Home Theater Plan in Garage Space - 3D Renders!

Image below is latest on room progress as of Sept. 3 2012.

 

 

Hello all, excited to finally start a "from scratch" planned home theater room using our garage space (24'x22'). Nicest thing about this space is only one wall is connected to the house and we live on 3 acres, so no worries about disturbing neighbors! There's plenty I still need to research (HVAC, sound proofing, etc.), but trying to get basic dimensions/layout figured out first. I've been looking through threads on this forum, but thought I would also post my own thread (seems to be the trend) and ask for some advice. I have created my current plan in 3D and have attached some renders.



Here's a rough overview of current plan -

1) Uses false side walls so I can have access for wiring and any future changes.

2) Columns for acoustical damping..cool looking as well.

3) Leaving speakers visible...doesn't bother me.

4) Whole floor built on small wood riser to enhance bass vibrations. Additional riser height for rear seating.

5) TV and Projector - Our current bonus room-turned-home theater has both a 70" TV and a projector with retractable screen. Having the TV for video games and regular TV watching works out great and saves projector bulb life, so planning on having the same setup in new theater room. Planned for 70-73" television with 150" retractable cinemascope screen.

6) Outdoor veranda theme with DIY fiber optic starfield ceiling.


QUESTIONS/ISSUES I NEED HELP WITH -

1) Raised floor - My current theater room is in a bonus room over the garage. I really like having the wood foundation and feeling the sub vibrations in the floor. Moving the theater room to the garage will result in a concrete foundaton, so I would like to build a wood riser for the whole floor. Is there a ideal height to raise the floor for the purpose of enhancing bass vibrations? My current plans uses a 3" tall base riser, with an additonal 14" height for second row seating. Available ceiling height is 9'3", so trying to keep the wood riser as short as possible.

2) Wall height - I'm using a room dimension calculator (Terry Montlick Labs) to figure out ideal room dimensions. For wall height, do I calcualte a average wall height based on the different heights that result from having risers in the room? As currently planned, half the room has 8'9" ceilings. The other half has a mix of 8'2" and 7'7" ceilings (see top down image). Using the dimension calculator, my planned room dimensions ride a fine line and easily come out unacceptable depending on which ceiling height I use.

3) Ceiling- I really like the idea of having the fiber optic starfield ceiling, but cannot afford to buy premade panels. I've researched the DIY approach and feel confident I can do it, but have limited available ceiling height. I think using a suspended ceiling will take up too much height, so considering installing 1 1/2" furring strips to the ceiling joists and then attaching panels (Cinetile or something similar) directly to strips. Has anyone used Cinetile with fiberoptic stars? If so, is the material rigid enough to drill clean holes for the fiber optics? Any other suggestions appreciated.

4) Bar- Looking at other theater room designs, I saw someone installed a bar as a rear row and really like this idea. Reminds me of the local Alamo Drafthouse cinemas where you can eat while watching a movie. Question is, will having a bar behind the main seating wreak havoc on acoustics? You can see the proposed bar location in my 3D renders.

Suggestions/advice greatly appreciated!!

Edited by DigitalJackson - 9/3/12 at 10:52am

One more image...showing space/component layout.

Thanks, I'm sure I will do a good bit of the work myself. When I say "start" I mean planning/design. This room is part of a phased house remodel...have to build a external garage first, so may be 1-2 years before the home theater building starts. We have a designer starting on the rest of the house remodel plans next week, but he is not very familar with home theater design, so figuring out the basics of this room myself...may have a professional help out with final design.

I'm using Lightwave to model and render. A bit high end and pricey for a hobbyist, but I work as a 3D artist in the entertainment industry.

Thanks, I did a little research on these sub-floors, but could not find much on using them to enhance bass vibrations. So, having a base layer of Delta-FL with plywood and carpet on top should give similar bass vibrations as building a wood riser?

Thanks for the reality check on screen size vs. viewing distance. It does seem a bit crazy to have a 150" (diagonal) screen and sit 10' from it. I currently have a 110" cinemascope and sit 11' from it. I feel the screen could be bigger at that distance, but 40" would probably be too much...probably feel like the time I sat on the front row at IMAX! I could probably go with a 50 degree viewing angle myself.

Now that I'm realizing proposed screen is too large for viewing distance, speakers will be moving away from the corners a bit. Can't resist trying to squeeze in biggest screen possible!

I have decent equipment in my current theater room, but nothing too extravagant...hoping some of it can carry over to this new room.

The speakers shown in the renderings are my current ones - Atlantic Technology 350's for front, center, and side surrounds with 4200SR's for rear surround. For my sub I have a DIY HSU 12va clone made from 24" sonotube (my favorite component) powered by a 250w HSU amp. I also have a HSU TN1220 sub sitting around that just needs a amp. I have a Marantz SR6300 and using it for power (minus sub), know I would definitely need to move to external amps.

Also have a Panasonic PT-AE3000U projector with a 110" cinemascope screen. Of course, I want to increase the screen size in the new room and not really sure the Panasonic will be bright enough.



Thanks for the tip!

If I decided to used a acoustically transparent screen like the ClearPix2 from Screen Research, would the TV behind the screen give off a reflection that could be seen?

Hard to believe I started this thread last August! Finally starting conversion of existing garage into home theater room in the next 2-3 weeks after new detached garage is complete. I have made a lot of design changes to the room since originally posting and will have to update with new images soon.

List of major changes -
1) Switched to fixed screen mounted on false wall. Idea of TV behind retractable screen is now out.
2) Front speakers on sand filled stage and behind false wall.
3) Soundproofing walls and ceiling using whisper clips, double drywall and Green Glue.
4) Audio equipment isolated in closet area.

Equipment/supplies purchased so far -
1) SMX 2.37:1 150" diagonal procurv screen (2K screen material)
2) Atlantic Technology 8200e speakers - 3 fronts, 4 surrounds and 2 642e subs
3) Danley DTS-10 DIY subwoofer and Behringer EP4000 amp to run it along with miniDSP for EQ/tuning.
4) Lutron Grafik Eye 3000
5) Green Glue, Silenseal caulk and whisper clips
6) 10 and 12 AWG speaker cable from blue jeans cable

Purchasing soon -
1) Marantz AV7005 preamp
2) Emotiva XPA-5 and XPA-2 amps
3) Anamorphic Lens

Using from existing media room -
1) Panasonic AE3000U projector...at least for the time being if bright enough.
2) Playstation 3
3) Logitech Harmony One remote

To get the thread restarted, here are some images of the garage prior to construction starting.

In the first two images you can see the new detached garage. I wanted the home theater room to be detached instead of the garage, but my wife did not like the idea of having to use a breezeway to access the room.

Still waiting for other remodeling to wrap up before home theater construction starts. Some drywall torn out of garage, but nothing else yet.

I made a Quicktime movie that has a camera flying around the 3D room I created. Still images from movie also posted since most will not want to download a large file.

Movie link (right click and choose 'Save Target As...')
http://www.digitaljackson3d.com/Movies/HT/HT_360B.mov

Yes, I just missed adding the lens to the list. However, have not done much research on which to buy...on the 'to do' list.

I agree and actually have the equipment closet on the right side now in my latest renders...see red arrow below. I still have to leave the left hand space because the hot water heater is in a closet space on that wall along with the fuse panel for the house. Having the space also will help with noise since this will effectively give me a double stud wall...left side is wall connected to rest of the house.

Good observation on the missing roof corbels. I've been indecisive about whether to keep them and the latest renders were to test how I feel about not having them included. I'm also not sure I can get the blue rope light going around the ceiling to work with the corbels. It will probably come down to one or the other. I do like them and think they add to outdoor look I'm going for. They'll probably make a comeback.

I remember looking at your thread while doing research over the past few months. Great build and indeed good to see other garage conversions going on.

The garage door is going to be framed and covered with rock. The existing garage door was moved to the new detached garage and a side entry door has been added coming from the utility room to the breezeway/new garage. See image below. Drywall is being removed in old garage, so maybe this is getting ready to finally happen.

"so maybe this is getting ready to finally happen".

That's what I said my last post back on June 20th. Not much has happened since then because my contractor only shows up to work 1-2 days a week and there are still other house remodeling issues that are finishing up. I would gladly work on the room myself if I wasn't already working 12 hr days at work.

Here's what has been done since my last post -

1) Interior wall framed in.

2) Hat channel/whisper clips installed on walls, but not ceiling. Contractor actually did install ceiling clips, but did it wrong as well as the walls the first time. All the clips/channels had to be removed and started again.

3) New AC for room installed. However, ducts cannot be installed until soffits are built. Of course, contractor did not inform AC subcontractors about this and they improperly ran the ducts outside the wall. Ducts will have to be taken down and redone.

New equipment purchased since last post that sits around waiting for the room to build itself -

1) a second DIY Danley DTS 10 subwoofer kit
2) a second Behringer EP4000 amp for the additional DTS 10

The ceiling clip/channel installation turns out to be very tricky due to uneven spacing on my garage celing trusses. I have had to measure and model out the ceiling trusses in 3D so I could figure out where additional 2x4 blocking needs to be added to the ceiling to accomodate proper clip placement. Another issue I have is my ceiling will have additional weight with the added masonite board added for the fiber optic starfield ceiling and soffit. This requires my hat channel spacing to be every 16" instead of the standard 24". I will say that Ted from the soundproofing company has been very responsive in assisting me with figuring these issues out. Below are the images I have generated from my 3D models to guide ceiling clip/channel placement.

This one shows the existing ceiling trusses (gray) and 2x4 blocking (white) that needs to be added to support the additional clips.


This one shows the trusses with clips (yellow), hat channel (green), soffit (darker blue) and wall thckness (lighter blue). Clip spacing dimensions callouts have not been added to this image yet.


Images below showing room as it currently looks.

This one is taken standing at screen wall looking towards back of room. you can see the AC ducts that are improperly installed on either side.


This one is taken from entrance door at back of room.


I also had some issues with insulation resting against some of the hat channel. I installed some wire bracing to solve the issue. See images below.