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Theater Build and 1880's Full Reno - Before and After - Page 2

post #31 of 1012
4/7/10 at 6:41am
The height you have them at seem about right, just make sure their high enough so you or someone taller can't easily see the light from above.

The Grafik eye is a very nice piece of hardware and I luckily scored a 6 zone for less than what your seeing on Ebay for a 4 zone. Keep looking you might get lucky.

The other option is Insteon lighting controllers from smarthome as well. You will be able to easily control with an IR remote as well if you get their IR adapter or the X10IR adapter. Insteon works with X10 stuff, it's pretty much next gen.

http://www.smarthome.com/_/INSTEON/_/23b/land.aspx

I use this x10 IR controller to control an Insteon outlet for my showcase lighting behind my screen. I have it mounted below my center channel and the Harmony IR signal goes thru the AT screen to control it.
http://www.smarthome.com/4040/Infrar...-IR-543/p.aspx

The nice thing about insteon switches and outlets is that you can easily upgrade everything as you go or you can afford, in the end you can have your whole house automated.
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post #32 of 1012
4/7/10 at 6:56am
Thread Starter 
I will definitely look into those options. That seems like that maybe a great back up plan. I I think i will do some ebaying and see what i can come up with first. But I'm definitely going to look at the smarthome stuff. Thanks!
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post #33 of 1012
4/7/10 at 11:11am
Thread Starter 
I missed out on a GRX-3104 today on ebay...was asking 400 but couldnt pull the trigger. It didnt sell, i asked them if they'd take less for it but apparently they decided to keep it. I may switch to only 3 zones anyway, which will lower my costs a little as well. Im thinking of taking out the over head lighting from the ceiling fan, and just running the fan without the light kit off a separate on/off switch. The dangling cieling fan lights could possibly interfere with a future projector, plus i think ill have plenty of lighting in there anyway for general task lighting.


Anyway real point to this post was to ask if anyone has any better alternative to this

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...number=101-209

Im looking at the 14 and 12 gauge for the surrounds. I have 12 gauge boston acoustic wire i think now but not enough to run through the ceiling, so ill need some new wiring.

I've read some negative reviews about how this wiring is difficult to strip, but thats not really a concern of mine.Any alternate suggestions to the dayton wire for around the same moneys? Also is 14 gauge appropriate for about a 35' run or should i use 12?


Thanks again for all your help guys. Theres probably 1000+ years of HT experience on this website and its nice to be able to tap into some of it.
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post #34 of 1012
4/7/10 at 6:20pm
Thread Starter 
One step closer. I got my can lights up and wired today. Had to mess with the spacing a while to get something that looked good. The fireplace isnt dead center of that wall which made things a little weird, but i think ive got them where i want them now. Tomorrow I will start cutting holes in the walls for the sconces and pull the wires for those. Not looking forward to it, but its gotta be done.

Here are a couple Progress pics




I think im going to paint the trim kits black, nothing lowes or menards had was black and these were cheap so i figured i could paint them as easily as anything else.

I wonder if i should use high temp paint? I know the lights get pretty warm...but warm enough regular paint would bubble?


LL
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post #35 of 1012
4/7/10 at 8:26pm
For speaker wire just go to http://www.monoprice.com. I have some of the 2 pair 4 wire 14 awg for my surrounds and it works great. Inside of the cable there is a little string to pull on to strip the outer jacket back so you don't score the actual speaker wires.
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post #36 of 1012
4/8/10 at 5:13am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCableMan View Post

For speaker wire just go to http://www.monoprice.com. I have some of the 2 pair 4 wire 14 awg for my surrounds and it works great. Inside of the cable there is a little string to pull on to strip the outer jacket back so you don't score the actual speaker wires.


Thanks for the tip, they've got exactly what i want and it looks like its better stuff too.
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post #37 of 1012
4/8/10 at 9:47am
For the trim -- I used a Rustoleum spray can - gloss black. (my can trims were metal). Just make sure you rough them up a little with some steel wool or fine sandpaper.

They look great now!
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post #38 of 1012
4/8/10 at 10:13am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnsteph10 View Post

For the trim -- I used a Rustoleum spray can - gloss black. (my can trims were metal). Just make sure you rough them up a little with some steel wool or fine sandpaper.

They look great now!

Cool ill try that. I suppose i could use a thermometer to see how hot they actually get. in all reality they may not get much hotter than a peice of metal in the sun on a hot day, and in that case i certainly wouldnt use high temp paint.

Ill think ill try it. I have some black satin rustoleum paint left over from paiting the outside of my clawfoot tub.
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post #39 of 1012
4/9/10 at 7:04am
Thread Starter 
Finally got the room cleaned up enough to do some staging and get an idea of how this is all coming together.


Here is the basic layout of the front. the 4X8 sheet of plywood is about the correct screen height im looking for but its not wide enough to represent to 2.35:1 screen ratio im looking for...it needs to be about 8.5 inches wider on each side, but it worked just to get a feel for it.

Dont mind the ugly yellow chairs...lol someone was throwing them away and i picked them up, im going to have them recovered and use them as my "captains" chairs once everything is finished.





something dawned on me last night as i was cleaning...there is a closet in the back of this room that i had ignored this whole time, and suddenly i realized...DUH! that would make a perfect place to put all of my equipment...lol...So Im going to build a rack that will fit just inside the door frame and put it on wheels so that i can pull the whole thing out to access all the wiring behind, unfortunatly it makes for a long run to my TV for now, but makes for a short run for the future projector.






LL
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post #40 of 1012
4/9/10 at 7:31am
The closet is the perfect place for your rack. You may look at MA though. It would give you that totally custom look. You can get a Slim 5, with a base to hide the casters even for not much money.
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post #41 of 1012
4/9/10 at 7:42am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Goodcat View Post

The closet is the perfect place for your rack. You may look at MA though. It would give you that totally custom look. You can get a Slim 5, with a base to hide the casters even for not much money.

Will do, but more than likely i can build something myself that will be custom for that door. planning on something that will fit just inside the door jam with trim around the edge to sit flush with the trim on the door trim.

Do you think the closet should be vented to carry heat away? i really dont have multiple amps, just a single denon reciever, blu ray, sacd, xbox, etc. So now that im thinking out loud....probably no need to worry about heat.
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post #42 of 1012
4/9/10 at 7:54am
Thread Starter 
picture looking back towards the soon to be rack.

Im thinking a red fabric for the chairs....and a grey scale color scheme for the walls and trim. When painting for HT can you use satin or eggshell without much reflection or does it have to be flat? I hate the way flat looks on walls.


LL
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post #43 of 1012
4/9/10 at 8:19am
it does not matter. I would use flat on the ceiling though if you are going black.
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post #44 of 1012
4/9/10 at 8:20am
I would at least plan for a vent in the closet. In the future you might upgrade your equipment and need it.
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post #45 of 1012
4/9/10 at 9:11am
I second the vent thought. I though I would be ok with no vent in my closet, but I quickly realized things were getting very warm with the door closed, even though I had space to step inside the closet. A simple vent with two 120mm fans is enough to drop the temps to a comfy level.

Here is where I got mine, it includes a temp stat which I place over the receiver and will kick on soon after it is turned on.
http://www.coolerguys.com/840556082224.html

I have basic equipment to, but it is needed.
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post #46 of 1012
4/9/10 at 9:17am
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the opinions, I'm gonna go for the vent, I think for minimal effort and cost its worth the peace of mind.
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post #47 of 1012
4/10/10 at 1:11pm
Thread Starter 
I just ordered the rest of the cables, speaker wire and my TV mount from monoprice. They are supposed to ship monday, so hopefully before next week is up i can run the last of the wiring and start drywalling.

Im just finishing up wiring the lighting, pulling the wires on the outside brick wall for the sconces was as much of a nightmare as i thought it was going to be...lol my hands are all scratched and bloodied up...but im used to that by now.

All things considered it went pretty well this morning. All thats left to pull are the wires for the outlets in the room and for the A/V equipment.

We had to end up scraping a bunch of the old paint off the wall becuase it had started to peel. before we bought the house about 6 months earlier some pipes had burst and that room got the worst of it. The condensation on the outside walls was apparently really bad and ruined the paint...but its since been taken care of. Ill post some pics tonight.
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post #48 of 1012
4/10/10 at 4:36pm
Thread Starter 
ok can anyone validate my math here?

I'm pretty sure im going with the panasonic pt-ae4000 projector and going to use the zoom and vertical shift with the lens memory function for 2.35:1 material...which means ill need a 2.35:1 screen with some masking. If i understand how this works correctly, the projector will still be projecting the black bars at top and bottom, but they are just "zoomed" out of the screen area.

So what im tryin to figure out is how much masking/frame material ill need top and bottom to prevent the black bars from reflecting off the wall/fireplace.


Now...if im looking at a 120" 2.35:1 screen measured diagonaly im looking at a viewing area of 110.4"W X 47"H.

So the native 16:9 img at 47"H will be 83.6" wide....so a 2.35:1 image unzoomed would be 35.57" tall? leaving 11.43 total inches of black bar or 5.72 top and bottom...

so when the image is zoomed to fill the screen its 24.3% larger, making the black bars 7.1" each? Im just trying to plan ahead for screen build and masking etc... Let me know if im way off base with how to figure the size of the black bars top and bottom.
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post #49 of 1012
4/10/10 at 6:24pm
Thread Starter 
ugh what a mess...lol



All cleaned up now though.

Im running a dedicated circuit for the the amps, players, TV and sub. Id like to split the amps and tv and sub on separate circuits but i just dont have the room left in the box. Only 100 amp service in this old house....but at least the AV equipemtn will be the only thing on that circuit, so should be minimal noise from other sources.
LL
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post #50 of 1012
4/12/10 at 5:50pm
Thread Starter 
My A/V rack is going to be behind the seating position...so this will probably pose a problem for my IR remote...whats the cheapest solution (other than turning around and pointing at my A/V rack) so i dont have to struggle with my IR remotes?
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post #51 of 1012
4/13/10 at 6:37am
Well you have a couple of options my friend.

I have X10 Powermids and so does Jamis. I have had great results with mine, and recently had to re-add them into my system. I am pushing them a bit as I am using the receiver 2 floors up in the Master Bedroom from the basement and my the flasher is the equipment closet. I use it to control my cable box which is networked to 4 locations.

They can be had from ebay for a really good price.

http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=x10...sacat=0&bkBtn=

The only thing is that you have to place the flasher in a way where it can flash all of your equipment. The flasher does have a port to hook up an emitter and you can use a headphone splitter with a couple of double emitters but that can only go so far. Jamis is able to flash his rack from below and added some IR capture prisms to help aid his equipment capture the signal and this has helped a lot I believe.

Your other option is to get a dedicated IR system. At the very least now that you have the wall opened up run some cat5 from the front of your room to your equipment area as this can be used to extend the IR receivers signal wether you do this now or later.

Here is a nice package for a decent price.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Xantech-48095BKI...item4ceea58699

Or a little more pricey.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Xantech-Hidden-L...item4ceec3f545

Here is a third option which is pretty popular but I have no experience with.
http://www.amazon.com/Link-Remote-Co...1165383&sr=8-5

Finally let me say though that if you are using multiple remotes you certainly want to move to universal solution. Many options there, and you can do 1 of 2 things. Either go with an IR extender solution now and then worry about that later and you will be able to either do IR or RF because you would have the IR entender in place already, or you can bite the bullet now and go with an IR/RF solution now that would suit your needs as well.

There are some good options out there, but good or bad I am long time Harmony (Harmony 880 to be exact) user and thouroughly have enjoyed this product and have been able to tweak it to do everything I want with an IR network.

The Mrs. bought me the 1100 this past Christmas and that product has been awesome as well. Even though Logitech has made some things difficult with this remote as well as the 900 there are some work arounds. The reason I mention these 2 remotes though is because they are IR as well as RF and the 900 includes the RF extender which would be placed by the equipment and there would really be no need to point the remote anywhere.

Hope all the info helps, sorry that it dragged on...
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post #52 of 1012
4/13/10 at 7:13am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by oman321 View Post

Well you have a couple of options my friend.

I have X10 Powermids and so does Jamis. I have had great results with mine, and recently had to re-add them into my system. I am pushing them a bit as I am using the receiver 2 floors up in the Master Bedroom from the basement and my the flasher is the equipment closet. I use it to control my cable box which is networked to 4 locations.

They can be had from ebay for a really good price.

http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=x10...sacat=0&bkBtn=

The only thing is that you have to place the flasher in a way where it can flash all of your equipment. The flasher does have a port to hook up an emitter and you can use a headphone splitter with a couple of double emitters but that can only go so far. Jamis is able to flash his rack from below and added some IR capture prisms to help aid his equipment capture the signal and this has helped a lot I believe.

Your other option is to get a dedicated IR system. At the very least now that you have the wall opened up run some cat5 from the front of your room to your equipment area as this can be used to extend the IR receivers signal wether you do this now or later.

Here is a nice package for a decent price.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Xantech-48095BKI...item4ceea58699

Or a little more pricey.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Xantech-Hidden-L...item4ceec3f545

Here is a third option which is pretty popular but I have no experience with.
http://www.amazon.com/Link-Remote-Co...1165383&sr=8-5

Finally let me say though that if you are using multiple remotes you certainly want to move to universal solution. Many options there, and you can do 1 of 2 things. Either go with an IR extender solution now and then worry about that later and you will be able to either do IR or RF because you would have the IR entender in place already, or you can bite the bullet now and go with an IR/RF solution now that would suit your needs as well.

There are some good options out there, but good or bad I am long time Harmony (Harmony 880 to be exact) user and thouroughly have enjoyed this product and have been able to tweak it to do everything I want with an IR network.

The Mrs. bought me the 1100 this past Christmas and that product has been awesome as well. Even though Logitech has made some things difficult with this remote as well as the 900 there are some work arounds. The reason I mention these 2 remotes though is because they are IR as well as RF and the 900 includes the RF extender which would be placed by the equipment and there would really be no need to point the remote anywhere.

Hope all the info helps, sorry that it dragged on...


Dont apologize for being thorough! I like information, the more the better. That definitely answered my questions.

I have a universal remote. I'd like to upgrade but i doubt its in the budget. Right now I have the logitech harmony 360 remote. Which does what i need it too.
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post #53 of 1012
4/13/10 at 7:54am
Thread Starter 
Welp the HT build is on hold this week because its been turned into a spray booth so I can put finish on my kitchen cabinets.

It's a bitter sweet moment lol. No progress in the HT room, but hey...you gotta have a kitchen right?





Here's a picture my wife took from across the street. Sorry its a little blurry, it was starting to get dark...I think she was trying to get the cherry blossoms in the picture but she only got one of the two trees. Thats me sitting on the porch shopping for Grafik Eyes on Ebay. The theater room is located directly behind me.




Im debating on two names for the theater...Either "Main Street Theater", because it faces main street, or possibly "The Bownman-Marshall Cinema", after the two previous long time owners of the house. And there is a small plaque on outside the door the leads into the theater room that says bowman-marshall house.

Dr. Bowman had the house built in 1875 and after he died Dr. Marshall moved in and he and his son owned it into the mid 1980's, both men were the towns physicians.

The house has two main entrances. One was used as a waiting room/parlor for the doctors office i believe. The other leads into a living room, thats the one we use mainly, the other lead directly into the theater(which was the waiting room/parlor, while not ideal...it does add an interesting dynamic to the room. Imagine a nice theater sign above the door outside. When we have company over for movies they can come directly into the theater. So thats kind of a unique feature that i think will work out in the end.
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post #54 of 1012
4/13/10 at 7:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by premiertrussman View Post

I have a universal remote. I'd like to upgrade but i doubt its in the budget. Right now I have the logitech harmony 360 remote. Which does what i need it too.


Perfect, yes you'll be able to continue to use that and accomplish everything you need simply by adding an IR extender of some sort. Whatever you do, run that Cat5 possibly 2-3 runs of it as it is cheap and can be used for a lot of other things besides what I stated above.
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post #55 of 1012
4/13/10 at 8:01am
I like the seperate outside entrance pretty cool.

As far as the name how about something like "Bownman-Marshall Present The Main Street Cinema" or Theater"
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post #56 of 1012
4/13/10 at 8:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by premiertrussman View Post

Im debating on two names for the theater...Either "Main Street Theater", because it faces main street, or possibly "The Bownman-Marshall Cinema", after the two previous long time owners of the house. And there is a small plaque on outside the door the leads into the theater room that says bowman-marshall house.

I really like the second choice, it ties to the history of the home and I would bet the both Doctors would be very please with the conversion if they were alive today!
Lots of main streets but only one Brownman-Marshall Cinema....
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post #57 of 1012
4/13/10 at 8:15am
Thread Starter 
Good point! I was leaning towards the Bowman-Marshall Cinema anyway...it rolls off your tongue nicely.
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post #58 of 1012
4/14/10 at 8:42am
Thread Starter 
How important is having a dark color on the ceiling for an HT, at least compared to the walls?

I have a silver color that i like in another room of the house, and Im thinking of using that as a trim and ceiling color, and then going shades darker on the walls.

I will paint the screen wall black, but im hesitant to go crazy dark on everything else just because this room is still part of the rest of the house...
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post #59 of 1012
4/14/10 at 9:04am
Beautiful redo- love the bathroom! One tip: Don't buy the projector or you will NEVER finish the reno.

victor
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post #60 of 1012
4/14/10 at 9:55am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by victor-eyd View Post

Beautiful redo- love the bathroom! One tip: Don't buy the projector or you will NEVER finish the reno.

victor

LOLOL!! I bet you are right. Thanks for the kind words.

Im actually hoping to do some work on my in-laws house this summer after my reno is done. So hopefully that job will help fill the Ol Projector Fund jar.
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