refrigerator, Microwave and Multimixer $500
Movie Poster Frames Snaplock Frames, StarGate Cinema $200
Décor Accents Vintage projector, film reels, map of the stars, ~50 DS posters $1000

We wish the best for your Family on this New Years Day,
Grant and Cathy

[chinadog]

Grant,

That came out great! I'm sure you're going to enjoy that for many years to come.

Bud

[rsante]

Grant,

Holy cow, that's a beautiful room you have there. Enjoy it!

[victor-eyd]

That room is incredible! But this wall art is extremely cool. Where did you find this



And the bathroom is cool also!

Victor

[GrantOv]

We pieced the wall decoration together over several Ebay purchases.

I found quite a few things on Ebay over the course of 3 years. The large 42" reel table top was another rare find. The Goldberg reels can be found daily but a projector like the one in the photo doesn't come up very often - its an old one.

For all my equipment mounting I spanned some 1x board between the horizontal RSIC metal channel to preserve isolation while giving the added support for the heavy wall hanging.

Lots of planning before the drywall went up. Thanks for the compliments - I'll pass them on to my wife.

Grant

[moofighters]

Wow... Room looks fantastic!!

[LathanM]

Wow!!

[BFauska]

Very nice. I am concerned though, how are you going to find enough room to disco dance now that the room has all of those seats in it. I also would advise that you be careful when having fondu parties not to stain the nice new carpet.

Seriously, I like how all of the elements come together so well, that ceiling looks great. I also like all of the found pieces, I've often wanted film reel end (cocktail) tables but that big one is awsome.

Great work, thanks for sharing,
Brian

[johnathan]

I love the look and the colors ! It is another one of those top 10 theaters here on the Forum. Simply beautiful ! Johnathan

[lostsoldier]

Great job!!! That's a style of theater I can really dig.

[GrantOv]

Thanks for all the wonderful comments. I just shared them with my wife. Shes always hearing me talk about the forum. She's starting to warm up to you guys. haha

The comments about the disco ball and fondu parties are really funny. Before we demo'd the room we were pretty serious about throwing a wild Studio 54 party on Halloween. The timeline didn't allow it unfortunately - I needed to start pulling out windows and patio doors a few months before that in order to beat the cold weather that year.

Take it easy,
Grant

PS) could someone fill me in on how to attach links to text below the personal signature? Some of your monikers are just priceless.

[RxMan1]

Very nice! It looks like the room was meant to be that way. I have a few questions as I am about to start my own project. What is the distance from the 'front' of the 1st row chairs to the screen? I'm guessing 2 feet less than the 10ft you listed in the design, but the pictures don't look that way. What is the distance between the rows and are you happy with this? What size screen did you end up with?

I hope you can answer these questions. Great job! One of my favorite theaters.

[bqmeister]

Love your room.

Question for ya, what color gold paint did you use (brand, color)? We're thinking about using gold walls but I want something dark, like you have. I'm thinking of painting the front wall and maybe the ceilings black with gold walls.

I'll have to post some pics of my nearly completed room later this week.

[htomei22]

Very, very nice!!

htomei

[GrantOv]

Thanks for the complements - its fun to share them with my wife.

I'll try answering your questions -
Front of screen to front of 1st row = 8ft. 10ft to rougly viewing position. With our size screen I wouldn't recommend anything closer. I prefer the 2nd row but the kids love the front row.

Distance between rows = 36in, since my chairs are wallhuggers they move forward when reclined so they need a lot of space in front of them. It would be a bit better at 40in in my opinion but I don't want to give up any rear space for the table etc.

Our screen is 16x9 - 96x54in or 110in diagonal. About 1/3 of the movies are 16x9 and nearly all HD broadcast is 16x9 so we ended up going this route. I'm a bit on the fence if I would go 2.35:1 next time. I could envision less front cabnetry on the sides, more on the bottom and could have made that work also.

"Gold Paint" is from Hirshfilds in the Devine Paint collection. Ale (V0711A) is the color. We ended up going with the "Delicate" sheen. I think I would describe this as betweem matte and semigloss - maybe eggshell.

Hope this helps your efforts and planning,
Grant

[redskins_2002]

Sweet!

[bqmeister]

Originally Posted by GrantOv

"Gold Paint" is from Hirshfilds in the Devine Paint collection. Ale (V0711A) is the color. We ended up going with the "Delicate" sheen. I think I would describe this as betweem matte and semigloss - maybe eggshell.

Hope this helps your efforts and planning,
Grant

it does! I showed your pics to my wife yesterday and she agreed - awesome.

[PamW]

Grant,

I love it!!!

[jimfitz]

Amazing style. My wife and I are fans of art deco. Super Job!

[dan webster]

Grant you did an outstanding job. It looks great. I am sure the kids love having their friends over to watch movies. Where did you get the concession stand? I have been looking for one like that.
Thanks

[sdspga]

Grant,

Great job on finishing the room! Giving the kids a nice, safe place to hang out will be a huge bonus to all the other advantages of this space.

sds

[GrantOv]

Hello Dan,

The concession stand or "buffet counter" as we call it was custom made by myself. The top has 12x12 granite tile on it and I chose the layout based on the equipment size. It was a fun side project and a lot easier than the front cabinets surrounding the screen. Those side lower drawers are for DVD's and are 4ft wide and 28" deep mounted on ball bearing slides. The 19" rackmount cabinets are just using Middle Atlantic rack rail. Again, I used ball bearing slides since rear access wasn't possible.

Did I mention how fun xbox 360 is on a screen of this size with 5.1sound. My son got one this xmas and we've been having a blast with driving sims and sports.

Thanks for the kind compliments,
Grant

[jimfitz]

I may have missed this, but how big is the screen?

[GrantOv]

Our screen is 16x9 - 96x54in or 110in diagonal.

Grant

[viper8u2]

Grant,

Already sent you an email from the MNHTUG list but thought I would say very nice job here.

Looks like alot of fun to be had

Mike

[umdivx]

Can I be the first one here to say I've personally have seen it? I still tell any one and everyone about it. From the Decor, to how perfect the room was setup with the two elevations to be able to do the stadium seating.

His room was perfect for a theater, and is a perfect example of a DIY theater. Makes me jelous really of my "poor mans" setup.

Grant already knows how I love his setup, but keep feeding him the praises he honestly does deserve it.

- Josh

[dan webster]

Originally Posted by GrantOv

Hello Dan,

The concession stand or "buffet counter" as we call it was custom made by myself. The top has 12x12 granite tile on it and I chose the layout based on the equipment size. It was a fun side project and a lot easier than the front cabinets surrounding the screen. Those side lower drawers are for DVD's and are 4ft wide and 28" deep mounted on ball bearing slides. The 19" rackmount cabinets are just using Middle Atlantic rack rail. Again, I used ball bearing slides since rear access wasn't possible.

Did I mention how fun xbox 360 is on a screen of this size with 5.1sound. My son got one this xmas and we've been having a blast with driving sims and sports.

Thanks for the kind compliments,
Grant

thanks Grant. Now i have a new project to start. You are right about XBOX 360 , my son also has it and it is fantastic on the big screen with 6.1 sound . My screen is not quite as big as yours (104 ") but it does the job.

[jmorris644]

Grant,

All I can say is that I am more bummed than ever a conflict came up during the tour and I was not able to make it. Your room is fantastic!! And SmX screen to boot!!

I look forward to an opportunity to see it in the future.

Here is the text to fix your sig:

[XXURL=http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=778878]The Golden Era Theatre[/XXURL]

(Remove the XXs)

Joe