Build log: DIY rotary sub for contemporary HT in 100 year old house? - Page 2

You want me to build the rotary sub *before* the room. That is just the kind of stuff the LOGANATOR is hoping for. No can do. Heck, I need at least two separate spaces to shuttle air between.

...and I don't really think you need a CNC to make a rotary sub the way I described.

Thanks for the interest. I will get to it.


How do you know that I don't have a mirror on the back wall helping me to increase my throw distance? I knew it was backwards, but kept forgetting to turn it around since it doesn't matter in the world of Tron.

I was up early this am and started cleaning/organizing the basement to make space for working. I also need to get everything away from all the water pipes I'll be moving. I forgot to take pics, but figured there wasn't much interest. I have an old toilet (with a separate tank on top) and soapstone sink to give away. Why there was a toilet in an unfinished basement with no walls, I haven't a clue.

Ah yes, 10K for a room and a rotary sub would be wishful thinking!

The 10K is just a number I'm throwing out. I can spend more, if I want to. I'm not going for luxurious -- more like comfortable and funky. My flooring choice is around $.50/sqft and I will either be making my own furniture or modifying used furniture. Heck, you can get free couches pretty easily on CL, which would be perfect for chopping up and recovering. I've been wanting to make furniture for a while and now I have "my" space that I can go as insane as I want with it.

All good points. I figure that I will need to make a dead vent for both supply and return. If I make the return dead vent much bigger, I now have something I can plug the rotary into. That is my current plan.

As far as being motivated goes, it is true. I already have a small HT setup with my as a 90" image projected on the wall of a very small room. I have ridiculous sound output from a set of TLAHs and a THT too. The problems are that I can't have anyone over because of the small size, and I want to improve my audio and video with a totally light controlled, sound isolated and treated room.

I built my wife's attic, but was distracted with the current HT. Still, it only took about a year and I'm much more interested in completing my basement HT. Oh, and I don't work on Thursdays and Fridays, so I have a good amount of free time to work in the basement. Because of that alone I really don't have an excuse.

The one other factor that is motivating me is that I will have a little one (our first) coming in January. I really would like to get this done by then.

If I haven't posted in a bit, feel free to find out if I've been wasting all my time in the "old" HT.

An update to keep me honest. I went down into the basement Thursday and was pretty much overwhelmed. I have so much stuff down there and really don't want to go through it all. I moved some of it out to the garage, threw out some and then pushed everything else to the center of the basement. I was then able to work on the French drains that I started a couple of years ago(!).

A bit of dirt has collected in the drains and there were spots that needed some concrete removed to get the drains low enough. I scooped out a lot of mud/clay. It smelled earthy/musty, with hints of oil, mold and poop....mmmm....delicious. I pounded on one particular area of concrete for a long time with the mini sledge. I thought my arm was going to fall off.

I finally cleared the whole trench. I ended up using 2" pvc pipe with a cut every 3" or so from my bandsaw to let the water get in, but not the dirt. I put an access port at the ends and in the middle of the pipe, so I could flush out the line if it ever gets clogged. I also put the pipe in one of those "socks" that filter out the dirt. The pipe is installed and now I'm ready to get the crushed stone to fill it. I'm estimating about 15 bags, which doesn't sound that bad. Then comes a layer of plastic and concrete.

I'm thinking the rigid foam on the walls will be tucked into the trench so that if I have any water running down the walls, it will end up in the trench. I don't have any issues with the walls leaking, but might as well do things right.

I might have to do some other work before putting the foam on the walls, so the order of the work may be a little disjointed.

Hey Big: I couldn't agree with you more. Two years ago when I removed 98% of the concrete, I rented a concrete saw and one of those mini jack hammers. I think it may actually be in between what you are mentioning and a full sized jack. I think it was a Bosch, if I remember correctly. It was my first time with a jack hammer, and it worked great. It was small enough to get into most places.

This last weekend, I didn't want to bother with renting again and in most places I was able to easily break up the last remaining sections of concrete by hand. This one 5 foot long spot gave me the most problems and that was because there was another layer of concrete underneath it (wall footer?). So, even the jack would have had trouble there. I ended up using a concrete/hammer drill and making a bunch of holes as I went along. That made it much easier to hammer out afterwards.

....but still, I think it would have been a lot easier to rent the mini jack again. Hey, I saved $40 and I feel really buff now! I actually like straight ahead grunt work. Is that wrong?

Yesterday, instead of going to the Depot and picking up 1000 lbs of stone, I went baby crib shopping with my wife. They had a section with regular furniture, so I thought I'd take a look at theater seating. There are a bunch of options. I like the separate recliners for ultimate comfort, but my wife and I still like to be in the same seat. I also like the idea of couches since you can fit a few more people in the theater if needed since they don't have the two huge arms between each person like recliners.

They had a Bassett area with "theater seating". I guess you can mix and match pieces to get what you want. I was looking at the Dillon line. I could get a left and a right with arms that recline and then two armless non-reclining pieces between the L&R in leather for $2200. It would be approx 14 feet long. It would fit 4 very comfortably since each piece is oversized at 3 feet long. You could probably get 6 people on it if they liked each other and still be comfortable. For the front, I could get the middle two to also recline.

Anyway, I really liked the idea of two long couches in the room. I didn't budget for the price, but my wife didn't seem to mind. The issue would be that I'd like shorter seating up front because of the relatively big screen and the short ceiling height. I also still like the idea of making my own crazy/artsy/stylish furniture. $4400 would buy a lot of materials (or used "donor" couches/loveseats). I do want the furniture to be comfortable and look good, which I think I can do. I'm brainstorming about how I would get a "homemade" sofa to recline. I'm thinking if I also made ottomans it would simplify the reclining mechanism since I'd only have to worry about the back.

It is all fun to think about, but it is a bit in the future - tomorrow I will be moving rock!

Thanks Big. I took a (long) look through the Berkline HT seating, RSH's thread and HTmarket. I certainly think that route is an option. When I actually get a room, I'll have to look at how much I want to spend, how much I want to labor and whether I think it would be fun to make furniture.

I have an artistic side that I've been wanting to express into some furniture for a while, but it is hard to put something really crazy into a typical 100 year home without matching the style in the whole room. In the HT, I'm able to go with my whim since it is "my" room. I do love the comfort of the true HT seating, so I don't want to skimp on that just for fashion.


It's near the minimum height, I think. 7 feet to the joists before flooring/ceiling, and 6'4" with that beam that I can hopefully replace with steel and move up into the joist space. That will give me a finished 6'9" height in the HT. Luckily I'm not any taller than 6'...and my wife is only 4'11"!

Are there any HT seats that are made with an arm rest that can fold up out of the way?

If there are any HT seats that have arms that fold up, let me know. I haven't found them.

I've made some progress. I've put the crushed stone in and done a small area with concrete and foam on the wall. I'm going to the Depot to pick up more concrete and foam this afternoon. I also need to put some patching concrete on some parts of the wall.

I've been messing with some design ideas. I am going to try and leave the room walls lighter and then pull a curtain over them for movie viewing. That way the room is brighter for the times I am not in serious movie watching mode.

I also thought it would be fun to have RGB LED lights for accents so that I could change the color of the room at the push of a button. I think for this to really work well, the room would need to be black, gray and white. I'm including a couple of images with those color schemes. I was thinking that behind the white fabric frames I could place the RGB lights. You'll have to imagine different color lights coming from the white parts on the wall. The program I'm using won't render lights so you wouldn't get the feel for it.






I like #2 better.

One last pic. I would likely make the fabric lighter and then have black velvet curtains that could be pulled over. Again, I don't really like the colorless feel, but with colored light behind the white squares, I think it would look amazing. I'll have to do a test before I do it for the whole room.

Ok, I tried some colors. Neat-O.

A couple more, because I can.





These last two are a little extreme. The rest of the room wouldn't be as saturated with the colored light in real life. Anyway, I think it is a pretty cool effect, if it works like I think it might.

This morning and last night I patched the foundation wall around a few of the windows. They had some erosion of the walls up to 3" deep! The rest of the wall has maybe a max of 1" erosion, but only in some parts. If you figure the wall is 12" thick and 100 years old, I will be dead and gone several times over before the wall is anywhere close to needing patching.

I did patch around the windows because I will be replacing them and would like the opening to be somewhat structural and leak proof. They don't leak now, but since I'll be covering the wall with foam, wood and drywall - better safe than sorry.

I used this stuff, if anyone is interested. http://www.quikrete.com/ProductLines...dingCement.asp It worked well.

It is hot here in Albany today: 94....97 tomorrow and 95 on Wed. I moved away from Arizona so I wouldn't have to live in the heat anymore! Oh well, it is mostly cool in the basement, even if it is no fun moving 80lb bags of concrete to the house and down the stairs.

I've done a small stretch of wall with foam/concrete, but am now needing to move electrical and plumbing. I guess I didn't realize I would have to do that so soon.

I also did a small amount of demo work to clear some plywood that was placed directly on the concrete wall.

Anyone know how to convince a wife to be interested in looking at your concrete work?

I didn't think anyone would have any ideas.....

I went to Jo Ann fabrics last night. I was looking for what I want to cover couches with. I'm leaning towards a black faux (polyurethane) leather because of stain resistance, feel, looks, cost and durability. We have a microfiber suede couch and I'm not sure I like it. Our cats' hair is hard to remove from it.
http://www.fabricdirect.com/acatalog...her-black.html

I woke up at about 4am last night with a few good ideas regarding the couches. I don't think I will need to any stitching (only stapling). I also came up with a method of making the back recline with a motor. Even though the furniture is one of the last things I do, I am excited to give building it a try. It will be a fun project. I estimate it will cost about $1000 for 2 x 12 foot long couches.

I did a bit more work in the basement. I'm making progress and have 1/4 of the foam up on the walls. I will need to mix a bunch more concrete, but I don't mind it.

I wonder if taking more pictures would be more helpful to people, but I've heard that no body really likes to see pics from so early on in a project.

1/3 done with the walls/trench concrete. I'm hoping to be done (?) this week.

Thanks Greg. I have quite a few hobbies and interests. In some ways that gets me into trouble, but in other ways it comes in quite handy.

I haven't even mentioned my plans for putting in an 850 lb steel beam yet. I think I have a plan to do it pretty much myself. I'm thinking it might not be a good idea to post pics of that!

The other thing I have been thinking about is how I will do over-seating lighting. Most people are using canned lights. The down side is that I will need to make boxes for them so that I can keep my sound isolation. If I went this route, I'd likely use CFLs as they are cooler. Dimming would be an issue. I would probably need at least 6 of them (3 for each row).

I have been thinking LEDs would be really nice since they don't need heat. The other advantage is that they can be very thin - <.5"....more like .25" and some of the strips are .1" thick! I could cut out one layer or a partial layer of drywall and completely recess them. I could put an extra layer of drywall in a few places in the joist cavities and I wouldn't lose any sound isolation. Since they don't put out much heat and they run on 12 volts, I could get away with this mounting and still be safe.

Oh, and they are cheap on eBay! I just bought one of these for $2.50

I'll have to see how much light they put out. I'll probably need a bunch. I may also go with the strip LEDs. Those have remote controls already with dimmers. Here is the type I was thinking about for behind the white fabric: RGB strip lights

Thanks Tedd. I will certainly check them out! I want to be safe, so I am gathering as much info as I can.

Here's a question: how can LEDs be sent from China for only $2.50? I don't think the USPS will send anything across the country for less than $5.

Here's another LED for $13, but with much more output. 10W LED It's a bit bigger too.

All of these would need some sort of cover and/or trim, but that's where the fun comes in.

$6 LED 3W LED

Ok, so I am now 6/11ths done with the concrete/foam. I need to pick up more concrete tomorrow. I included my wife in the project somewhat. I'm not sure if she was impressed or not, but it was worth a try. Maybe I should have included a heart?

Very true, Mr. P. I don't know why my wife hasn't visited the basement to see it yet. She has referred to the basement as "her worst nightmare," so what could be stopping her?

I finished all the concrete work this am. I need to put a few pieces of foam up and seal it all, but the messy part is done. I'm going to put a few shelves down in the basement and do my version of organizing to get the clutter reduced. I'll be moving water lines and I don't want to get everything wet.

I also bought a subpanel yesterday since my main electrical panel is full. I have a 100 amp service, but this seems adequate since I have never tripped the main breaker and am not adding any new electrical loads to the basement that weren't in the house previously. I need to move/remove/replace some old electrical circuits that are still on the original wiring along with 90% of the house. It's not so great to trip a breaker because my projector, pc, AC and vacuum cleaner are on the same circuit. I'll have some new circuits for the basement/HT as well.

I've been reading Master Handbook of Acoustics over the last week or so. It is a great book. I had asked on the Acoustical treatments thread about "too dead" of a room and whether that is a problem. I also wondered if I could just use electronic reverb to add back the lost ambiance. I think the book answered both my questions. It also explained one of the reasons that a seat close to a wall is a bad idea. I'm only a third through the book, but it is already worth the read.