AVS Forum banner

My first basement theater- build thread

1K views 50 replies 8 participants last post by  dogman30 
#1 ·
Greetings AVS Forum members! Before I go into anything I have built, I would like to say thanks and am very grateful for this forum. I spent many hours researching my project and got some great intel! I don't think I could've finished this project successfully without the help of this forum.

I am going to detail the entire build with pictures I took along the way. The project is complete (99%). Some of this thread will be the progression of finishing the basement and some will detail my theater specific details. I will have to break this up into several sections and complete as time allows. For anyone (newbies I guess) looking to do their own basement finishing and theater creation, I hope this thread will give you ideas, heads up on pre-planning, and idiot mistakes I made that you should watch out for. I'll put my short product reviews in as well of the equipment I purchased.

For any pros out there reading this... I am new to the theater scene so if I did something that isn't right, please let me know so I can stay up late at night cursing myself for the mistake. This is my second basement finishing. I did all my own work except for the drywall. I hate drywalling and I have a job to go to everyday. It would take too long for me to do and I don't own a drywall lift. It's one of those things that was worth it to me to hire out. Also, it's amazing to come home and see the sheetrock hung! It's the turning point to the back 9 in the job.

To the newbs out there... anyone can do this. Do your homework first. Plan everything ahead of time. Don't wire for outlets and lights if you don't know how electricity works. Also, I have lots of tools. A table saw, chop saw, router, an infinity of hand tools, nail guns of varying sizes, power sander, and every other obvious thing one builds things with are all a must for this kind of job (it surprises me how many people I know who do house projects yet do not own a table saw). Do things right the first time, to code (if applicable). Be ready to spend money. I did this basement on my "open" budget. I didn't have one, but I like to work frugally. I knew it was going to be expensive but man, all the little costs add up over nine months. Hardware, wires, wood, etc... my credit card bills each month were "surprising". 3 pages of Menard's visits. With that all being said, I'll get on with it...

I moved into a relatively new house last spring 2015 (about 8 years old). It had a full very partially finished basement. When I say partially, I mean the builders put in a full bath and the walls around the bathroom had drywall already hung as well as one partition wall that separated the furnace room from the rest of the basement. Everything else was concrete foundation and the entire ceiling was still open. Plenty of space down there to do whatever I wanted to do. But I definitely had my work cut out for me.

I allowed my family to get settled in for about 6 months and then decided it was time to make what I've always wanted...my own basement theater. I knew I wanted a big screen, Dolby Atmos ceiling speakers, a built-in component rack, tiered seating, a pool table, bar, pinball machines and a poker table. Because the bathroom was put right in the center of the basement, it divided the space into essentially two sections. The main section would be for me, and the back section would contain a bedroom for my son and an office (AKA crap storage room) for my girlfriend.

With my plan set in my mind, it was time to get to work in figuring out how I wanted to do this. I decided I was going to do the basement in two phases. Phase one would be the back two rooms and hallway, and then phase two would be the main room. Since we seem to be hoarders here, the basement contains a lot of stuff. A lot. If I did it in two pieces then I could shift all the stuff to one side and work on the other. Since my son needed a bedroom (he was sleeping on the sofa down there out in the open) I decided to do the back first. This made sense anyway due to the stairs leading into the basement entered in the main area. Better do the back first. Photos are looking at the back section and the hallway leading to them from the main area.
 

Attachments

See less See more
3
#2 ·
I started work without a floor plan. I cleared away all the stuff, went to the home center and bought a stack of 3/4" foam board, some house wrap tape, and foam board adhesive. I bought some 2x4s too. I got to work cutting and gluing the foam board to the bare foundation walls. The foam cut pretty easily with a utility knife and a T-square. I used some 2x4s to lean them against the foam board to hold it against the foundation walls while the glue dried. When the back section was totally foamed, I used the tape to seal up the seams.
 

Attachments

#3 ·
Ok, continuing on... With the foam up I then built the exterior walls on the ground about 1/4" shorter than the ceiling height so I could tip them up into place. This went rather fast. I cut a 2x4 to 14.5" long and used it to quickly space the wall studs so they were 16" on center. I only had 8' 2x4s even though the walls were much longer so I had some studs that were doubled up where two wall sections met but I made sure the 16" on center continued down the line. I found that the treated 2x4s that I used for the bottom plates were slightly wider due to the absorption of the pressure treating. This was kind of a pain in the ass. I didn't want the bottom plate to protrude past the studs. I dealt with it fine by making sure the interior side of the wall was all flush when I nailed them up but it was just another thing to keep an eye on.

Note: I was very selective at the home center and hand picked every stud. It seems like it's been getting harder to find straight lumber. Crooked studs translate to crooked walls.

Caution to newbie builders like me... Make sure you measure the height of each floor joist above. My first wall didn't fit when I tipped it up because one joist was slightly lower than the rest. Allow a little clearance to be able to tip the wall up into place. You can shim it at your nailing points. I know some guys prefer building the wall in place. This seemed more time consuming. I prefer building them on the floor.

The bedroom egress window was a head scratcher. Wasn't quite sure how I was gonna extend the window frame. I ended up choosing to make a box frame and just sliding it into place up to the window after the drywall was in. Had to be careful when framing around the window so the frame would line up exactly with the planned dimensions of the window extension box.

I used construction adhesive and one of those power shot .22 caliber nailers to affix the bottom plate of each wall segment to the basement floor and nailed (or screwed) the top plates to the joists every couple of feet. I found that the power shot was not very good at driving the nails completely into the concrete floor. They were in there pretty good though and with the construction adhesive I don't think they are going anywhere. Trying to hammer them in any further was totally futile. The six year old asked to help with trying to hammer them. Haha, no problem. Here you go. Let me know when you get the nail all the way down. She actually hammered for about 5 minutes before she gave up. This was 4 minutes longer than I expected.

With the exterior wall segments all in place and the closet framed in (there was a cavity formed into the foundation wall for the fireplace above on the main floor...perfect for a small closet), I really just randomly drew some lines on the floor to divide the back space into a bedroom and the crap storage room. Once I was satisfied with the placement, I snapped some straight lines on the floor for the partition wall over my drawn lines being sure I framed the doorway wide enough to fit a STANDARD PRE-HUNG DOOR SIZE available from the home center. I capitalized this because this bit me in the butt for the closet door rough opening. More on that later.

I built the partition wall segments (actually used a couple 12' 2x4s for this longer wall.. didn't want it in two pieces. special hardware store trip for those) and tipped them up into place. I squared the wall being sure everything was parallel and level (of course, I didn't mention above, but be sure to level your wall segments. The foundation walls were very un-level. I checked for level at every stud to account for any that may have had a little bow to them) and attached the wall in the same manner as the exterior walls. I built a smaller wall for the doorway. I had to go to the home center to measure the pre-hung door width and height to be sure I got this opening correct. It's not a load bearing wall so I didn't bother doubling up the header above the door.

Note: plan ahead and make sure you have at least an inch of framing at the corners for both walls that meet. This is important as so the drywall has something to attach to.

Moving on to the ceiling. Okay, so like every basement, there is the main trunk and return duct from the furnace running along the length on the ceiling in what will become the crap storage room. If I built a soffit around them, more than half the ceiling would be lowered. Screw it, this room will just have a low ceiling. One of the walls in this room was already drywalled by the builders. I put up a nailer on that wall finding the studs with a stud finder. I ran 2x4's straight across to the partition wall. I used cutoff pieces of 2x4s to support each ceiling stringer to the joists above at the midpoints. There will be some deadspace in the ceiling because I did it this way but it won't look stupid for having half the ceiling higher than the other half. Overall ceiling height was still decent at around 6'5" or so. I also had to build a small ladder frame to finish off the low ceiling where it meets the hallway as well as mate up with the raw drywall edges from the existing drywall that surrounds the bathroom. The crap storage room will not have a door. Just a wide open entry way. The door to the furnace room will be in this space and I thought it would be weird to have a doorway to a room within another room.

As you can see in the pics, there is an I-beam that spans the length of the bedroom. I built ladder frames out of 2x3s to box this in. They are just slightly lower than the beam itself to conserve as much headroom as possible. These were a pain to get level and straight. Do NOT nail these in place!!! Use screws instead. Very likely you will need to back the screws out and tweak them until perfectly level.

Okay, back rooms framed up and also did the hallway. I think this took me a few weeks to get all the details worked out. I had my chop saw on the floor when I cut all these studs. Totally sucked. Even with the fancy knee pads I bought. I bought an adjustable stock outfeed support thing (with the metal roller on it) for like $20 from the discount tool store for phase two of this build. Best $20 I ever spent. Now I don't have to bend down to the floor to make a cut. Didn't buy a tool stand though. Instead I took the top couple shelves off one of those heavy duty Rubbermaid garage shelf units and used that.

I bought a bunch of outlet boxes and some 4" can light fixtures. I carefully lined up the can lights in the ceiling where I wanted a light and nailed them in place. I'll wire them later. Also chose where I wanted all the outlets and switches and nailed the boxes in place. I measured the height off the floor of the outlets on the main floor (so I could do the same in the basement), then cut a 2x4 scrap to that height (minus 1.5" for the sole plate thickness) so I could quickly scribe a line on the studs at each outlet location using this scrap so all the outlets would be the same, and correct height.

I decided the height of the electrical wire I was going to run through the walls. I cut another scrap of 2x4 to this length and then used it to scribe a line on each stud that I had to drill a hole through.

Note: Get an auger bit set. So much easier than a spade bit if you have lots of holes to drill.
 

Attachments

#4 ·
I bought a big spool of 12-2 wire. The breaker box is in the main room at the end of the hallway so I had to continue framing the exterior hallway wall all the way down to the box. I want power in this back section so my kid can have a functioning bedroom while I work on the front half.

I pulled the wire through the holes in the studs. Took a little planning to navigate the most efficient way to hit the outlets and switch locations using the least amount of wire. Conduit is not required here.

I pulled excess wire into each outlet and switch box and will cut off the excess later when I install the outlets and switches. I ran 14-2 wire from the switch boxes to the can lights.

I found some network wire wadded up and stuffed into the cavity above the foundation top along the hallway. I traced it to the phone jack on the main floor. I don't plan on installing a phone jack down here. We don't have a land line. Don't want to cut it off though either just in case. I'm going to secure it to the stud and make a note of its location in case I want to tap into it later.

I used wire staples to secure the wire every few feet where it runs up a stud or along a joist in the ceiling.

All cleaned up and ready for drywall!
 

Attachments

#6 ·
The can lights in the hallway will be connected to a switch in the main area which is already functional. I ran wire from the existing lights in the basement to these new hallway lights. It took a little shuffling around of wires. Right now I just want them working. I'll rearrange wires at the switch later when I start the main area.

Drywall guys arrived. Here are the progression pics. It took 4 or 5 days to finish the job. Pretty good overall. They drywalled where I plan to install the window extension box. I had them remove it before they mudded everything.

The new drywall blended into the existing soffit drywall by the bathroom wall nicely.

Once the drywall was up I discovered a small mistake I made. I did not accurately account for the thickness of the drywall where the ladder frames I built to cover the I-beam meet up with the hallway wall. You can see the goof in the first pic and the pic with my dog, to the right of the upper right corner of the door opening. Oops. Oh well, not a big deal. Just doesn't look pro. It looks fine after the paint went up.
 

Attachments

#7 ·
Oh, so I forgot something... The bedroom has a vent installed at the proper height so the vent cover will just meet up flush against the drywall on the ceiling. Sweet. When the house was built, the HVAC guys just cut holes into the main trunks for a vent and a return air in the area which is now the crap storage room. Well, I boxed around the trunks so I will need to get some duct extensions to get below the stringers for the lowered ceiling. No problem, I'll go pick up a couple for these 4x10" vent covers. Nope. I could find no evidence that this product exists. I checked all three big chain home centers here and scoured the internet. No luck. Asked for help at the home centers. No luck. Does this item not exist? Am I the first person ever that needed a rectangular extension with flanges on one end to screw to the main trunks?? I don't care how long it is...find me one and I'll make it work. Nope.

Here's an item that is sorta close to what I need. Sorta. It was actually kind of expensive for what it was. Screw it... I'll just buy some blank sheet metal and make them.

This was a pain. Got it done though. Work fine and they fit like a glove. Speaking of which... sharp edges. wear gloves.

On a forum note- my pictures keep getting flipped sideways when I add them here. So, I go and flip them sideways so they end up correct. No, still sideways. Ugh. I have to open up every pic in windows paint and crop them a little for them to come in right side up. Some even come in upside down even though they are right side up when I open them. Same solution. Weird.
 

Attachments

#8 ·
With the drywall up, I bought some select pine boards wide enough to make my window extension box. I cut some shoulders at the ends of the side pieces for a good joint. Glued together with tight bond, clamps, and my trim nailer. This was actually a pain to make... the window was not set into the foundation wall totally parallel with the concrete surface. This means that I have to modify the width of the box to a different measurement for each side to get it to mate up against the window properly. It's hard to cut a tapered piece of wood on a table saw without a long sled jig. Ok, hand planing it is.

Window extension is primed and installed. Walls are primed and then painted a medium grey. I went with an eggshell finish. Not sure why. After the job was done I wished I had just gone with flat paint.

Outlets wired but not screwed in yet. All the lights work! Yay! Looks good. I am pleased. Progress.

Pre-hung door that matches the rest of the house bought and ready to install. Ditto for the door casings.

The last photo is the furnace room door that was put in when the house was built (pic taken before I painted that wall grey). I had to tear off the existing molding because the lowered ceiling would interfere with it. I have to cut the top piece down narrower and reinstall it. This was uneventful except for me breaking the molding when I pried it off. Dang. This stuff is cheap so it's not a big deal.
 

Attachments

#9 ·
So about that thing with the closet door. Because I know pre-hung doors are available in 2" increments from like 24" up to 36", I sized the closet door R.O. to fit a 26" door (that's about how wide the closet is with a little extra room for the door casing). So I go to buy a door... Okay, there is 24", 28", 30", 32", 34", and 36". No 26"!! Why???? Check the other home centers. Same story. Why are there no 26" doors anywhere? I have to order one specially made to 26". This took like a month. Major set back. Wasn't much more expensive but I couldn't finish installing the baseboards until this came in. Even took longer than they said it would.
 
#10 ·
I installed the door without too much difficulty. I'm sure there are tricks to doing this. I do not know what they are. Lots and lots of shim adjustments to get this right. Somehow the bedroom door R.O was slightly out of level and I discovered this when leveling the door. I ended up making it work but it was a headache.

On to the baseboards and door/window casings. I did not price the baseboards ahead of time. This turned out to be one of the more expensive purchases during this build. Pre-primed basic wood baseboards. Painted is the way to go. Last house I used oak and stained them with poly. You don't have the ease of filling any cracks or imperfections with those and you can't caulk them to the wall. Glad I went white this time around.

For this section of the basement I installed the baseboards first then painted after they were up. This was a mistake and took a lot longer to paint them in place with a brush. For the front half I painted them all on the ground first. I was able to spread them out on some scrap boards and use a roller to get them wet then smooth the paint out with a brush. Much easier.

I ran into a problem when putting the baseboards on the wall in the hallway. The drywalls got pretty heavy with the mud on one joint (or the sheet rock wasn't butting up to the adjacent sheet very well) and the baseboard was noticeably bowed around this bump. It looked terrible. I had to pry off the baseboard after I fired a dozen trim nails into it trying to force it flat. I swiss cheesed it. Ended up taking my power sander to the offending area grinding it down flat. This of course ate through the sheet rock paper and then some. A few days of patching and smoothing and I got it looking acceptably good.

Filling the nail holes was time consuming. I saw a tip on youtube about using window glazing compound instead of caulk to fill the nail holes. This worked out very well. You can grab a ball of it in your hand and essentially just apply it with your fingers. The guy in the youtube video said you don't need a putty knife but I used one anyway. I was able to smooth out the compound better using it. A small can of this stuff should be enough to do about 10 houses. The compound never really hardens or shrinks. We will see as time goes on. Looks good now though and I'm grateful for the tip.

Another tip I got there was to use windex on the walls and baseboard before I applied the caulk. I would spray about 3-4 feet with windex, enough to see the wall fairly wet, then ran a bead of caulk along the top of the baseboard. Then I squeegeed the excess off with my finger. This worked great! Very little touch up painting required afterwards. Be prepared to have lots of paper towels on hand. 90% of the tube of caulk will end up being waded up on your finger. Also, after doing a couple hundred feet of baseboards and casings this way my finger was very sore and my fingernail was flattened on one side. Job hazard. I tried using a different finger but only my index finger seemed the perfect shape to wipe off the excess caulk.
 

Attachments

#11 ·
The back area is finished except for carpet. A big piece left over from the previous owner of the house will work in the bedroom until I finish the front and carpet the entire basement at once.

Time to start designing the front room theater area. Originally I had big plans for a stage, tiered seating, bar, and a poker table and maybe even a pool table. I decided I should probably get some layout ideas on computer before I started work. I learned the basics of sketchup so I could see what my ideas would look like. This is when my big plans started to fall apart. The main ducts for the HVAC along with an I-beam and the bathroom exhaust duct all span across the width of the main room right through the center. After throwing a couple sofas in place along with a projector I quickly figured out this wasn't going to fly. Building a soffit around this stuff lowered the ceiling too much right where the second row of seats needed to go based on the screen position. Ugh. Also, according to the throw ratio calculator I was referencing, the Epson 3050Ub projector I had my eye on would have to be placed pretty much beneath this soffit area to get the screen size I wanted which was about 120".
 

Attachments

#12 ·
I ended up scrapping the second row of seats. I'll have to configure them in an 'L' shape instead. Also, I discovered the BenQ HT2050. This wide throw projector allowed me to place the projector on the ceiling in front of the soffited area so it wouldn't be an obstacle for people to hit their head on yet still get the screen size that I wanted.

Another problem I had was the waste pipe cleanout which protruded out from the wall like 19". You can see that I drew this in the sketchup pic in my previous post. I toyed around with the idea of putting base cabinets beneath this pipe and along that wall but scrapped the idea. I just didn't like the way that it looked. I figured I would just box around the pipe and leave a space beneath it for me to build a component cabinet. I also considered putting in an access hatch to get at this cleanout and decided against the hatch. It would be more effort to build a hatch (and an eyesore) than it would be to just cut out the drywall and repair it should I need to get to it in the future.

I also ditched the idea of a screen build out. I wish I would've stuck with my original plan. I just couldn't get a design down that I liked and felt space was at a premium in this room anyway. In conclusion, I really got nothing out of doing the sketchup drawings when it was all done except for practice using the program.
 
#13 ·
Soffiting around the main HVAC ducts was a pain and a head scratcher. This distance across all this stuff was almost 6'. There was no space between the two main trunks to hang supports for the stringers. I was afraid the weight of the drywall would sag the ceiling. What I ended up doing was notching each stringer at the ends (used 2x4s). This allowed me to install the 2x4 stringers on edge for added rigidity. The notches fit over the bottom boards of the ladder frames that lined the length of the soffited area. This conserved a little bit of head clearance in this area.

Another problem I had was how the original builders aligned the bathroom wall with the I-beam. The I-beam stuck out past the face of the drywall by like a quarter inch. This stumped me for a bit as to how I was going to resolve this problem. I saved it for the very last part of the framing.

Here are some pics of that area on the ceiling. You can see the problem with the I-beam. (So much stuff to work around).
 

Attachments

#14 ·
Fast forward- I decided to extend the soffited area a little past the problem with the I-beam and will double up the drywall on that wall with the existing drywall already in place. This will allow the second layer of sheetrock to be chiseled out to cover up how the I-beam protrudes past the face of the drywall.

I got all the walls framed up, I boxed around the waste pipe and left space for a component rack. I left about 3' of height and the correct width for the AV components. With the project now done, I wish I had made it taller. I filled it up with an amp, receiver, cooling fans, blue ray player, and VCR (yes, an old VCR). I would have also benefitted from some more air space between the components.

I have all the wiring in place. I bought a couple hundred feet of 14 gauge sheathed speaker wire from Amazon. I wired for two front speakers, a center channel, four ceiling speakers, two side channels, and two rear channels. I wasn't sure where the speakers would be placed exactly until after I got the projector installed and tested to make sure I could get the screen size I wanted to look clear (and a good distance for my seating arrangement plan) so I put some excess wire in the adjacent stud cavities where I though the speakers would likely go just in case. A little insurance at a small cost of wasted wire. Ran out of speaker wire. Two hundred more feet was ordered. I installed a switch box by the component rack so I could put some small 3" recessed lights underneath the soffited area. This was wise. I'm glad I have independent light control for this area. It lights up the AV rack nicely and also provides lighting over the main seating area without compromising the screen brightness. I ordered two 25' HDMI cables and ran them into a combo low voltage/line voltage double gang box I mounted in the ceiling where the projector will go. The second one is a redundant backup in case the first one has a problem. Cheap insurance. I just wadded up the second cable into the ceiling. I can pull it out if need be. All the speaker wires and two hdmi cables were pulled through another double gang box I mounted at the top of the AV rack area with plenty of excess slack. I labeled each wire to what speaker they are for. Good idea.

I was worried about the placement of the two rear ceiling speakers. These would be at a different height than the front two ceiling speakers because they were going in the soffited area that covers up the main HVAC trunks. I was banking on the auto speaker setup of the receiver to compensate and adjust the volume levels of these rear ceiling speakers accordingly. I couldn't put them anywhere else so it is what it is.

I built a perimeter on the ceiling to give it that coffered ceiling look in front of the screen location. I wired for more of these 3" lights as accent lighting to go into this dropped down perimeter. Two per side. I built the drop down simply out of 2x4s installed on edge. This gave this area a drop down of only 4" but enough to get the look I wanted.

When I was originally looking at some Klipsch in-wall speakers, it said the 5502 was perfect for left and right, and center channel and could be mounted horizontally or vertically. Okay, this speaker is 17.75" tall. Not going to fit horizontally in a standard stud cavity. I thought this was odd to make a speaker this tall. Is this for new construction only with this speaker size in mind?? Well, I allotted for an opening for a large center channel speaker if I ended up buying these speakers or ones of a similar size. My subwoofer which I already have which is a Velodyne I bought several years ago will go just on the outside of the AV rack location so I don't need to wire for it right now. Just an outlet box near there to power it.

I had to make two more of those dang vent extensions. The HVAC guys did the same thing in this main area by cutting holes into the main HVAC trunks and screwing vent covers directly to them. I boxed around the breaker box. I'll figure out how I want to deal with covering it up later.

I plan to install some LED lights around the ceiling of the main area so I wired for switch control to one side of the outlet that will go in for the projector power. A four-gang switch box at the bottom of the stairs will control the landing light, accent lights, main lighting in the coffered ceiling area, and the LED lights.

I added a light fixture box in the ceiling above the area around the corner of the stairs landing and there is an existing double gang box there for two switches.
 

Attachments

#15 ·
I may have missed it but what are your theater dimensions? Progress is going very well!
 
#17 ·
Drywaller guy came in and got all the sheetrock up in one day. I'm surprised how quickly two guys can do that. You really don't know how a room will look until the drywall is up. The only part they didn't get to in the first day is doubling up the drywall where the I-beam sticks out past the drywall.
 

Attachments

#18 ·
Here is the next couple days of progress. I think they still needed to do one more finishing coat at the time I took these pictures.

Currently I do not have any sort of cable or dish TV. Antenna reception sorta sucks around here unless you have a roof mounted antenna. The day before the drywallers showed up I made a last minute decision to route a coax cable through the wall and into the AV rack space in case some day in the future I wanted cable, or a roof antenna. I wadded up the excess cable in the space above the breaker box thinking I could get to it easily from the outside. It was a good idea to route the cable. It was a bad idea thinking I could get to it from the outside after the drywall was up. As you can see in the pic, I left no room to access the cavity above the breaker box. I framed too close to the box. Literally, I could only fit a 1/4" dowel through the small gap between the foundation wall and the top cross framing piece. This proved to be a major problem. I decided recently that I wanted to connect this cable to an antenna that I bought (its a small one I picked up from the Mart for less than a hundred bucks). What a challenge. More on that later.
 

Attachments

#19 ·
Crap! My last post disappeared!

Well, it was talking about the 3" recessed lights I bought. Skipping the part about how I had to buy 12 even though I only needed 9. They were only sold in 4 packs and the manufacturer (Globe Electric) never replied to my email about buying a single light.

Anyway, before the drywall went up, I put a tape measure along each wall and used my phone to take a video of the wall. This way I could refer back to the videos and know where all the wires, pipes, ducts, etc. are in the walls.

With this information, I knew exactly where the stringers were in the soffited area where three of these 3" recessed lights will be installed. I watched the video, marked where the lights will go, and drilled the first hole. Bam! right into a stringer. Dammit. Not sure how that happened. My stud sensor, which I used to double check my measurements, did not care about this stringer. Oh well. Plug the hole, drill a new hole, fix the measurements of the other two lights.

Since these lights are the remodel type, you cut the hole and fit the entire assembly up into the hole and the spring clips inside the bulb housing hold it to the drywall. In order to wire them, I had to pre-wire with some extra slack in the wire. I wound up a bundle of wire and taped it together for each light position. Then, when I was ready to install them, I could reach into the 3" hole (this was actually kinda tough... I have normal sized hands), grab the bundle and pull on it, thus breaking the tape and out comes the slack. Worked like a charm. Here's a pic of my screw up, one of the wire bundles in the soffit area, and the finished lights. I just took the pic of the lights so you can see progress I haven't discussed yet.
 

Attachments

#20 ·
I installed 6 more lights, two per side in the dropped down section of the ceiling surrounding the coffered look main area. This turned out very nice. The lights pivot so I pointed them away from the walls so there wasn't so much light wash on the walls and theater screen. I also put them on a dimmer. Otherwise they are pretty bright. The crown molding you see was the next step in this build.
 

Attachments

#21 ·
When I put these 3" accent lights in, I looped the wire back on itself in one location where the wire branched out in two directions in the ceiling dropped down area. This seemed like the best way and minimized the amount of wire I used. I did myself a Fonzie and labeled "CUT" with tape on one of the bundles that paralleled off that bundle of wires. I totally forgot doing this when I ran the wire. I didn't install the lights for a couple months from the time I ran the wire. I thanked myself for doing this as I couldn't remember exactly how the wiring was supposed to be connected.
 

Attachments

#22 ·
I saw some cool photos of crown molding with LED lighting inside it that shined up on the ceiling. I decided to add this feature to the coffered area. The dropped down area around the coffered ceiling was, I thought the perfect height for this at 3.5". I found the smallest crown molding they had at the home center and mounted it flush with the bottom of the dropped down area. This left a gap of about 3/4" between the top of the crown molding and the coffered ceiling. I would be able to get a strip of rope lighting and stuff it into the gap and plug it into the outlet I planned for the projector. Since one of those outlets is connected to a switch, I can turn the LED rope lights on and off at the wall switch.

I cut some triangular strips from 2x4s on my table saw and nailed them to the walls where the crown molding would go. This would give me an additional nailing point to install the crown molding as well as provide a surface for the rope lights to sit on. The picture shows a cross-section of how this will work. After I finished the crown molding and put the rope lights into the gap, I discovered that the vinyl tubing that makes up the rope lights did not want to relax into the gap. It retained its shape from being rolled up in the package. This was a problem. Because the crown molding was already up, I had very little access to the area behind the molding where the lights would go. I should've installed rope light clips (they came in the package with the rope lights) but it was too late now. Ugh. I needed another solution. I toyed with the idea of laser cutting some light-ply clips and using them as a friction fit between the wall and the molding. I drew a circular notch in them to match the diameter of the rope lights. Hopefully if I fit on of these into the gap every foot or so they would hold the rope lights down in the gap. I laser cut hundreds of these. Total failure. The length of the gap varied slightly and only a few clips stayed in position. You can see a clip in my profile pic of the molding.
 

Attachments

#23 ·
Did you draw up a plan before you started or did you just have it all in your head?

Also are you going 7.1.4 with the sound in there?
 
#24 ·
I scrapped the idea of the clips and figured my only good option was to tape down the rope lights. I used a heavy duty clear packing tape. This actually worked pretty well. The tape stuck to the top edge of the molding. It's been a couple months now and it's still holding. This was far from the ideal solution but for now it works.

The AC plug for the lights actually has a little module in it that converts AC into what measured to be 110V DC. Interesting. This power cord was much too long to stuff the excess wire into the crown molding gap so I shortened the wire to like 6". Just long enough to reach from the end of the rope lights to the plug. The total length I needed to cover with the rope lights was almost exactly 50'. Turns out, the rope strips they sell at the home center were 48' long. Dang. Well, the two foot shortage would be placed behind the projector. Not ideal, but doesn't look out of place when the projector was installed. It's fine.

Even though the lights were held down in place now, I was unhappy with the results. There were slight variances in the light intensity which was obvious when they shined onto the ceiling above. It wasn't a "glow" which I had hoped for. Instead, you could see the reflection of each individual LED on the ceiling, and the line of light points on the ceiling wasn't straight. Had a wavy look. I needed away of diffusing the lights some. I experimented with a variety of opaque materials that I would be able to somehow stick into the gap over the rope lights. The material that worked out best was blue painter's tape. I originally didn't want to change the color of the lights. The blue tape obviously turned the lights blue. Wasn't too bad... actually I kind of liked it. So, although a little tedious, I managed to fit this painter's tape into the gap and onto the rope lights. Pretty happy with them now. Some slight variances still the way the lights shine onto the ceiling but overall, decent. This is something I would have done differently if I could start over.

Here is a photo of the finished product with the lights off and the LEDs on. The lights actually provide a perfect amount of a little ambient light when watching a movie.
 

Attachments

#26 ·
So it's time to order up some speakers for this bad boy. Like I said earlier on, my plan was to go with some Klipsch in-wall speakers for all 11 speakers. After I priced these out, this added up to several thousand dollars. I just couldn't do it. My neighbor recently did his own home theater and invited me down to check it out. He bought all his speakers from Monoprice. He said he really liked them. He fired it up for me and I was impressed. Sold. I first ordered 4 rectangular 8" kevlar in-wall speakers and 4 angled, round ceiling 8" kevlar speakers. These speakers were 1/10 the cost of the Klipsch. Shipping was a little expensive but the boxes were heavy so I understand. They arrived promptly in a couple of days. Here is the review I "attempted" to post to Monoprice regarding these speakers (the site wouldn't let me post for whatever reason).

Packaging: The speakers had their own packaging within the shipping box. Two per box. They were well secured in the packaging and bagged for protection. There was an installation sheet and a cutting template for each pair. The package also included a grill removing tool and a roll of black putty (snaked out on backing paper...not sure what this was for. I disposed of it), the grill, and a dust cover behind it. Nice touch.


The speakers: They appear very nice in construction. Solid frames. Well organized electronic components. Plated, sprung terminal connectors. The grill was a very snug fit into the speaker frame. Looks great. Rumor has it these are paintable. I considered it but decided not to. They look nice as they are and they match the white trim in my basement. The main speaker element looks to be of high quality. There is a db switch which is selectable between 0, -3, and -6. I played around with this switch but didn't notice a reduction in sound level when I moved it from the default 0 to the other two positions. Wouldn't need it anyway since my receiver auto adjusts the sound level of each channel as necessary for optimum sound levels. I left them all at 0.


Installation: There is a paper template included with each pair of speakers that you use to trace the cutout shape onto the wall. The paper is like poster board material thick. More than adequate to maintain its shape while you trace the shape onto the wall. NOTE: I read other reviews where this template is not a good fit. This is not true. The template fits around the speaker perfectly. Try it for yourself before you mount the speaker. It's that simple. With that being said, I used the template to cut a perfect sized cutout in the wall (ok guys, use a hand-held drywall saw and cut outside of your lines so it's not such a tight squeeze.. a little tolerance is okay. The speaker flanges overlap like 1/4" so you have some fudging room). The speaker is secured with these plastic tabs that, as you turn each mounting screw, the tab rotates into the "closed" position and compresses against the back of the drywall. You'll need probably about 1/2" clearance from the wall studs to accommodate the tabs so don't cut your hole too close to the studs. I read in reviews the suggestion to pre-run the screws through the tabs before you attempt to mount the speakers in the wall. Supposedly this is to prevent breaking them during the initial tapping of the hole in the tabs. Not a bad idea. It only took a couple minutes to do this. Can't hurt but probably not necessary. I recommend just doing it. With the speaker wires connected (I used 14 gauge in wall speaker wire from Amazon. The white sheathed stuff. Fit fine in the terminals), I slide the speaker into the cutout and tightened the screws (6 of them per speaker). The outer flange of the speaker snugged up very nicely against the wall. Do not over-tighten the screws. Snug is fine. I pushed the grill into place and it was a done deal. Repeat 3 more times.


Speaker removal: I had to take a couple of the speakers out for reasons unrelated to the speakers themselves. They came out without much difficulty. Here is my warning: Be VERY careful when backing the screws out. Once the mounting tabs get near the end of the molded-in channel they are encased in, they will rotate freely out of the way to pull out the speaker. If you continue to unscrew them past this point, I suspect the tab will completely come off the screw and the tab may drop down into the wall cavity. God help you if that happens. I bet replacement tabs are hard to get. Fortunately I was aware of this risk and removed the speaker carefully. Once you feel less resistance as you unscrew, start trying to remove one corner turning the screw a little at a time until that corner comes free. Then work your way around until the speaker comes out. You'll see what I mean if you have the speaker in your hands and you see how the tabs work.


Performance: My basement is an Atmos setup with 7 surround speakers, 4 in the ceiling, and a subwoofer. This is powered by the latest Marantz receiver SR-6011. I also needed a 2-channel amp to drive the rear ceiling speakers. I purchased the amp here too. Good buy. Separate review on that later. These speakers are providing the ear candy around my 130" screen lit up by a BenQ projector (Amazon). Now, when considering my opinion, I am not an audiophile. I don't prefer LPs because of their warmth. I couldn't pick out the richness of some old tube receiver from the 70's that sounds "amazing" compared to the new "junk" as some audio snobs put it. I do like music though. I like acoustic music. You need some clarity to appreciate it. Also, my main purpose of these speakers is movies and price was a factor. That being said, these speakers sound great. I couldn't be happier. Music is crisp. Vocals are clear. Lower frequencies seem tight (and full, aided by my Velodyne sub). My wall cavities do not have any glass insulation in them. Just the foundation wall covered with 3/4" foam board. Movies sound incredible. My test bed was Mad Max Fury Road. This is the only movie I own that was Atmos encoded. Wow. Talk about the theater experience. I cranked it up (not too loud though..these speakers seem to need a break in period. I think it said like 50 hours of normal use). Clean sound at high volume. No perceivable distortion. I suspect they could deliver more clean volume. I didn't press it.


Conclusion: Unless you (or your critical friends) are some sort of audio freak that says everything sounds bad except for their own mega expensive system, you will like these speakers. The price cannot be beat. When installing ceiling speakers, be sure you know where the plumbing pipes in the joists are. Even if you take careful measurements and photos before the drwall is installed to ensure you don't screw it up, pipes will sometimes move to different spots in the ceiling (presumably by plumbing gnomes in the middle of the night)... just make sure you are putting them in an open spot. Patching half of a round speaker cutout hole is a major pain and a several day setback. Ugh. For the front channels and center channel I bucked up and purchased the carbon fiber versions of these speakers. They look cool. More expensive, but they have a magnetic grill which is nice. These speakers do most of the work so I thought I would spend a few extra dollars for these. They also sound great. Not sure if they are any better than the cheaper ones. Haven't done an in-depth comparison yet.

There you have it. Don't bother shopping around. If you need speakers, work for a living, and these are the right size... just buy them. You will be pleased. Oh, final thought... I did mention above that I have a decent subwoofer. I didn't stress that this is a big factor in bringing these speakers together. Remember, your speaker enclose is a large wall cavity with a small woofer. You aren't going to get much deep bass from these. If you don't have a sub, get one. They aren't that expensive and you can place them anywhere in the room on the floor since low frequencies are non-directional. Reviewer disclaimer: This is my honest review. I read like all the previous reviews on these speakers before I bought (as well as some AVS forum chatter). I got a lot of info from those reviews so I thought I would give back a little and take some time to write this in-depth review. This was my first 'real' theater installation. I would allow about an hour per speaker if you are pre-wired and you know where they are gonna go. Get yourself a decent stud finder (mine sucks but did the job). I'm sure wiring would be a huge pain post-drywall. These are best for planned systems with the wire in place, or if you have some incredible skill at running wire in finished walls. I ran a surplus of extra wire into several adjacent stud cavities since I wasn't exactly sure where the speakers would go until I got my theater screen installed. PLAN AHEAD!!! and then triple check everything. Extra wire can be cut off. Small waste. Lengthening wire would be a pain.


Here is a photo of the speaker out of the box ready to be installed. Another pic of the first one installed (right side channel).
 

Attachments

#27 ·
The projector arrived. I ordered it from Amazon along with a low profile mount. The mount matched the screw holes of the projector fine. The projector I got was the BenQ HT2050. I was originally looking at the Epson 5030ub however the projector calculator someone mentioned in a forum said that I could only get a 100" screen from the distance I needed to mount the projector. And, the BenQ was less than half the price of the Epson. I was sold.

I carefully measured where the center of the screen image would need to be and translated that position to the ceiling where the projector would be. I lined up the projector lens with this location. The projector mount was only about 4-5" tall so the projector stays pretty close to the ceiling. My ceilings are 8'.

My goal was to get about 120" image. I mounted the projector, powered it up, and... wow! I didn't have a projector screen yet so it was projecting it on a dark grey flat painted wall but it was still impressively bright and very clear! I was surprised how good it looked without a screen. It has a grid option which when turned on will project what looks like graph paper onto a black background. I found this useful for aligning the image on the wall. When I was on my step ladder tweaking the projector angle, I noticed some of that clear plastic wrap that sometimes comes on LCD screens and other factory finished electronic items. Well, this plastic wrap was covering the air vents. Glad I noticed it early. Seems like something they (BenQ) would put a sticker on the unit that says "REMOVE PLASTIC COVERING BEFORE OPERATION".

With the image centered and zoomed out, I was actually getting 130" diagonally. Sweet! It was pushing the limits on the size of the wall but I wanted big. I couldn't adjust the zoom any wider past this point. The lens is about 11' from the screen wall. The BenQ HT2050 has a built-in speaker... I thought this was kind of silly to have on a projector, however with the projector now up, I wanted to watch a show and test it out but I hadn't bought a receiver yet so my wall speakers were not yet operational at this time. The built-in speaker, although it sounded like a clock radio speaker, got loud enough to hear the movie and got us by. I still enjoyed it :).

I wish the BenQ came in black or grey. I'll deal with the white since the picture is so good and I got the size image I wanted! The seating position is directly below the projector. I cannot hear the fans running. The menu options have a simple layout which is nice. The projector looks great at the default settings. I see no reason to mess with anything. For the price I paid, I cannot expect anything better. I give it 5 stars.
 

Attachments

#28 ·
I ordered some small cooling fans from AC infinity and their digital thermostat. The plan was to mount the fans and digital display at the top of the AV rack. I was hoping for the chimney effect which would draw hot air from the bottom of the rack up and out through the top. The fans came with templates to cut out the holes. I traced the cutouts onto a piece of plywood that fits snugly in the top of the AV rack. I spray painted the plywood after I got the cutouts made. Here's a pic of the assembly before I painted it.

After a month of testing I have concluded that these two fans alone do not move enough air. I have to run the receiver with it pulled out some for fear it will overheat. The top of the unit gets pretty warm when completely inside the cabinet. I would like to find something similar to one of those laptop coolers. If I can't find one of the appropriate height to sit on top of the receiver I will have to get a couple more of these fans to blow air across the top of the receiver by mounting them on the sides of the cabinets. Work in progress.
 

Attachments

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top