An Aspen Woods Theater. - Page 4

Thanks for the advice. I built the boxes so I could mount the drivers from the theater side. However, the mounting holes aren't drilled and I want to use huricane nuts. I'll have to line up the drivers and drill the holes from inside the manifold, then crawl inside and secure the nuts and wiring, then mount the drivers. Fun times ahead.

Thanks Mr. Tim, I totally forgot about them. I shall pick them up.

Hmmm, I didn't think there would be a problem. I'll have to investigate further. If they don't work I'll just do what you did and use screws.

Work continued in the theatre over the weekend. We got the rest of the OSB on the ceiling, finished boxing in the beam and continued on the walls.

Before we could get much further on the walls we had to box in the window.



I found out whilst framing the plug that the framing around the window which the builder put in was not square, nor was it the same size as the window. In order to get the plug to fit properly I had to split it in two. I framed the two with 2x4's and used a piece of 3/4" MDF on the side facing the window. These were spray painted black.



They were then installed with a few screws



And stuffed with 3 layers of insulation.



This is the room now. I have two sheets to install to finish the back wall, the back soffit and left side wall to finish.

Hi guys,

I need a bit of help sizing wide throw hinges. I have a Masonite Safe & Sound door, Not sure if it's 1 3/8" or 1 3/4" thick. To this I'm adding a 1/2" sheet of MDF, and then the 1" sound material.

Standard hinges are 3 1/2". So to get the wide throw hinge I need would I just add everything up, adding 3" to the size of the hinge? I would then use either a 3x6 or a 4x7 hinge.

Am I on the right track?

Thanks Mr. Tim,

I just checked the thickness of the door and it's 1 3/8". So if standard is 3.5x3.5 and I'm adding 1 1/2" I should need 3.5x6.5 which they don't make. I think I'll add a 3/4" sheet to the door and use a 4x7 hinge.

Finally, time for an update. So – what has gone on since the last time I posted? Summer has come and gone, the1 year mark of the build has passed, and a little bit of work has been done.

What’s been done:
The rest of the OSB was installed as the first layer




Insulation was installed in the rest of the basement




The equipment room had some work done in it. All of the telephone/Internet/TV connections have been moved here from where they were beside the electrical panel.



I also added a cool cube just in front of the rack to take hot air away.



Then we started installing the drywall. 5/8” in the theater and ½” everywhere else. Obligatory green glue shot.



It took us 5 days over two weekends to install all of the drywall. 2 days for the theater and 3 for the rest of the basement.
After the drywall was installed everyone needed a break and I was going to use this time to get the seams mudded and taped. Not much was done until half way through November. However, I did start a bit of work on the doors. My plan is to add a ¾” piece of MDF to both of the doors in the theater. Because they are panel style doors I wanted to fill in the detail. My first attempt was to use Great Stuff foam. I filled the panels and let it cure.



Then trimmed it flush.



This didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. I will make sure all of the gaps are filled with green glue before putting on the MDF. For the second door I decided to use some left over acoustical sealant I have. I filled the panels again and left it to dry. This worked much better.



In September and October I had called a few contractors to get some quotes for mudding and taping. For various reasons I couldn’t find anyone to do the work so decided to do it myself. My parents have been giving me tones of help with installing the drywall and mudding/taping which I am very grateful for. We started in the theater since most of the walls will be covered it till allow us to hone our skills. Again it took us 2 weekends. The first for the tape coat, the second for the second coat and 2 coats of primer.




Then I painted the front wall black.



The theater will be taking a break again until after Christmas as we concentrate on getting the rest of the basement ready for paint.

I haven't been able to get much done in the theater for a couple of reasons.
1) I wanted to get the non-theater side further along than it was
2) I decided that with the few changes to the plan that I've done since I had bpape do my accoustical design that I would have someone re-visit it. I got in touch with SierraMikeBravo and am went ahead with the Pro-Theater Layour Service that is offered. I did this to accomplish a couple of things. I wanted to make sure all of the planning I did on my own was correct - or close to it. I wanted a design to be able to utilize the riser as a bass trap, and I wanted to get the best possible sound from the room using more diffusion and taking into account the interior design of the room.

Since I needed to give Shawn all of my ideas I did up some quick drawings in AutoCAD with my ideas. So - here they are.

Front


Right


Back


Left


I should get the plan back from Shawn some time next week and I should be almost fininshed on the other side about the same time which means work on the theater can begin again.

Work is progressing in the basement, just not on the theater. As you can see below, the theater is a bit crowded at the moment with saws, tools and other stuff from the build. I'm sure most of you know this but cutting trim inside makes a heck of a lot of dust. whilst it's not quite as bad as drywall dust, it's pretty close. I would highly recommend a dust removal system if you are thinking of doing any cutting indoors. I have a Harbor Freight dust collector on order that I will be hooking up soon. Sorry for the image quality, I tried using my iPhone with the flickr app and it didn't work very well.



Continuing from the last update, we spent weeks doing 3 coats of mud in the rest of the basement. Generally it would take a weekend to get one coat done. Saturday morning we would sand the previous coat of mud and then start the next coat. That coat would be finished on the Sunday. After 3 coats we primed the walls with 2 coats of new drywall primer/sealer. Then we took one of the work lights and inspected the walls filling any holes or gouges we found. Then it was time for the first coat of paint followed by another inspection. That left the room looking like this:



I started with the windows, boxing them in with 1/2" MDF and putting the casing up.



Then moved on to the rest of the molding.

Work has been moving along in the theater and I have a new dust extractor.



I’ve also done a bit more work on the doors – adding green glue and a layer of ¾ MDF to the solid core doors.





In the equipment room I’ve built the stair. This is the equipment room looking away from the door. The square bit that’s framed in the ceiling on the right hand side is where the rack will go.



Here is the entrance to the room and the stair framed. On the raised sections at the back and along the right side will be book shelves for DVD/CD storage.

Riser

To begin proper work in the theater we stated with the riser. It’s fairly large and runs the width (16’) and almost half the length (just under 10’) of the room and was framed using 2x12’s for the perimeter and 2x6’s for the joists. The plan is for a second row of seating as well as a small wet bar.

As it worked out a 2x12 would have been perfect height had we only been using 1 layer of sheeting for the floor. Since we were using 2 layers the first thing we had to do was rip the 2x12’s down by ¾” to accommodate the first layer of sheeting.



Then we could start framing.



Framing finished with roofing felt underneath.



The riser has wiring for 2 receptacles in the face, 2 in the floor for the chairs and another one in the face for the stair lighting. I’ve decided to do something similar to mcasio and use led rope lighting under the stair tread lip to light the stairs. I’ve also run a 1 ½” conduit to the equipment room. In the theater side I wanted a bit more room to be able to pull and hook up wiring that came through the conduit. I picked up a 4x4 box, an extension for a dryer/range receptacle, and a couple of cover plates.



The size of the box and extension work really well together so I drilled holes in the extension and used the included screws to attach them together. A hole was drilled at the back of the box to accept the conduit and the unit was attached to the framing of the riser through the extension box.





To insulate the riser we first had to figure out how to keep the insulation up in the 2x6 bays and not slipping down over time. We did this using string. The sting was pulled tight and attached to the bottom of the 2x6’s using staples. Then we stuffed the cavities with insulation and glued and screwed the first layer of ¾” t&g plywood.





A layer of Greenglue was spread and the second layer of sheeting added.



After a weekend’s work we had a completed riser. The 2 squares you can see are for a couple of plumbing clean outs that are in the concrete. These are just screwed down and are easy to remove should I ever need to access one of the clean outs.

Stage

The stage was next. Because I am not putting any speakers on the stage I didn’t build it as beefy as some of the others that have been built on the forum. It’s framed with 2x10’s for the upper bit and 2x6’s that were ripped to 4.5” for the stair. The speakers are already sitting on sand filled boxes so the stage was filled with insulation and only 1 layer of plywood used. I kept everything ½” from the walls but because of the light weight had to attach it to the floor.
Here is the plan I used. Instead of drawing an arc in the theater and matching the framing to it I did on the computer. Each 2x10 had a measurement for the long side and the short side. I cur the angle on the mitre saw and attached 3/8” plywood to give me the curved face.





Completed stage.

Hi Tim - thanks, it's nice to be finally able to work on some theater related aspects of the basement. As to your questions:
The little notches in the speaker boxes are for connecting the speaker wire. Originally I was going to try and build my own in-wall surround speakers and wanted to be able to use as much depth as I could. I thought I would put the speaker terminals on the side to be able to connect them easily. I'm now not sure if I will build them myself or buy them.

I think you are talking about the horizontal framing that is shown best on the picture showing the string support for the insulation. Yes this is for a slot diffuser. It's the best way I could come up with to support everything but still maintain an airspace under the riser for bass trapping. I've covered everything over for now and will come back and cut the holes for the diffusers when I get a better idea of where they will be.

Haha, you know what - I haven't even looked into it. I assumed they were just like registers and they would slide into a slot. I was holding off on choosing them because I don't know exactly what size I can fit. With the columns on the sides and back and the bar at the back I don't have a ton of free room around the perimeter. I may only be able to fit 3 foot lengths. Even though they are much uglier I may have to go with standard floor registers.

I'm glad you mentioned the price of the Nailor's - I am thinking of moving the HVAC supplies at the front of the theater to be in the ceiling instead of bringing them to floor level. I'm going to have to investigate this more.

Thanks for the links Tim. Those are much more reasonable options for grills in the riser.

Over the weekend I got a bit more done. The soffits were started by running 2x2's on the ceiling. Since I'm now painting the ceiling I had a bit of touch up work with the drywall mud to do. The speaker alcoves and sub manifolds at the front were caulked and painted and I was finally able to place the speakers back in and hook them up.

I have a question about HVAC I'm hoping some one can answer. I've decided to take Shawn's advice and move the supplies at the front of the theater to the ceiling. Originally I had two 6" supplies with the standard 3x10 register covers on them. I think I have 2 options.
1) leave them as is using residential covers.
Advantages to this - cheap and easy.
2) replace them with a linear bar diffuser.
Advantages - better looking - possibly quieter.

Are there any other advantages to one or the other I'm missing?
If the decision is to go with the linear bar diffuser is there an easy way to figure out which one I need? ie. is there a standard size that easily replaces what I have now?

Hi Tim, thanks again for the reply. I should just have you on speed dial to answer all my questions.

Yes those are the supplies at the front of the room. They come through the ceiling but I still have to add the soffit. The original plan was to hide the flex duct in columns and bring the supplies to the floor pointing toward the seats. Per Shawn's advice I'm now going to put them in the ceiling - well - the soffit. I now plan to run the flex duct in the soffit to the plenums and then use angled diffusers.

I looked at the Nailor catelog http://www.nailor.com/onlineCatalog09/CAD-08/CADBLD.pdf and just so we are talking about the same thing. You are using the angled bar grills shown on page 33 and not the slot diffusers shown on page 5. Do I have that right?

Thanks for the sizing I was having lots of problems trying to figure out what would be best.