I was planing to finish my basement with a dedicated home theater last year, but due to variety reasons, the build was pushed back until now. I am excited about my own build after years of lurking here and I am more excited to start my own thread. I plan do the most of work myself and I will definitely have a lot of questions to ask and advices to seek so I thank every one here in advance.
I finally pulled the permit before Christmas, I don't know typically how much you pay for the permit, but a cool $600 in my township to get building permit, plumbing permit, electrical and mechanical permit, that is expensive, they require construction diagram (floor plan), wall construction details with firblocking diagram, electrical diagram and plumbing raiser diagram. I got rejected the first time, after I submit couple more diagrams, I got approved.
My basement is about 1,000 sf, 33'x35' rectangular shape with 7'10" height, the theater space is roughly 14'x20'. My plan as many others here is to have two row of seating, first row 3 seats, second row 4 seats on a raiser, AT 1:2.35 CH screen, 7.2 system.
To help you visualize the space I am working on, here is few sketch ups.
The original space and layout
The theater room will be on the back side of the stair case. As you can see, I have few obstacles, the water heater is standing in the premier spot so it needs to be relocated, the return trunk needs to be moved to the other side of the wall, the small window on the corner needs to be enlarged as egress, and I am planing to put a bathroom in the basement, so plumbing rough in with toilet and shower and sewer well need to be done.
This is the planed alternation of the water heater, return trunk and egress:
Here is the incomplete design of the basement, I used got a better and complete one but I lost it when my Windows XP crashed on me and destroyed the hard disk (I moved to Win7 with new hard disk and separate external hard disk as backup).
As you can see, I have to leave 3' path in the back of the screen wall for egress access per code required, so I lose 3' to the overall length of the theater room.
Here is another shot of the design in X-Ray mode:
Another one:
Side view in X-Ray:
Theater back view in X-Ray:
Screen and Stage:
Theater entrance:
Theater back:
Theater wall should be upper and lower section in black and middle section in red.
The work started after the Christmas, mainly did some prep works, first thing first, clean up the basement, get organized and thrown out a lot of junks, I built 2 8'x8'x2' shelves with wheels in garage, the two shelves can store a lot of stuff that wife and I boxed. Today is my third time to dump out the junks, still need to dump one or two more times to get rid of everything.
So far, I got egress done, water heater relocated, plumbing rough in done and return trunk moved, here are some shots:
The supposed entrance to the theater room, door is between the post and stair wall.
Non-exist front wall, you can see the new egress and my blue tape mock-up of the stage:
Looking into mechanical room from the theater, you can see water heater new location:
Under the stair will be the equipment closet, on the right, is the future theater door:
Future bar area:
Mechanical room and you can also see the blue tape mock-up of the bathroom with rough-in done:
Bathroom rough-in and sewer well/pump rough-in and venting:
HVAC supply trunk next to the beam, the return trunk used to be next to the supply, but was moved:
Moved return trunk on the other side of the wall:
Getting rim joist insulated:
existing dirty fiber glass insulation:
Other small window is blocked and sealed with foam board:
Insulation of rim joist is a dirty and messy job, a lot of hard reach dead corners and spot, with pipes and wires, Great Stuff is messy and sticky, wasted a lot but it works better than caulk in this scenario since there is little room to work, with caulking gun, there is no clearance to apply the caulk.
Crack on the floor are filled with Quikrete concrete crack sealer:
Found couple of cracks on the foundation wall that need to be repaired:
Another one one the same wall as the egress window, I suspect it was caused by the sludge hammer when doing the egress cutting and knocking:
I ordered foundation wall repair kit from Concrete Charlie, suppose to be very good, will arrive in couple of days. But with the freezing temperature outside, it is probably better to wait until the weather gets up 40s.
That's all so far, next will repair the cracks, then order lumber to start framing.
I finally pulled the permit before Christmas, I don't know typically how much you pay for the permit, but a cool $600 in my township to get building permit, plumbing permit, electrical and mechanical permit, that is expensive, they require construction diagram (floor plan), wall construction details with firblocking diagram, electrical diagram and plumbing raiser diagram. I got rejected the first time, after I submit couple more diagrams, I got approved.
My basement is about 1,000 sf, 33'x35' rectangular shape with 7'10" height, the theater space is roughly 14'x20'. My plan as many others here is to have two row of seating, first row 3 seats, second row 4 seats on a raiser, AT 1:2.35 CH screen, 7.2 system.
To help you visualize the space I am working on, here is few sketch ups.
The original space and layout
The theater room will be on the back side of the stair case. As you can see, I have few obstacles, the water heater is standing in the premier spot so it needs to be relocated, the return trunk needs to be moved to the other side of the wall, the small window on the corner needs to be enlarged as egress, and I am planing to put a bathroom in the basement, so plumbing rough in with toilet and shower and sewer well need to be done.
This is the planed alternation of the water heater, return trunk and egress:
Here is the incomplete design of the basement, I used got a better and complete one but I lost it when my Windows XP crashed on me and destroyed the hard disk (I moved to Win7 with new hard disk and separate external hard disk as backup).
As you can see, I have to leave 3' path in the back of the screen wall for egress access per code required, so I lose 3' to the overall length of the theater room.
Here is another shot of the design in X-Ray mode:
Another one:
Side view in X-Ray:
Theater back view in X-Ray:
Screen and Stage:
Theater entrance:
Theater back:
Theater wall should be upper and lower section in black and middle section in red.
The work started after the Christmas, mainly did some prep works, first thing first, clean up the basement, get organized and thrown out a lot of junks, I built 2 8'x8'x2' shelves with wheels in garage, the two shelves can store a lot of stuff that wife and I boxed. Today is my third time to dump out the junks, still need to dump one or two more times to get rid of everything.
So far, I got egress done, water heater relocated, plumbing rough in done and return trunk moved, here are some shots:
The supposed entrance to the theater room, door is between the post and stair wall.
Non-exist front wall, you can see the new egress and my blue tape mock-up of the stage:
Looking into mechanical room from the theater, you can see water heater new location:
Under the stair will be the equipment closet, on the right, is the future theater door:
Future bar area:
Mechanical room and you can also see the blue tape mock-up of the bathroom with rough-in done:
Bathroom rough-in and sewer well/pump rough-in and venting:
HVAC supply trunk next to the beam, the return trunk used to be next to the supply, but was moved:
Moved return trunk on the other side of the wall:
Getting rim joist insulated:
existing dirty fiber glass insulation:
Other small window is blocked and sealed with foam board:
Insulation of rim joist is a dirty and messy job, a lot of hard reach dead corners and spot, with pipes and wires, Great Stuff is messy and sticky, wasted a lot but it works better than caulk in this scenario since there is little room to work, with caulking gun, there is no clearance to apply the caulk.
Crack on the floor are filled with Quikrete concrete crack sealer:
Found couple of cracks on the foundation wall that need to be repaired:
Another one one the same wall as the egress window, I suspect it was caused by the sludge hammer when doing the egress cutting and knocking:
I ordered foundation wall repair kit from Concrete Charlie, suppose to be very good, will arrive in couple of days. But with the freezing temperature outside, it is probably better to wait until the weather gets up 40s.
That's all so far, next will repair the cracks, then order lumber to start framing.
