Matt's Basement Theater

Well, after years of having the home theater in the living room, we built a new home with a basement and moved in approximately a year ago. During the construction, my wife was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Over course of the past year, she had surgery and treatment and now her cancer is gone. It's been a wild ride but now we are ready to get started on finishing the basement. The first room we are working on is the theater room (of course). We will finish the rest of the basement down the road, it is plumbed for a bathroom and "wet bar." The theater room is approximately 20X30X9. Three of the walls are already up. They act as supports for the floor upstairs. My father and I are going to get working here in a couple of weeks with framing out the last wall which should get the ball rolling. I plan on hiring out the electric and drywall and then come back in and finish up.

Right now I am planning on doing two rows of seating (second row on a riser) with bar seating behind the second row.

I am still unsure about screen shape and size. I just purchased an Epson 8500UB and have been tinkering around it. Having a room that is 20 feet wide, the projector throws a nice large image. I am planning on utilizing a false wall to hide the speakers and subwoofers behind.

As far as keeping the sound in and out. I am just going to do 5/8 inch drywall and insulation. We usually watch shows and movies as a family so I will just have to keep it turned down when they are asleep. It's not a problem cranking it up when everyone is awake.





This shot is looking forward where the screen will be. The room is currently flipped and I am shooting the projector on to a white wall (the only one that is drywalled.



Just another shot of the room, we currently have a lot extra junk in there.



This is where the back of the theater will be. Unfortunately, the large return feeds into A/C unit that sits on the other side of this wall (which has another large return that faces the back side of the basement). It was put in before I caught it.
I also plan on putting the equipment rack back here. 120 Amp panel is ready to go.



Last but not least, Klipsch THX Ultra 2 speakers and a Emotiva XPA-3 that came from Santa Claus.

I am sure I will have lots of questions, thanks in advance. Can't wait to get going..........

Thanks again for your help today............... I will keep you updated once we get going. Lots of picture of course.........

We have neighbors coming over tonight to watch the big game. I haven't even got the new projector out of the box yet. Still using the old one. I will hook it up tomorrow before the games come on. Keeping my fingers crossed there are no problems.

I am going to pick up my lumber this week and we will get going with the framing this weekend.

My Slim 5-37 Rack showed up as well.

I will post pictures as the progress occurs.

My dad and I got started with construction over the weekend. We got the final wall built along with the soffit framed around my duct work. We also got the door framed along with around the equipment rack and four pillars for speakers. It was about 25 hours of work over the weekend but I am pleased so far with the results. Here are some pictures.

South wall finally framed.



Another picture of the south wall with pillar.



Back of the theater.



Wall framed around Slim 5-37 rack.



I plan on getting the my electric guy in here in the next couple of weeks and we will see how things progress from there.

Thanks.... No problems with the replacement projector just yet. Only have a couple of hours on it though. Things are still apart but I am expecting a big shipment from monoprice any day. I am going to get things hooked back up for the superbowl, then tear it down one last time so that we can really get going on it. I dont plan to hook it back up until the room is done.

Well nothing new to report on the construction side of things but I did put some equipment in the rack. (It will be taken out and stored after the super bowl when we start drywalling.)






I also had a new toy show up today.......... SVS PC12+ and man was it a beast to carry inside the house and down to the basement. I had to have some help and the wife gave me a dirty look after I got it unboxed.
It was a B-Stock and the guys from SVS said they took a bunch of stuff out to CES and most of it was never hooked up. I can't find anything wrong with it. It will be sitting behind a false wall once the room is done anyway.




Here is another shot of it out of the box. I was shocked with how big the sub is. I can't wait to fire it up. I am going to run all my speaker wire this weekend, hopefully it shows up from monoprice tomorrow.

I fired up the new sub today and it sounds pretty good. Only tried it with music, i will get the blu-ray and projector hooked back up later today and will see what it does. I had a little hiccup with my emotiva amp when it fired up and showed a fault on the first channel.

I reconnected and turned the unit off and on and it went away.

Jamis, I bet that ultra sings......... My wife has been pretty accepting and knows that I get a lot of joy from my hobby. I hope everyone in the family enjoys things once we are done.

RTRose, I will get some photos posted here in the next day or so. All of the electric is done for now. Drywall and insulation have been delivered. I am going to get going with the insulation this week. Drywall will hopefully follow up soon thereafter. Probably won't get working on the riser and stage until June. We have a lot of landscaping to do outside and dad will need a little break. I will begin the process of taking everything out of the room tomorrow and boxing it up. (sniff, sniff)

Finally, a little more progress done on the theater............

Rough electrical is in. Insulation is in and drywall will be going up starting up on Tuesday.

Here are some pics....... Outside of the theater looking in.



Some inside shots of the theater........







A Chief Mount that is ready for a projector. Hopefully by the end of summer.

Thanks for the all of the comments guys. It feels good to be moving forward again.

RTROSE- The projector mount will be about 14 1/2' from the screen on the false wall. Once we get the walls up. I will throw an image up from that distance and decide what size screen we are going go with. Most likely 120" 16:9, although I have the room for 130" and it is tempting.

hanesian- I wasn't sure what benefits I would get from insulating the wall since it was poured concrete behind it. I know others would be able to chime in on this with more knowledge then I have though. I realize this will in no way be a sound proof room, (there is a large HVAC return in the back of the room that feeds to the rest of the basement as well). I do though appreciate the extent that other folks go to soundproof their rooms, although as I said earlier it is not that high of a priority for us.

I picked up a vapor barrier this afternoon and I am going to go ahead and throw some insulation in along the one wall later today. I'll get some pics posted once it's done.

I would imagine it gets just "a little" cold up there in St. Paul. We are pretty lucky that the basement stays pretty warm. We only run the heat down there when we have guests over. It stays around 62 degrees without the heat running. But you are right, it won't hurt to throw some stuff in between the boards.