A Modest Start to the Beeve Theater

Hi all. Long time lurker. Time to step into the open and test the waters. Been reading everyone's theater builds for a while now and have started planning my own. I've been getting some good ideas on how to construct the room, while keeping the sound down in the rest of the house. I'm pretty green with regards to home building techniques, but I'm educating myself on the topic. Its very early in the design phase right now but hopefully I can keep a good track of progress here on this forum, and maybe catch a little of the helpful spirit that this place is littered with.

Project: I'm starting with an unfinished basement. I want a big screen to watch movies and Buckeye games on.

Have about 17ftx13ft area in the front corner of the basement that I think will be the best place for my room. Floor to bottom of joist is 7.3 ft. The other areas present many obstacles that I'm not sure I can work around - Low ceilings from HVAC Trunk and stupid support poles in the center of spaces.

First I tried to get 2 rows of recliners, but after measuring, decided that it was going to be too tight on headroom with any sort of riser, so I poached a few others' ideas to put a bar top in the back row for overflow crowd.

Started a layout in CAD:


Hope to get the space de-cluttered so that I can lay down some blue tape to help visualize the space.

I welcome all feedback. The collective knowledge on this board is astounding.

Thanks for the welcome. I pulled a lot of good information from this site, just never really spoke up.

There was supposed to be a layout. I thought that linked the picture right. Have to look into it.

Steve

I've been tweaking the layout a little.

Was thinking about putting the equipment rack under the stairs, but I'm wondering if that will prove to be trouble by punching a big sound hole in the room right by the open stairs.

I would like to have access to the equipment from inside the room to load discs and what not.

Any thoughts?

Updated room layout with a couple of section views.






I'm trying to brainstorm a few items now.

How can I create an access panel to the water meter, and still attempt to retain soundproofing when the access is closed?

I've also been combing people's builds looking at their HVAC plans.

The room upstairs has a supply and return that runs between the joists. By installing the theater ceilings with clips and channel, will that effectively block the sound from running through the duct? I can look into switching it out to acoustic insulated duct, or surrounding it with insulation.

The other concern is heating/cooling inside the theater. There is currently a ceiling supply that runs between the joists. I don't want to install soffits in the room due to my low ceiling height, so I'm contemplating using the joist space to run the HVAC. I'm hoping that I can build a backing box or something to that effect that will shelter the upstairs from the noise.

Steve

Got some pictures taken of the basement. Excuse my mess.

Down the stairs:


East of Stairs, looking at where the screen will go:


Water Meter and Irrigation Shut-off on South Wall:


Beam and Pole Provide North Wall for Theater:


View from Screen towards West:


North Half of Basement (looking West):


HVAC Supply for Living Room Above Theater:


HVAC Supply in Theater:


Air Return from Living Room above:

Thanks for looking at my plans. I just used a basic cad block for the stools. I put the front of the bar 48in from the back wall. If the bar is 18in deep, that leaves 30in for bar stool and path. Might be a little tight to squeeze by. Maybe I can cheat it up another 6in or so.

I was checking through the threads looking for someone who did some in-walls, because I like the idea of hidden speakers. Seems most hide them in column treatments. And I am one of those tall people, so I'm sure I would curse every time I walked by and banged my head. It took me almost a year of banging my head to raise our kitchen table light. Would building an MDF Backing Box provide adequate sound isolation due to the speaker being in the air cavity of the wall?


Thanks for the links. Did you line your MDF with anything on the inside? Are Larry and Moe going to be permanent fixtures in your final treatment?