Nick's Homebrew Bar and Entertainment Area - Page 26

Here is a quick teaser photo of some of the mockup work I did this week.

Even with the holiday, taking in a couple of movies, spending time with the family and even fighting off a nasty cold, I still found some time to work on the theater (OK, maybe that's not much of a surprise to the crowd that hangs out in this forum).

The biggest change in the theater is getting all of the MDF hung on the underside of the soffits and the boards for the light tray attached. The process was the same as the one small soffit I previously documented:

1. I attached the underside
2. cut the holes for the lights
3. glued and clamped the light tray
4. filled the screw holes
5. lots of sanding and finishing

The sides were pretty straight forward, so I did those first with the help of my son. For the portion above the stage, I waited until my friend came over on Friday and we made 4' sections and pre drilled and hung them in place. We then drew the curve, removed the pieces one at a time, cut the edge and re-attached each piece before moving on to the next. Once all of the pieces were in place, we rounded over the edges using a small lightweight router.











I still have some sanding to do above the stage. In addition, I didn't finish the soffit in the back left corner of the room yet because I wanted to install the HDMI cable for the projector and get the power bridge completed before putting everything in place. I am just waiting for the HDMI cable to come in from monoprice and I can finish it up.

I would have started installing the veneer on the sides, but I was asking the veneer supplier about the corners and my concern over them potentially splitting. The recommended using a veneer softener before bending the wood around the corners. I ordered it last week and it should be here tomorrow. Then I can continue with the veneer installation.

I also began terminating all of my wiring. All of the wires are now trimmed and most of the connectors are installed. I discovered that I forgot to order the RJ45 keystones for the data ports when I placed my original order, so now I need to wait for those to arrive before I can finish up.

Behind the screen:



In the rack closet:



The 3 boxes on the left on the back wall are for the whole house sound. I ran wiring for 2 speakers and a control panel to 11 rooms. I ran the wiring 11 years ago and the original plan was to have the wiring terminated in a different spot in this portion of the basement. I had originally run extra length of wiring so that I could terminate them later, but with the move to this corner, all but one set was long enough. You can see in the picture where I had to splice the cable from one room to extend it into the box. I was actually quite pleased that this was my only issue considering I had no idea how the wiring would be used down the road.

I also trimmed up the last of the electrical wiring that was run into the switch boxes below the panel All that remains is to run the wiring from the panel to the boxes for each circuit. I am planning to install z-wave switches in the back of the theater below the panel and a z-wave scene controller by the door. Initially I plan to install cheap $1 switches for testing until I get everything else wrapped up. Then I will order the switches as one of the final steps.

My lighting will be broken into the following zones:

front, behind screen - 4 4" 50 watt halogen
front, screen wash - 4 4" 50 watt halogen
sides - 8 4" 50 watt halogen (4 per side)
rear - 2 4" 50 watt halogen
step lights - 2 tbd (1 per step)
rope light - tbd (considering RGB LED lighting).

To wrap things up for the week, I measured all of the walls so I can get ready to order the materials for my wall treatments. Hopefully I will get the OC 703 ordered this week. I haven't made a final decision on the GOM fabric yet, so that may have to wait until I finish the columns and come up with a final design.

Overall it was a successful week. I finished most of what I wanted to. I hope to knock out most of the veneering this coming weekend so that I can start on the columns. The one part that has me worried is wrapping the veneer from the underside of the stage soffit up and around the curved portion. I think I am going to call the veneer supplier and ask what the best way to do it is. I hope I don't have to cut and fit the pieces. I would like to have it be continuous.

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One final note, if I don't post for several days, please search all of the local mental institutions so that you can come save me. I have this strange feeling that my family is plotting to have me locked up. they keep talking about how I have lost it and how I am crazy whenever I talk to them about the theater.

Thanks GWCR. I am a little nervous about the curve above the stage, but hopefully it will turn out well. If I can pull it off, I think it will look fantastic.

Mike,

I am only running one, but I have a 2" conduit between the rack and the projector and it is only 60" away, so it will be easy to pull a new cable in the future if it is needed.

I also ran the same 2" conduit to the front of the theater and have a nylon rope that I can use to pull future cables through. I already used it once when I decided to add an extra cat5 cable behind the screen. I just pulled a second rope through with it and I am ready for the next change.

I just got some good news. I called some local insulation suppliers and there is a local supplier that is only 20 minutes away that stocks all types of OC703. The price to purchase what I need for my treatments is almost half of the cheapest price I can get online. It's just nice to know that I may actually come in under budget on something .

I am going to double check my math this weekend and then I may see if I can get a friend with a truck to ride down there with me next week to pick up it up.

I asked each of them if they carried Owens Corning 703 or something similar. All of the places I called knew what it was. Some had OC 703 or equivalent in stock. The others said they could order it. The place I am going to buy it from said "We absolutely have it. It is a staple item. How much do you need." I asked about alternatives, but they said that due to the volumes they sell of OC703, it is actually cheaper. I can get 24 pieces of the 1" for just under what the cheapest online place wanted for 12 pieces shipped.

The only other option I may consider is Linacoustic for behind the screen since it is already black and comes in large rolls. The only issue is that I don't know if there is an acoustic difference if I use LInacoustic instead of OC703. I will have to do a search and see what I can find out.

Thanks for checking out my thread rmajor55. Hopefully there will be lots of progress to read about in the coming weeks.

Thanks Mark. I remember seeing your theater right after you finished at the HEMI meet. Yours is one of the theaters that really inspired me.

The curve above my stage is both a blessing and a curse (or at least there have been many curse words spoken while making it ). The stage was easier, but working on the overhead curve has been a challenge. It isn't perfect, but I am hoping no one will comment on it. The biggest challenge yet is going to be the veneer. I haven't quite figured out how I am going to do the compound curve.

Great advice on the conduit. I have a 2" conduit running to the front of the theater and to the projector. I have already added a wire and am very glad it is there. It would be really nice to have a way to add/remove wires to the rest of the house.

I finally got a chance to get down to the theater to take some pictures of this past weekends progress. The biggest update is that I finished applying the veneer to the side soffits. It came out really good. Each side took two pieces.





I wish I could have picked the pieces of veneer so that I could select the pieces that matched the best. You can see in the photo below that the one piece is darker than the other. I am hoping the stain helps blend them better.



These photos show how dusty the ceiling got while sanding the mdf. I will have to go back through and use a brush attached to the shop vac to clean it up.

I plan to do some tests on blending the joints to make them less obvious. I am looking at some glues that you put in the joint and then sand the wood before they dry to fill in the gap. Hopefully this will work well.

Before I can order the materials for the soffit above the stage, I need to finish the columns so I know how much more material is needed. Hopefully this weekend I will have some time to work on them.

Also theater related - I have been working on my media storage server. I built an Unraid server that contains 8TB of storage right now. I have slowly started ripping DVDs to the server so that I can stream them throughout the house. I have also made the decision to use a Dune server in the theater for streaming audio and video stored on the network. I got a really great deal on one. It should arrive later this week.

I didn't have much time to work on the theater this weekend. I installed all of the data ports and finished up the wiring for the whole house sound. The only issue I ran into is that the phone line I ran to the theater doesn't have any colors on the wires . They are all white. I am going to have to use a meter to figure out which is which. This is going to be a pain. I actually just bought a 100' 2 line phone cord and ran it into the theater. I tested it before drywalling and it worked. I didn't realize that the wires weren't colored until I cut the end off yesterday (wire was about 15' too long, so I wanted to shorten it).

I did some research on screens this weekend. I have been leaning towards a curved screen, but based on my layout/measurements, I am right on the edge. I could really go either way. Now I just need to decide if I want to spend the extra money. Opinions?

I am planning to use an anamorphic lens.

I am continuing to research screens and anamorphic lenses. I am trying to find a balance between quality and cost. Part of me says "just bite the bullet and get the good stuff or you won't be happy". The other side of me says "you have already blown the budget. You could pay for a year of college for the kids for that much money".

My friend picked up my OC703 for me today. I was really excited to find it locally for a great price, but when he called me after he picked it up, it got even better. They gave him an additional 15% off since he is a contractor. With all of the talk about spending more money, that was something I was happy to hear. Unfortunately, the savings will barely put a small dent in my upcoming purchases.

Mike,

I did a while back, but I really need to revisit it. Based on my research and conversations with others, it looks like I would be right on the edge - maybe leaning slightly towards curved being better.

I am going to run the numbers again and I will report back with my results.

Thanks Andy. I appreciate the "reality check". I agree about adding things later. What I don't want to do is spend a couple thousand dollars on a lens and in six months wish I had a better one. It is too bad that there wasn't an easier way to demo different configurations so that you would know what does, and does not, work. That would eliminate a lot of the stress.

The funny thing is, no matter how much I stress over these decisions, 99% of the people who visit my theater will never know the difference. I don't think any friends will be walking in and asking "why didn't you get the 50' radius on your curved screen instead of the 40' radius"?

Not a lot of progress over the past week.  I have been taking care of some of the small tasks that remain.

 

One problem that I need to solve is how to cover the front wall.  I will be installing 2" of OC 703 across the front wall.  I was hoping to cover the wall with black acoustic fabric to black out the wall and to contain any loose fibers.  The issue is that I need something around 72" wide to cover the wall in a single piece with no seams.  GOM is only 66" wide.  Does anyone know if there is another acoustic fabric that will cover this width?  I'm guessing my only other option is to sew two pieces together and have a seem.  I am not too worried about it matching the rest of the walls since it won't really be seen, but I don't want to waste a bunch of fabric to get a really narrow strip.