TP's Theater / Game Room build - Page 2

Thanks... I am going to have to slow down soon though... as the budget is going to start to constrain the progress. Looks like you are making great progress on yours as well... I may be sending you a PM in a month or so to talk about what to expect and look out for before my inspections, seems like you passed your's easily. I am nervous about that part!

quick update for those who have been following this build. I was able to purchase some more wood on Friday night and continue the theater build. I chose to work on the riser and the bar / columns behind it, so that I could really see the room take shape.

One thing to note, I built the riser upside down, then lifted it and twisted it amd set it back down, so it would be the right side up... and during that time... my lovely, sexy wife helped and ended up breaking her nail soooo bad that it started bleeding. She took one look at it, licked the tip of her thumb and said, do you have anything else you want to lift??? BAD ASS WIFE....

Here are some pictures... sorry for the typos, I am ripped from my Christmas party!!!

View of riser / bar and column(s) from the stage...


Reverse view:

The two "aisles" to either side of the riser will remain open so people can easily come and go from the seating area to the pool table... etc. behind the riser I am going to built a little bar top that will have about 3-4 bar stools. The columns serve two purposes.

1. I like the way they look, they are going to really frame the bar area and break up the two main spaces in the basement
2. They are going to allow me to easily run the electrical wiring to the bar and the riser without having to dig a trench in the concrete. I am going to have electrical outlets, as well and AV connections in the column so that you can sit down with a laptop or something and plug right into the system.

hopefully it turns out the way I want it to

Yep... I am going to put the back channels of the 7.1 into the columns...
I am considering buttkickers or something in the riser, but not sure yet.

The sub choice isn't set, still considering DIY behind the false wall, but I still have a while before I have to make that choice.

Unfortunately I am unable to put the speakers together like that. The only chance that could happen is to put them about an inch from the ceiling in the soffit that I am going to build across the celining of the room... although I don't think that would be any better.

I am going to be able to position the 5.1 exactly where I think it should be, and the rear surrounds will have to be slightly comprimised... they will end up being about 100 inches apart.

What type of speaker is recommended for the side and rear surrounds (direct, bi or di)
also, I think I am going to have an issue with both electric and speaker wire running in the columns... I can only seperate them by about 10" max due to the size of column, hopefully that isn't a big issue.

Mayem,

thanks for the idea... the only issue with the rear surrounds in the soffit at the back of the room, is that is really really far away. The bar is about 23 feet from the screen, and then rear of the room is another 30 feet away. If I put the rears speakers there I would have to turn the gain way up to get the levels to match, and anyone standing there playing pool would be over whelmed by surround noise.

I am still considering the DIY sub route... I thought about incorporating in the columns, and still might... but that is still a ways away. I will run speaker wire there just in case I choose to later (have the amp in the equipment room). I am going to have to piece the audio together... as I won't have the budget to get everything I need all at once.

Thanks, I appreciate all of your feedback... knowing people are watching the thread adds an extra bit of motivation. The pictures are deceiving, but if you look close you can see a full kitchen table behind the riser (using as a work top) and then a full size disassembled pool on the ground (long ways) and then more space and then a grill against the wall. Definately a really long room.

First off... happy new year to everyone, hope you stay have fun and stay safe. Now on to the basement stuff

After Christmas break I decided that I just wasn't ready or comfortable tackling the electrical on my own. I really wanted to say that I did it all myself, but I also didn't want to burn the house down in the middle of the night. So with that in mind I started calling for electrical quotes. I was pretty shocked at how much they were coming back with. Most of them averaged around $5-6000. Then I accidentally called a commercial electric company... and then hooked me up with a licensed electrician in their company that also does residential on the side... SCORE. He came out that day and talked with me about what I wanted to do... and I explained that I wasn't comfortable doing it by myself but I wanted to do as much as I could. He said he would pull the permit, then work WITH me on the electric and just charge me the $50 / hour wage he normally charges. I couldn't have asked for a better setup. After a couple trips to Home Depot, and about $650 in labor... the basement is fully roughed in. All the circuits are in the box and wired... even my new HVAC is wired in. For the most part he handled the home runs, and setting up all the switches... and I ran all the linked outlets and looped the lights together. After a day and half, I am beat and my hands hurt like hell. This guy was really great to work with. After we were finished today and I wrote him the check... he took me out and treated me to lunch, just a fun guy to be around and work with.

I also called around to get a quote for the plumbing to stub in the sink and fridge and found a guy who would do it for it $200 (that includes material). He is the same guy that did the original plumbing on the house... so that happens Saturday. Things are moving forward pretty quickly.

And one last thing, I also pasted the heating and cooling rough in, which isn't a big deal, since I did NONE of that myself.

And now for some pictures. I cleaned up really good, even swept the floor and cracks to make it look good. Can't wait until that is carpet!!!

Here is the now full circuit box


Lights in the game room


View of the screen wall (stage lights aren't turned on in the picture, but they work )


Lights above the bar behind the riser (none of the lights have the real bulbs, just cheap temp bulbs to make sure everything is working)


View of the kitchen wall


Finally looking down the hall to the office


NOT PICTURED
Office light and wiring
Future bathroom roughed in wiring (currently storage room but wired as a bathroom)


Let me know what you think!

sooo... the plumber decided to not show up yesterday, answer his phone, or return any of my phone calls. Extremely unprofessional in my opinion. Hopefully nothing tragic happened around him and he was simply being lazy.

Regardless, I have decided to take a stab a plumbing... roughing in a sink, drain and fridge water supply. Good times. I will keep you posted on how it goes.

Well, the water is turned back on and I have no leaks... woo hoo! I did have a small leak where the supply taps into the fridge supply box for the ice maker. I just didn't tighten the connection enough, once I fixed that I was in good shape. Going to check it again in an hour and hopefully everything is still dry.

1. Plumbing is not THAT hard... as least the supply part, just takes patience. I still have to tackle the drain, which will be tough because I have some tight spots I have to cut into the wall to get the pipe to fit.

2. Plumbing is MESSY... I am not a fan of working with CPVC... primer and glue just make the job look dirty. But it works so I will not complain to much.

3. Starting a plumbing job on a Sunday is pretty stressful!

Once the drain is in, it will be time to go back to framing soffits... oh joy!!!
I am going to drink a beer and take nap Have a good week everyone!

Christmas came a bit late for me this year... all of my cables came in today. I got 300 feet of Belden speaker wire, a bunch of black chrome locking banana plugs (they look really nice) and a slew of monoprice cables! (19 different cables )

A few questions:
1. does anyone know where I can design a custom wall plate to house a bunch of AV hookups at the "bar" behind the riser... HDMI, component, spdif, ethernet and on and on.

2. I know I should run conduit to the project for future needs, but can anyone think of a reason why I should run component cables to the projector... now (I will have HDMI up-converting processor, NAD T175)

3. Any issue with lightly zip tie-ing the wires together in the soffits? Just to bundle them and keep them together...

Thanks in advance... hoping to get the wires run this weekend!

Thanks for the compliments... those really keep me going and re-assure me that it is looking. It is very easy when you are right on top of a project to focus on only the things that aren't perfect.

As for the vapor barrier... I did put down some roofers felt under the riser as a vapor barrier... that was some that I think of before everything was down. Thanks for checking... that is the type of thing that save people alot of time and money down the road. If you see anything else like that to questions, please do.
Here is proof


I am going to run component to the projector just to be same.

As for the wall plate, I orderd a custom one at www.datapro.com, need website, allows you to design your own wall plate. I did it yesterday and it was shipped out today! Unfortunately they are in WA and the flooding is going to delay the shipping... but fedex already has the plate!

I am off to grab some breakfast, and then head down in the basement to start running the AV wires!

BTW QueenDVD2... you theater looks amazing... I still like I am forever away to actually see results like that!!!

Quick update... I have run the majorit of the connection wires for the panel I am putting on the column by the bar, so people that come over with laptops, iPods, or video cameras can quickly plug in without have to go into the equipment rack. To that panel I ran (HDMI, Component, Composite, S-Video, Optic, digital Coax, and ethernet).

I also pulled all the speaker wires for the 7 main speakers in the system.
Last night I installed the drain pipe for the kitchen sink, so now all of the plumbing is roughed in.

I have to finish building some soffits (hopefully this weekend) and then I will be ready to call for rough in inspections.

I do have some wiring to finish up... I am going to run two speaker wire runs to the rise in case I decided to do buttkickers or the like in the future. Also I am going to wire up my office. I have decided to have my computer located "in the wall" with the rest of the equipment... I am going to run wires in the wall for my 5.1 computer speaker set up... and also run the HDMI in the wall for the monitor, so I don't have a bunch of wires and stuff cluttering up my desk.

Once all of that is done... I think it is time for some drywall... pretty excited about that phase. I am sick of working in the walls, I wand to work ON the walls

New picture for everyone!!! I wanted to have a "connection point" in the column of the bar, so when friends come over with a camcorder, iPod, new video game system, etc... we can hook up the system right at the bar and don't have to dig into the equipment rack. (which would be easy be time consuming to do)

So i went in search of a custom connection panel that would allow me to select the connections I want in the panel. I found https://www.datapro.net/ This place is awesome. The website is really easy to use and the plate was cut and shipped in about 24 hours. I can't say enough about how nice it looks... the connections are all gold plated and fit snugly in the holes they cut. I was a bit pricey (just over $100) but worth it to not have raw wires hanging out of the wall.

Also in the picture are the completely unnecessary, but really cool looking banana plugs I got, on the cheap. Great deal and really solid, quality plugs.



This morning will be spent cleaning up the basement and then working on the rest of the soffits in the game room (outside the theater).

I got the plugs from speaker repair... the link is:
http://www.speakerrepair.com/Merchan...Category_Code=

The plugs are bit pricey, but very very nice quality!
I can't recommend datapro enough... very quick turnaround and quality product. I will take some pictures when I do the rough install later today.