Flyboyusa's Basement Theatre - Page 5

Thanks to all for the compliments and encouragement!
My strategy is to hold off buying the screen or PJ until almost everything is finished! This will keep away the urge to call it done and start watching movies.

Spent 2 days this week installing a battery backup sump pump! I have been reading of horror stories of flooded basements and I had to put this possibility out of the question.

More pictures of a sump than most care to see!












Also, bought and hooked up a water sensor on the floor near the sump pit, it is directly connected to our Ademco security system and I'll get an instant call if there is water in the basement.
Anyhow, now I can sleep better knowing that a basement flood is pretty much out of the question!
On to work on mudding, fun...fun.

The theater continues to move forwards, slowly but surely.

Finished the oak plywood on all the soffits and above the stage. Also installed the 3" lights in the soffit:











Also, got the riser framed and mostly sheeted. Still have to bracket it to the concrete, fill with Roxul and get the riser lighting installed before I can finish the plywood.







Also, the wife and I started looking at colors. We're leaning towards a dark red/purple for the walls, dark black/brown for the ceiling and a dark brown/red stain for the soffit, but I'm sure this will change 10 times in the next month before we finalize.

Here are a few samples were looking at:

Thanks to all for the compliments and suggestions, it helps to have folks to bounce ideas off of and get feedback.

RT, the chair I have in the HT for now is just an old chair I had laying around that I'm using for checking positions/distances from the screen, it won't be there for much longer. Thanks to IUSteve, I have nice dark brown suede set of 3 reclining Berklines to put on the riser, just don't have them down there yet until drywall and painting are finished and most of the dusty work is done.

Thanks daronk, it's been a long process but fun. Anyway, I'm close to finishing mudding and should have primer done by the end of the week, more pics to come.
Yep, the finger is much better now, gotta be careful with new razor blades, they can do some damage real quick.
I've got my sights on an Epson 8350 for sale on craigslist and just about to close the deal on it and try it out to verify my proposed screen size. I was really wanting to go with a Panny 4000 or 7000, but this deal is too good to pass up on the Epson so I'm going to give it a try, I'm sure it will be fine.

Yea, the fireplace guy suggested I clear out the mulch and dig out and install a window well underneath the FP termination, he said it's usually not a problem unless we get a massive amount of snow built up in which case he said the FP just wouldn't stay lit well due to starving for O2. Also, I believe the termination has a flashing built in behind the siding, I believe he peeled off siding, installed term., installed flashing and then re-installed the siding with proper weeper flashing draining to the bottom edge of the lowest pc. of siding. That upward flange is there to deflect the heat away from the vinyl siding to keep it from melting.

The finished height from concrete floor to finished ceiling is approx. 93".

Thanks Krispy. Yeah the code is 24" min. to any opening and the termination meets that. That was one of the first things I asked when they installed and its fine.

Made some progress today, got the ceiling textured in the sitting room area. It's a messy job but looks nice when done:

First start by thinning down mud to slightly thinner than pudding, then roll on a 4'x4' area:



Then, pickup some mud in the crowes foot brush and start stamping the ceiling:







The finished product:





Gotta get another bucket of mud (this will be bucket #4 total including all joints, etc...) then gonna get the ceiling done in the HT area.

Ahhhh...the ceiling texturing is completely done! My neck feels like jello from looking up for the past 5 hours. Agenda for tomorrow is priming the ceiling, finishing final touchups on the mud on the walls and trimming out the soffit. More pics tomorrow.

Thanks RT, I was strongly considering the knock down look, I really, really like that look if it's done correctly. I'm still a novice when it comes to mudding & texturing so I wasn't sure I wanted to attempt it and not have it turn out good. So I stayed with the crowes foot pattern to match the rest of our house.

Anyhow, now I have a dilemma and I need some advice. In looking at how I have my screen planned, I'm not sure it will look right. The reason is I am going with a 2.35 screen and planning to zoom the PJ to fit 2.35 material. This will leave the black bars top/bottom approx. 8" above and below the screen. Measuring this out on my current layout will put the top bar projecting onto my curved soffit on top of the screen.
Will this look funky? Has anyone tried this?



I know they are supposed to be completely black, but I'm sure the Epson 8350 I'm going with isn't totally black.
I could shift the entire screen down 5" and that would take care of it, but I want the screen up as far as possible to make for comfortable viewing.

Any thoughts/comments from the peanut gallery?

Thanks guys, I was maybe planning for too large of a screen. Everything I read during planning said to always plan for bigger, but I may have to re-consider at this point.
So, current screen size is 120" wide x 51" tall (2.35:1), which a standard proj. 16:9 image zoomed to fill side-to-side would be 120" wide x 68" tall (hence the black bars would overlap the soffit). I would need to shrink the screen to 94" wide x 40" tall to not have overlaps when I zoom to fill the width.
This seems a bit small for my room. I think what I'll do is wait until I get my PJ, then do a mockup with sheets and see both sizes and also how bad the overlap would actually look.
Thanks to all for the advice.

Or....IUSteve could bring his projector over and we could mock it up

More progress has been made:

Got the ceilings and most of the walls primed and painted in the sitting room:









Also got the ceiling in the HT primed and 1st coat of flat black, what a difference the ceiling color makes in a room:





View from the sitting room looking into the HT:



Temporary screen (2 rolls of expensive wrapping paper, the wife wasn't too happy ). This is 16:9 for now, I just talked to Chris at Seymour AV and put in my order for a 120" wide 2.35:1 cut of CenterStage XD material once he gets it in stock.





My new purchase - an Epson 3010 - on temporary stand until I can get it mounted:







Man is that 3010 bright, especially when shooting onto highly reflective wrapping paper into an all white room. But I did notice a significant improvement in black levels and overall picture once I got the ceiling painted black. I was on the fence about the 3010 since it doesn't have lens shift, but I think it will work just fine. Best Buy really knows how to lure you in with 3 years no interest and they price matched Amazon for a deal I couldn't resist. So I broke my rule to wait on the PJ until everything was done, but I think it was worth buying at this stage so I could verify screen size and get that ordered.

Off to do a bunch more painting this weekend and then start on some finishing/trim work.