Mastiffs Construction Thread

Ok, so I have been lurking and posting for about 3 - 4 years now, but never started my construction thread, well here goes!

The project started 4 years ago in June when I purchased a new home with an unfinished walk up third floor

IMG]http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm108/mastiff34/PA100018.jpg[/IMG]

Mmmm, big space, I bet I could do something nice with that! After many discussions about a movie room, my wife graciously gave in, so here goes

Here is the look coming up the stairs into the attic.


Here is a look at the future bathroom.


Here is a shot of the back of the theatre pre construction.

Next up, day 1 construction1, I just want to take the chance now an apologize I took tons of pictures of the construction, but had a hard drive crash in the middle somwhere before offloading to CD, so some steps in the middle will be missed, like HVAC and drywall =(.

Day 1 Theatre Wall and Equipment closet.
Here is a picture of the equipment closet. The design was stolen? borrowed? from Larry fine, it's basically a square 2x4 and you use closet racks in the back to support your equipment.

IMG]http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm108/mastiff34/P1060097.jpg[/IMG]

And here is a picture of the new back wall. That big whole in the middle was going to be for a nice open arch, later on I decided that it would be better to be able to close the door when watching a movie, then have a pretty arch, so that hole was ultimately replaced by a door, which will see later! You can also see the EQ rack on the left.

Day 2 -- Lighting.

I decided very early on to go with x10 rather then a grafic following ChinaDog's example, but I read more on Insteon and ultimately at the last minute when the Insteon route, I think Insteon is the next logical evolution from x10 and since I had no x10 stuff in the house yet, it was very easy to go that route, even tho Insteon is complete workable with x10 as ChinaDog can show.

So, what I did was do 8 6" can lights on 2 circuits:
1 set of 6 lights, on the fron of the theatre and a Set of lights above the seating

Here is what it looks like after day 2.


And

I have posted lots, but the four year time frame was just to embarassing, tho I still think I can give tom my 4 years + what I have left and still beat his loganing!

hey guys are my pictures to big? Thats it for today, I gotta grab my other cd from home, I'll also upload some pictures of what things look like now.

Oh, one last thing the Equipment List!

Sharp Mark II 12000k Single Chip DLP Projector
106" Elite Cinetension 2 screen
Sony 5200 ES Reciever
XBOX 360 ( Used for games and dvd player currently )
Ascend 340 SE's for Front, Left and Center Channels
Axiom QS8's for rear surround
HSU STF-2 Powered Subwoofer

Well, in true Logan fashion, I got side tracked on other projects over the weekend, ended up installing and painting chair-rail on my second floor, very pretty.

I also have 1 issue, that I am not sure I can solve and may just have to live with it, but figured i'd ask anyways, to see if anyone has a suggestion.

My sub ( as small as it is, compared to others on this forum, ) vibrates my entire house down to the 1st floor :eek

I'd like to find a way for that not to happen, but I am not sure its possible, and no going for a smaller sub is not an option =P.

Anyone got any thoughts?

Yep, I procrastinated this whole weekend, and did not dig up my other cd's new pictures of current space and other construction coming tonight, if I get around to it =P.

Yah, I couldnt find a way to decouple my 3rd floor form my second =). But I will say, I can "crank the sound" pretty good up there and you can't hear a thing on the 2nd floor. Just that sub rattling the house. So at night I can still watches movies, I just need to unplug the sub.

Hey, lets keep it reasonable!

Actually, the sub right now is sitting on the floor, its actually just in front of the equipment closet, I have it on 4 floor stands. I like your idea alot about decoupling it, I'll have to see what I can think of.

The other option that seemed to help a bit was to move the sub into the front of the room, unfortunately, one of my wires in the wall was bad, so I no longer have a connection for a sub in the front of the room. (Let this be a lesson for all those people, use the blue smurf tube, learn from my mistakes! )

I'll post some new pictures as well, to get a better idea of what we are looking at.

Here is a pic of the bathroom rough in plumbing, that little white pipe standing on the left side is called a studor vent, and allowed me not to put a hole in my roof and get into deep trouble with the wife =).

Also, in the picture above you can see how I treated all my electrical boxes to a degree. Essentially what I did was caulk the whole where the wires penetrate, and then used the "big stuff" expanding foam all around the top and back of the box.

I found that if you just sprayed it on the back, it would fall off fairly easily while it was curing, so to alleviate that, what I did was score the back of the box with a razor blade, and made 2 passes, 1 thin coat, and then came back after it tried and laid it on heavy. The foam goes back a good 3 to 4 inches,

Here is the picture of the new shower for the bathroom.

And the plumbing behind it, I insulated all my pipes even in the finished walls, to try to keep the sound down, I still have not finished the bathroom so I am not sure yet if it worked at all yet... :rolleyes

Also, in the picture above you can see all the wires I ran for a future LCD tv in my office, I did not do the conduit, because of logistical issues at the time, but I ran HDMI, VGA, Component, and 2 extra coax cables for any future needs.

I did run conduit in the theatre, so I was not that short sighted!

And, without further distractions, the part everyone loves....

Drywall !!

Here is the stairs leading up

Here is a picture of the EQ closet. The large square whole is a return vent to the AC unit.

The six gang box is my speaker wiring, and the single gang box underneath it is two runs of cat5e and finally
the box on the bottom is a dedicated 20amp circuit for the equipment.

This is a picture looking at the front of the theatre.

Looking back now, the EQ closet is on the left.

Here is a picture of the bathroom, my thoughts are to tile the floor and up to four feet on the walls,and have drywall above that. I used the green board drywall to fight any moisture issues. I think the finished product came out pretty good, which you guys will see later and can weigh in on.

Here is a picture of my new office, this is basically at the other end of the theatre, the square box on the left is for equipment to connect with the future LCD tv.

Here is a picture, I came to be pretty proud of I took way to long to figure out what I was going to do with all this extra space under the roof line that you can see in the rough in pictures. The left side is completely off limits because the HVAC duct work is running perpendicular to the walls and there is not a whole lot of clearance behind there.

However on the right side, there is plenty of room, so after many designs and thoughts, I settled on in custom build by me, in wall book cases for all my wifes books.

Basically, I boxed in a 12x22.5x64" box with 2x4s and spanned the whole wall of my office.

I also used the expandable foam in all the nooks and crannnies, it was so drafty because I couldnt get the insulation in there, but man that foam is good stuff.

I'll try to post some pictures of what the space looks like now tomorrow, I forgot my memory card at home! doh!

Here is some current pictures of the space.

First the screen wall !



Next the Back of the room !



EQ Closet ( Still needs work, but it's functional )


Here is the bathroom:


and



Finally, the custom bookcases I mentioned earlier.



And last but not least a picture with the screen retracted.