Cyclone Cinema Build - Page 3

That leads into my next design decision....symmetrical soffits!

Right now headroom is SERIOUSLY lacking. Here is what I have to work with:

7'-9" from finished floor to bottom of joists.

7'-0" from finished floor to bottom of duct.

I will lose a little less than an inch and a half by the time I DD + GG...leaving me with 6'-10 1/2" clear.

If you are familiar with my plan (shown on post #1), you will see that I enter the theater at the back of the room ... at riser level. Right now I am planning a 6" riser, and a 2" mini-riser just beneath the second row seating (if necessary).

So if I do NOT do a symmetrical soffit, my headroom entering the theater will be about 7'-1 1/2" (7'-9" - 1.5" - 6").

And if I DO decide to make a symmetical soffit, my headroom entering the theater will be about 6'-4 1/2" (7'-0" - 1.5" - 6").

I myself am 6'-1" so that wouldn't leave me with a very spacious feeling.

There is nothing I can do about the soffit with the ductwork. That is going to happen. I just have to decide what I want to do with the other side of the room.


I have a few options (in my mind)...

Option #1) Leave the 6" riser as is. Only install soffit around the ductwork. Enter theater with 7' of headroom.

Option #2) Leave the 6" riser as is. Install symmetrical soffit around the entire room. Enter theater with 6'-4" headroom.

Option #3) Shift couches to the left in order to make riser flush with doorway. Do not enter theater on the riser and gain 6" of headroom. Install symmetrical soffits and enter theater with 6'-10" of headroom.

I have been avoiding this issue for awhile now, hoping it would solve itself (it hasn't).

What do you all think? This decision has the potential to really change the feel of the room and I want to get it right. Having the seating offset to one side is something I didnt want to do...but maybe it is the best solution. Instead of giving the middle seat the best seat in the house, it give the middle and side equally good seating....

I am trying to be optimistic here....maybe I will let you guys chime in and see what you think. I currently have a 36" door for the theater entrance. Is that big enough to get seating through? Do I need to go bigger? Can I go smaller? If I go with a smaller door, I can use the saved space to bring the riser over and center the seating more.


Sorry for the long winded post. Let me know what you think. Below is a picture of the theater so you dont have to refer to the first post. It shows the riser modified and seating offset to the left.

None of these walls are up right now. Just getting everything figured out in my head before I get going. I want to minimize the amount of work I have to redo 10 times by thinking it all through. I can probably put up a staggered stud wall without much trouble.

Well, I finally made some progress today - had planned on working all weekend but instead of working on the basement on Saturday I replaced the water pump in my buddies pickup.

Here is a picture of the egress window well.



Here is the galvanized window well.



Now onto what I worked on today. When I install the bathroom in the basement I need a vent pipe to tie into. Currently there is nothing available in the basement so I had to route a line downstairs.

All the walls are finished upstairs so I needed to cut into a wall to find an existing vent pipe...I chose the laundry room. Here is what I found...


I found that the washer drain was 2" but it only had a 1.5" vent. Looking over the IPC and the DFU count downstairs, I figure I need a 2" vent line. I dont have a good picture, but I will explain what I did.

The 1.5" vent pipe is routed up between the 2nd floor floor joists. It meets up with a 2" vent stack from a bathroom group. I cut the 1.5" vent pipe and put in a 1.5"x2"x2" tee. From that tee, the 1.5" line goes to vent the washer, one 2" line is routed up through the floor joists and connected into the existing 2" vent line, and the last 2" line is routed to the basement.

Here is a picture of where I tied into the existing vent, not that it really means anything to anyone.

Before:


After:


The 2" vent in the basement is just capped at the moment, but at least it is ready to be hooked into.

The next step is to get my foundation cut for the egress window and get my floor broken up to install my underground sanitary piping. Oh, and patch all the drywall I had to cut to get the vent pipe installed.

This will hopefully get done this weekend if all goes as planned. I have located a concrete chainsaw - I just have to supply the chain. At $375 it's a kick to the junk, but still a heck of a lot cheaper than paying someone to do it.

Well, this weekend marked some significant progress in the basement build. I ran up to Ames on Friday to help a buddy move out of his house to get ready to move to Georgia...in return he came down to my place to help with my basement. My brother also came down to help out, as he is the concrete expert in the family.

I guess we will get to pictures....I didn't really take any before pictures...those are boring anyways.

Here is the floor cut up getting ready for sanitary piping.


Here is another view...


Here is the concrete chainsaw...that we decided NOT to use for some reason.


Here is the egress window being cut. We ended up using a quickie saw and cut from both sides...turned out very well actually. This picture shows the inside cut and the outside cutting in progress.


I didn't let Nick do all the work...here is me with the sledge knocking the cut wall out into the egress well.


Here we are finishing the saw cutting at the tie in to the main sanitary line.


I ordered the sheetrock on Saturday trying to get it delivered the same day...not happening. They did drop it off this morning (Sunday), so we were able to get it all carried into the basement before the window was installed. My stairwell heading down into the basement has a corner, so getting all that sheetrock in the basement would have been a LOT harder.

Here is the sheetrock in the driveway...seems like too much, but I calculated the amount twice to make sure.


And after my coworker stopped by for a fourth set of hands, here it all is in the basement.


And after the sheetrock got moved, here is the window.


I still need to trim out the window on the outside, and finish installing the egress window well but its getting closer. I am pretty pleased with the amount of work we accomplished this weekend. Hopefully the holidays give me time to keep working on the basement...but we have quite a bit of traveling to do so we will see...

Hope you enjoyed the pictures...let me know if you see anything that I have screwed up.

Would be even better if I didn't have to work 60-80 hour weeks at work. It really kills my desire to work on anything when I am putting those hours in. I just finished on one hospital and have another one due in a few weeks. Hopefully after this one gets finished we will get a little break.

This weekend I went tailgating in Iowa City - that pretty much killed most of my weekend, but I did manage to cut into the sanitary main in our house on Sunday night to get started on the plumbing tie-in. I was missing a fitting on Sunday so the job had to wait until Monday night to get finished.

So yesterday I got the last fitting and finished up the underground plumbing. I called this morning to schedule a plumbing inspection and got that scheduled for this afternoon at 2:30.

I just got back from meeting the inspector and I am happy to report that I passed with no issues...hopefully they all go that well.

I will try to get an updated picture posted tonight.

Now that I passed, I can fill the trench with new concrete....which leads to me next question. Does anyone know where I can buy or rent a concrete mixer - its more than i would like to mix by hand, but not enough to warrant a small batch charge from a cement company.

Not a whole lot to report lately. I finished installing the galvanized window well a few days ago - it has been attached to the foundation and backfilled. All the extra dirt is loaded up in the box of my pickup for disposal.

The underground has been filled around and is ready for concrete and the basement floor has been cleaned up (biggest job of them all).

This weekend is deer season so I am heading back home to hunt, drop off my extra dirt and bring back a small cement mixer.

As much as I would like to get more done on the basement this weekend, I cant miss out on deer hunting (beings I live in one of the best whitetail states in the US I need to take advantage of it!)

That was my first time ever tailgating for an Iowa game - somehow got convinced to do it...not bad, but its still hard to beat tailgating in Ames.

I am originally from Fort Atkinson (300 people) where did you grow up?

Friday found me in Cedar Falls helping my brother change his water pump. All went well and I was on the road home in time to listen to the Cyclones pull one out over the Hawks. I beat the bad weather home and called it a night.

The weather was crappy out all weekend so I ran to Home Depot and bought a load of 2x4's and got to finally work on the basement again.

To prevent my lumber from warping into a big mess I kept the lumber piles to a mangable size and just made an extra trip for more lumber on Sunday. Right now I have about half the vertical framing completed.

I ordered DC-04 clips from John Hile (from thesoundproofingcompany) and they should be arriving on Tuesday. Once here, I can start on the actual theater - all work up to this point has been for the rest of the basement.

I need to take some pictures and get them posted...stay tuned.

I just wanted to throw a quick thank you out to John Hile and Ted White at the soundproofing company. I ordered my DC-04 clips on Friday afternoon and when I got home from work on Monday they were sitting on my doorstep - can't get any better than that. Thanks again!

I have all the perimeter framing up and some of the interior framing done. Framing is going faster than anticipated...looks like I might have to start looking at the 2008 NEC so I can take an electrical test in order to do my own electrical work.

I still need to reroute one RA duct so my soffits will be symmetrical, and also run some couduit for future wiring so I have things to keep me busy before I need to start on the electical stuff.

I do have a quick question for someone regarding the back wall of the theater room. I will be using DC-04 clips for the back wall, but does that wall need to be a staggered stud wall or can it just be a normal 2X4 wall?

Ok guys, I need your thoughts on this question...to bribe you all for answers, here are some pictures of the latest developments...hopefully this is enough of a bribe, the rear wall of the theater needs to be done before I do the rest of the framing...

Picture #1 - comes to you courtesy of my wifes parents...we had christmas this past weekend and I scored this impact driver/drill-hammerdrill combo.

Here is my old drill flanked by its two new companions!


Here is the theater - minus the back wall (hint..hint...haha)


Here is a view of the large open area...looking towards the bar (where it was originally planned)


Here is a view of the bar area and the bedroom area. The wall under the beam still needs to be framed up. That beam is actually three 2X12's which is 4.5" wide - my plan is to take 2x6's and rip them down an inch to match the beam.


Here is the hallway/storage wall/bathroom in background. Same deal as before with the beam...

Sorry about this bad picture...the blue tape under all the junk just shows the back theater wall and the a/v closet wall...dont know why I am showing it...


On another note, we have an unused formal dining room and formal living room right off the kitchen...my wife has no intentions of using the room as such so she wants to split the room into two separate rooms - one really nice laundry room and the other room will be a formal sitting room or piano room or something....I just do what she says...

The picture below shows the wall I cut open to install a wall box for the laundry and the connection for a sink. I have some special plans for a kickass sink installation, but I will keep you all waiting - plus it will be awhile before I get to it...


So if you have forgotten already, these pictures were a bribe to get an answer about the rear wall of the theater room - I look forward to your responses!

I will use DC-04 clips for sure, do I still need a staggered stud wall? Maybe you are saying yes...I just wanted to be sure.

Thanks for the quick responses and the clarification!

Last night my wife helped me rip down the 2X6's to 4.5" wide so I was able to frame up the walls under the beam. Tonight I will be focusing on the rear theater wall and the A/C closet walls - after those walls are completed, I will be 95% done framing.

I did run across a question for the rear staggered stud wall - specifically at the door. Here is the general idea I plan to follow if others agree...



I am assuming this will work - although I am wondering if there is a better, or an easier way to accomplish the decoupling.

Either a quick thumbs up or alternative methods for this door would be great. I know a lot of people have doors in their staggered stud walls, I just couldn't find any pictures or explanations of how the door was framed up.

Thanks for the reasoning fotto. For clarification, I was planning on using a king stud and a jack stud. I should have shown that on the drawing - it would have taken 15 extra seconds - my fault. I think if I frame the theater side wall as a normal 2X4 wall and just add the staggered studs on the other side - the door will be supported and I would still have a decoupled wall.

I dont know if Ted follows this thread, but if he (or anyone else) is knowledgeable on this particular question, I would be happy to learn...

Got home late last night. Got to work this morning and finished up most of the framing.

Here you can see the a/v room on the left...


Finished framing the doors to the bathroom and storage room...


I did end up keeping an air gap at the staggered stud doorway - looks like it should work just fine - the toughest part will be making sure the door jamb works out...not a big deal though.

Here is a picture of the gap...


In the background you can see that I cut the line to the central vacuum system...its proving to be a job in itself just finding fittings and pipe to reroute the line....

I don't work tomorrow so I will go buy more 2X4's in the morning and finish up framing the doorway to the bedroom - after that it is just soffit framing to do.

I just finished framing all the walls and doorways. I have to install a couple nailer boards for sheetrock and frame up the soffits.

On another note, I may have mentioned that I need to take an electrical test down at city hall in order to install my own electrical work. I ran down there and took the test this morning. I needed was allowed 5 incorrect answers and I got 8 wrong...better luck next time. I actually planned on doing much worse - I was taking the test mainly to see what was on it (as they dont give a practice exam). I need to wait 5 business days to retake it, but I think I should be able to pass it - there were some tricky questions in there...but thats kind of how code is written anyways (with all the exceptions and "refer to this section" jazz).

I get my bonus on Thursday, so that should expand the budget a little bit - but I also have my eye on a new (to me) pickup that I might be able to get a really good deal on...we'll see soon enough.

That's all for now.

Happy holidays everyone!