Billybar's Basement Theater etc.. Build - Page 5

Thanks for the comments guys!

I spent some time planning this week. I realized I needed to finalize things with bathroom, wine cellar and equipment room before I could do the electrical in those areas so I got everything in the right place. I am going to buy a power bridge to use with a UPS for the projector so I will wire that into the equipment room as well. So now I just have to wire these areas and I think they should go pretty quickly.

I put up some string lines across the joists in the theater area to see what unevenness I will have to deal with. It looks like I have one stubborn joist that is further down than the rest but it's not too bad so I'm hoping my power planer will take enough off of it to improve things. I want to get this out of the way before installing the can lights in this area which will be my next step

Here is the area where I need to even up the joist



A few more things I have decided on (regrettably)
1. No Grafik Eye (for now) - I have thought this over a lot and I would like to save the money at this point and put it towards something else. I would've needed the GRX-3106 for my needs and I can use that $800 towards other things now to keep me moving forward quickly. For now I am going to wire two 3 gang boxes to control all the lighting in the theater and game room. 6 dimmers will be installed for now and I will manually control them. Someday when all is said and done or, I get carpal tunnel syndrome from working 6 dimmers, I will add a Grafik Eye.

2. No High-End bathroom - I had quite a plan for the bathroom. "Broken Glass" bowl sink with waterfall faucet, hardwood custom vanity, high end tile, etc... My wife pointed out "wtf...I want that bathroom upstairs! Not in the basement!". I really couldn't argue so it will be off to "Mr Seconds" for a more budget oriented bathroom materials for the basement 1/2 bath.

I was away for much of the weekend but had a little time yesterday to work on some stuff. I wanted to get the ceiling joists situated in the theater area since that is what has been on my mind. I started by power planing down the problem joist that was too low. It was snowing wood chips which was pretty cool. I didn't take very much off at all and the result was a definite improvement in evenness with the rest of the joists but things still weren't perfect. All in all the joists weren't off too much from each other.

While I was up there looking at the string lines and its distance from the joists the kids started rough housing above where I was standing. While they were jumping around I could see the joists flexing up and down. This got me wondering what would happen if there was nicely finished drywall attached to those joists?? So now I was wondering if it might be necessary to strap the ceiling with some 1X4's before going any further?

I sat around for a few hours trying to talk myself into or out of the need for this and eventually decided that I will do it. I decided that I will also use solid blocking between the joists as well for bridging to help tighten up the floor above. I went to the store and grabbed some 1X4s for the strapping so that will be the next thing I do followed by the solid blocking after that. By the time I got the wood into the basement it was too late to start on anything so I called it a day.

I'm still not 100% convinced I really need the strapping/bridging but it will make me feel better so I will just do it. I think I will do two sets of bridging with solid blocks. I am hoping this will make a noticeable difference with the sponginess of the floors above. I will also do the joists in other areas as well if I feel it makes a big enough difference in feel from above. And the strapping will give me peace of mind that the drywall ceiling will be nice and even with no waves.

Picture of the string lines after shaving down the problem joist. The joist I fixed is the 4th one counting from the top of the image.


Furring strips for the ceiling

Strapping is finished. It was a pain but I'm glad it's done. I marked my lighting plan and set the distance of the strapping accordingly so it wouldn't interfere. I also decided I was going to alternate 4" soffit recessed cans with sconces every four feet along all walls in theater. I have marked those locations out and now I am trying to come up with a plan to for wiring everything. I am planning on making a big light purchase in the next week or so. Housings, trims and bulbs. This stuff adds up fast! The plan is 18 6" cans in the ceiling (2 zones of 9 to split the room up). 14 4" cans in soffits and 11 sconces. The 4" cans will be a zone and the sconces will be a zone also. There will also be 4 pivot can lights over the screen. I know this is a crazy amount of lighting and probably much more than I need but I will be controlling it so I would rather err on the side of caution to maximize flexibility.

Here is the strapping installed:

After shopping around a bit I have finally decided on light trims for the theater area. These will be the 6" cans in ceiling and I will use matching 4" trims in the soffits. The trim ring is a "Tuscan Bronze" and the trim baffle is black. I installed the trim and a bulb in one of my existing cans and I liked the look.

Got around to buying more materials. I bought the rest of the recessed housings, dimmers and bulbs. I only have a few of the 6" and 4" trims. They were in short stock so I need to wait on the rest of them. I also need some socket extenders to be able to safely use the 50W Par20 bulbs in the 4" fixtures. I can't believe how much these little extenders are. About $7 a pop! I also grabbed some more conduit that you can see in one of the pictures as well as the round boxes for the sconces....why do I always feel so violated after spending $?

New Materials:






Not sure what I am going to start on next. I think I will wire up bathroom,wine cellar and media room and then start installing the new housings in the theater area. I also need to cross bridge the joists in the ceiling but I am currently researching the best way to do this. I found some metal "nailless" bridging options that would really save me a lot of time and effort but still not 100% if they will work for me.

Made some more progress over the weekend. First I installed the various outlet/switch/light boxes for the bathroom, wine cellar and media closet. Then I wired everything in the bathroom. I haven't run to the breaker box yet but that's all that's left there. I installed one can light in the theater area just to see how that is going to go. Unfortunately the strapping is too thin for there to be a place to nail in the housings so I am going to have to add blocking in all lighting locations. Ugh. I also hung my new used touch screen that I grabbed off ebay for $80. This is what I will be using in the cardio area. Now that the weather is changing the wife and I are competing for indoor exercise activities and this is going to solve that problem. I am going to grab two more of these I think for the jukeboxes since they are so cheap and they work way better than I expected. And then I will still use the iPad 2 when I need to make the jukebox mobile! Here are some photos of this weekend's progress.

Bathroom wired for 1 outlet, 1 light, an exhaust fan and a two gang switch


The Media Closet. 4 two gang boxes for outlets and a round box for a light in the upper left. All the theater equipment will go where the opening at the right is and will be plugged into a power strip. I will be bringing the conduit with the media cables above the right side of the opening. There will also be 2 computers and 1 or 2 receivers to handle the cardio station and jukeboxes. And there will be some other miscellaneous things in there like network switch and monitor(s) so I am being liberal with the outlets because I'm sure I am not thinking of other things I will end up needing.


The wine cellar. One light box in ceiling, 1 outlet on inside, 1 outlet on outside for the cooling unit and 1 switch box outside the wine cellar to turn on/dim the lights.


The first light housing installed in theater/game room. You can see where I had to add blocks on top of the strapping for something to nail the housing into. This will be a pain but not too bad I suppose. The trim is installed just because this is the one I already had setup so I will just remove it when it comes time to drywall.


The new touchscreen installed. The server there will end up in media closet. I bought a 25 foot serial cable and vga cable for the run to the media closet. This touch screen setup works great. I used it all day yesterday when working down there for checking football scores. And it also works great for all the workout videos that we will use with it. I don't like the way it's currently attached so I am going to eventually buy a swivel arm so I can bring the monitor up a bit which will cover the outlet plate some.


The football scores:

Knocked off the cross bridging this weekend in the theater area. Was not the most exciting job and I'm not sure how much benefit it will give me but it was easy enough work and cheap so I said what the heck. If I had to cut my own cross bridges and deal with gluing/nailing I would not have done this job. Thankfully I found this metal bridging that was cost effective and quick to install. One end had pointed edges that got tapped in where the sheathing meets the joist and the other end had teeth that would tap into the bottom part of the joist and then each bridge piece could be secured with one nail. I did two rows of bridging over the theater area. I will also do the rest of the basement too before drywall goes up but this is the largest area by far.

Metal cross bridging done



Then moved on to the media room wiring. I added 4 2 gang boxes for outlets , a light box and a switch. All that is left is running the wire to the panel. I bought 4 more 20 amp breakers that I will be installing also so I can make use of all 8 slots in the sub panel.

The media room wired. Please excuse the mess. I am just lazy


Up next will be connecting bathroom and media room to subpanel and then wiring the wine cellar and then it will be time to install a lot of lighting in theater. Thanks for looking!

Moved forward with electrical over the weekend. Finished up the media room first and then the bathroom. Installed the rest of the breakers needed and also installed the exhaust fan in the bathroom. Found a good deal on one that I liked and figured it will help to have that in place when I do the plumbing to help exhaust the pvc glue vapors. It is 80CFM which seems to be a good size for this bathroom. I felt a good air flow outside where it is vented so it should do the job. Basement work suffered a bit this weekend because of the need to get the outside ready for winter. Also spent time cleaning up the workspace since it was getting messy and cluttered. I wish I had a clone to help out with some of this stuff sometimes.


The bathroom exhaust fan. The round light is temporary for now until I find a light that I like.


The media closet wiring complete



Subpanel with the rest of the breakers installed that I need to complete the job



Currently finishing up wiring the wine cellar and then will move onto the theater room lighting. Thanks for looking!

Hey Sarge, the plan for the media closet is to add a vent cover below the equipment and a fan that will pull air in from the theater room and then maybe another a fan to move the air out under the door or through another vent cover I may put in the door. I am hoping this will produce enough ventilation.

Since I have posted the picture of the taped out screen I have been giving myself a crash course on all the various things to keep in mind when choosing a screen (riser height, riser depth, viewer's eye height, viewing angle, speaker placement, etc..) I didn't realize how many things there were to consider. I also didn't realize how hard it would be to make it so everything worked out in the end. I have looked at countless possibilities the last few weeks and I have finally finalized my plan.

The theater area will be 14'6" wide and 15' 4" deep (after drywall). I have 82" screen wall height to work with. I will be making the theater so the prime seating will be in the back row. The ceiling height above seating locations will be just under 8' (screen wall is lower because it is built under a soffit)

I have chosen to go with a fixed 2.35:1 130" diagonal screen. Here is what I have calculated so far based on the screen and my room dimensions:

Screen Viewing Area:
Height: 50.9"
Width: 119.61"

Total Area: (Viewing area + border width (assuming 3.15" on each side but may be less))
Height: 57.2"
Width: 125.91

Screen wall height (after drywall): 81 5/8"

Distance from floor to bottom of screen: 27 1/2" - (This should give me enough room for nice stage and will get my center channel high enough off the floor so I can place it under the screen and tilt upwards.)

Riser Calculator: (Going with 5' deep riser instead of 6' to keep riser height to a minimum and to get the front row further from the screen. Also shaved off 6" from screen wall to viewer's eyes in each row to account for the chair backs/reclining space required. Hopefully 6" is the correct assumption)
Floor to bottom of screen 27 1/2"
Height of seated front row viewers top of head 42"
Height of rear row viewers eyes 36"
Screen to front row viewers eyes 9'10"
Screen to back row viewers eyes 14'10"
Minimum riser height 13 5/16" (This height is acceptable to me)

Calculated Viewing angles:
Back Row: 35.3 degrees
Front Row: 51.3 degrees

Viewing Heights (Eye level with respect to screen. Actual heights will be lower due to reclining)
Front Row: 15.7% up screen
Back Row: 41% up screen (A bit high but when reclined will be lower which will get me closer to the 30% I was hoping for)

After all is said and done I will have about two feet left on each side of the screen wall that will be enough for me to add bump outs for building in my front speakers and subwoofer(s). I will extend the bump across and below the screen so I can also build in the center channel. I am going to end up building something that is similar to the picture below (My center bump out won't be as tall and I will also add a round stage out in front)




I am hoping to finish up the can lights in the ceiling and soffits this weekend and maybe the sconce boxes too.

Thanks for looking!

Working on finishing the light rough-in phase for theater room. All ceiling cans are in and most soffit cans and sconce boxes also installed. Just a few left before wiring phase begins. Also taped up the new and final screen dimensions.

Crazy amount of lights: Better to have too much than not enough right? These lights will be split in half into two zones


The soffit 4" cans. These alternate with sconces every 4 feet



A view of the room as it is now after cleaning up and decluttering a bit




Time to start pulling some wire. I am pretty sure I don't have enough wire to complete the job which is crazy, I thought the big spool of 12-2 was going to be plenty but it doesn't look like it.

Edited by barlav - 12/18/12 at 9:35am

thanks for the nice comments ModestHT. I suppose I could rename my theater to "Carpenter's Theater" and just mount the projector and be done! - I need to get that wine cellar done sooner than later. My current wine storage is full and I've been passing up some amazing wine deals for I have no place to put any more until this is done! The fun part will be filling it!

I've been doing a lot of wiring. Getting all the theater lights hooked together and should have power to them very soon. Can't wait for this wiring phase to be over.

Bought a new Elliptical Trainer for the Gym. My wife and I are giving this to each other for Christmas. It arrived yesterday and I assembled it last night. And, to add a little more stress to this already stressful holiday season, it is completely broken. When using it makes a terrible loud grinding noise like your car would if it had no brake pads! There is something seriously wrong with the pre-assembled rear part of the unit. I am hoping it just needs an adjustment and nothing is damaged. Needless to say my blood was boiling since I paid a fortune for this thing. Now I am waiting for a service call to have someone come out and take a look at it. So much for having this by Christmas. Anyway, here is the trainer. It looks great but currently it is just an $1800 paper weight. (For a laugh checkout the video I made of the grinding that I sent to the company. It is pretty awful!: http://youtu.be/UvAqBQVUAnk)

I meant to share this too. I had some fun with an old projector and created a new Christmas decoration this year. It looks like Santa is walking around upstairs in my house. I have been amazed at the response to this. Cars are frequently stopped outside watching it. Here is a link to a video of it in action: http://youtu.be/FfoQnrNe-MM

And a still photo of it:

Finally finished wiring up the ceiling cans and the screen wall floods which completes 3 of the six zones I will be using. I officially ran out of my 1000 ft wire spool. I still can't believe it went that fast and that was with optimizing runs to use as little wire as possible. I still need to wire up the sconce boxes ,the 4" soffit cans and the runs for rope lighting for riser and ceiling to complete zones 4,5,6 and then I will move onto the outlets for the theater area.

Some of the latest pics:

The screen flood lights:




Just the theater zone and screen flood zone on:




Just the game room zone and screen flood zone on:


Everything on full power




The New Wall Plate And Dimmers for zones 1-3. The first and third are 1000W dimmers with one side of their heat sink fins removed which still gives me enough power for ceiling can zones (each of which will be a max of 675W) The center dimmer is a 600W dimmer with both heat sink fin sides removed for controlling the screen floods (which will be a max of 200W)

Hey Toastyone, it's been about a year and a half since the fix and no issues. Everything has remained nice and dry even through heavy storms/thaws. This kit did the trick.

Making some good progress but not much to show as far as pics go.

All soffit cans have been wired together and to the box.

About 1/2 the sconce boxes have been wired so far.

I am using my workshop 20 amp breaker for the soffit cans, sconces and rope lighting. This breaker only has a few lights on it and the rest of it was just intended for power tools. Since I won't be using the work shop at the same time as the theater lighting it made sense to use that breaker for the lighting too.

I have finalized my HVAC plan for the basement also. I will be adding a total of 4 6" supplies. 2 on each side of the basement and a 10" cold air return in the center of the basement. I currently have one 6" supply in the middle of the gym that I will be removing and capping off. The supplies and return will use dampers so I can maintain complete control of everything. I will use diffusers for the supplies that will also have dampers for easy access. The basement as it is now is quite comfortable in all seasons. My main reason for adding any HVAC at all is air movement and perhaps the cold air return will help out the dehumidifier with moisture removal in the spring/summer months. I want to make sure I can shut everything off if I need to and have total control in case I need to fine tune anything. I have found HVAC to be quite a complex subject. I am trying to keep it as simple as possible by following the design of the rest of the house as far as how and where to place/size the supplies/return. I did find out my Furnace is 92% efficient and it is capable of supporting the extra basement space when finished. I found some charts showing how to match up a return with supplies and calculated that the 10" return should offer slightly more volume than the 4 6" supplies. Other than that I am "winging it" and hoping for the best.

I made a store run and bought everything I need to complete the electrical phase of this project. One thing left I still need to order is a power bridge for the projector. It should only be another week or so before electrical can be marked as complete!!

Some not so exciting pics but pics nonetheless:

The sconce box wiring underway: (I nicked the romex insulation with the hammer when securing the staple so I electrical taped over that spot. I still may replace the wire but I haven't decided yet)


The box for the soffit lights, sconces and rope lighting dimmers. So far source has been run to it, soffit cans and sconces. Only thing left to run to it is the rope lighting which is up next.



Here is the diffuser I will use for my HVAC supplies. I bought the damper that goes with it also (not pictured). That white plastic thing on the left is the tool I can use to open/close it after it has been installed.

Another Superbowl party to host this week and still no awesome basement to host it in So, we will rough it again this year by having it upstairs and I will use this fire that has been lit under my butt to get moving to try to make it happen for next year.

Finally finishing up with the lighting wiring. All sconce boxes are wired and rope lighting and riser lighting have also been roughed in. All dimmers are in also. I haven't chosen what sconces I will use yet so will just cap off the wiring for now. I will be connecting to power source soon to test everything out.

HVAC supplies are beginning to arrive. I ran one run of flex duct to see how it went. Pretty easy actually but learned real fast that if there are any nail protrusions in the floor joists bays that they will catch the flex duct real fast! Once I bent all of those out of the way it was smooth sailing.

I ordered a powerbridge for the projector wiring and should have that any day. I found a special AVS link which provided quite a nice savings. I don't remember the link off hand but will track it down again if anyone wants it and can't find it?

I have been studying projectors and mounts and trying to figure out the best location to mount a projector. Still not sure which way I'm going but I was hoping to be able to use a flush mount under the soffit. I will have about 12 1/2" from the edge of the soffit to the drywall but I'm worried that won't enough. It looks like I would be limited to a projector that is no more than 16" deep (if that). Instead I may build a projector box and make it deep enough to fit worst case scenario projectors (20" or so from what I've seen so far). I could also mount from ceiling but the round post of the mount would need to clear the crown molding coming out from the soffit that hides the rope light. This, unfortunately, may make the distance to the screen too close for the screen size I am using. So I guess I still have some more thinking to do.


Wiring outlets and power bridge next which will complete the high voltage wiring step of the project. And then on to conduit and media wiring throughout.

Some new photos:

All dimmers installed. From the left:
1. Soffit 4" cans (14 total)
2. Rope lighting and riser lighting (Rope light will surround tray ceiling and riser will contain a step light and maybe some more accent lighting around the perimeter)
3. Sconces (11 total)
4. Game room 6" cans (9 total)
5. 4" Screen Flood Lights (4 total)
6. Theater 6" cans (9 total)
Perhaps someday, budget permitting, I will replace all this with a nice GE controller



Rough in for the outlet that rope light will plug in and the recessed outlet I will be installing there which will give me enough room to easily plug in the rope lighting.




For use with the riser accent lighting once constructed



First supply duct run using 6" flexible duct.

Thanks for the comment Yellowmann!

Continued with last phases of wiring this past weekend. Fired up the new lighting circuits and everything works well. Roughed in all the outlet boxes and received the powerbridge and the rest of the HVAC parts also.

Started thinking about how I am going to run my low voltage and what conduit to use and how the conduit will attach to the wall boxes etc.. To keep things as simple as possible I have decided to use the backless wall boxes specially made for low voltage applications (minus the tabs they put there to take conduit since my conduit will be larger than they would allow). I will be using 2" rigid conduit for my main runs (projector, gym tv, cardio station, and 2 touchscreen jukebox monitors) and 1/2" smurf tube for speaker wire. My conduit plan is to make it as easy and as straight as possible so I will run it directly to the media room when possible and, when not, will run it to unfinished part of basement (where workshop and utilities are) and then from there to media room. I won't need to use any conduit for any of my front speakers or subwoofer locations since I have access to the wall behind the screen wall. I will just run from there all the way to the media room.

The new lighting circuit for the soffit cans. Lights at full power.


And now dimmed to tone down the mood


All the lights installed to date on full blast. This is still without the 11 sconces! Unless someone loses a contact lens, earring or needs to get a sun tan, I think it's safe to say that it will be extremely rare for me to have to run the lights like this. The dimmers will allow complete control of our mood and purpose



The PowerBridge


1/2 of the PowerBridge installed where the projector will back up to. I am going to beef up the support in this section of the soffit so I can mount the projector to it using a flush mount ceiling bracket. I am hoping the projector will fit underneath the soffit area as it is now but, if it doesn't, I will extend out a 3/4" piece of plywood (or something) and attach to bottom of soffit to give me the room needed to fit whatever projector I go with. The top of the screen will be at about 4-5" below of the bottom of this soffit on the other side of the room so I think this is the perfect sport for the projector.


The duct work. 25' of 6" flex duct, 16X16 return air grill, a piece of sheet metal to make the return air wall cavity, a 10" collar with damper, a 10" collar without damper (to connect to the return air all cavity), 10"X36" round duct (for connecting wall cavity to return air plenum on furnace), and 4 6" collars with dampers for the new supplies. I don't find this very exciting and not looking forward to this job but I don't think it will be that bad.


The low voltage wall boxes. The one on the left is the way it comes, the one on the right is after I modified it with a hack saw. This will allow me to bring down the 2" conduit right behind it for easy access when the cover plate is removed.



Some of the roughed in outlet boxes.



Once the outlets have been wired and PowerBridge complete I will make a trip to the store for some conduit and start working on that phase. Heading to Carrier Dome tonight for SU vs Georgetown. GO SU!!!!!!!