Brandon's Man Cave Theater Build Log

**** Updating to 3D Theater! Also building new custom A/V rack.... check towards end of this thread for newer pictures*****

Edited by bl2bl2 - 6/9/12 at 10:43am

This build was actually kind of in two phases... phase one was finishing out a completely open / unfinished basement. There is now a bedroom and bathroom down there, and then of course the main room being the Theater and Game room.


That is the back of the theater, and the bedroom and bathroom are in that door to the right and behind the back wall.




This will actually be the front of the theater... the garage door is going to come out and that wall is going to be the screen.

This is pretty much all the pictures I have of phase one... after this the room was "finished" it just had not been "theater'fied" yet

Phase 2 started actually a year later... I had rented the basement out to a friend... but now that he has moved out, thats when I decided to turn it into a theater.... so here is what I am doing now.


First thing to be done was to remove the garage door and build a nice wall that can serve as a screen


I decided to build what I am calling a half wall between the theater, and what will serve as a game room.


This would be the stage, which is also a very massive subwoofer box that will house at least a couple of 18" drivers


There will be two rows of seats...this is the back row riser for the loveseat that will sit behind a set of coaster's pavilion seats.


This is the beginning stages of what will be the equipment rack... you can also see the beginning stages of the tongue and groove ceiling that will be going up.

This is a shot from the theater entrance way into the game room of us putting the ceiling up


This is the bar top that I am building to match the poker table that I built for the game room


This would be the poker table I built for the game room.... I don't know why but I can't find the pictures of the construction of this table... hopefully I can find them somewhere and post later. (Those white spots are from the camera flash... the playing cloth is flawless)


This is a shot from in the theater looking back into the game room


This is where I am as of right now.... the wood ceiling is almost done in the theater side now... in the middle where the sheetrock is recessed up into the ceiling is going to be a star sky mural painted in.

There will also be a very thick curtain on a remote controller that will be able to close the theater room off from the game room (it will go across the top of that bar) when its time to watch a movie.

I still have quite a bit of work to do... but I am working about 5 hours every night on it, so hopefully I will be done in 2 - 3 weeks.

The construction as far as wood and sheetrock mud work will be done this weekend then I get to start hooking electronics up and I finally get to get my pavilion seats out of the boxes! They have been packed up since I got them and I am really anxious to get them out!

Thank you! I will be posting more pictures as I get a little further along.... I am going to make a padded vinyl edge for the bar top just like the poker table to hide that curved edge and make it look a little better

Here is a picture of the ceiling in the back from last night. I have the 4 rear speakers mounted in the ceiling and then of course the cables for the projector there.

I have to find some speaker cloth to match the ceiling pretty good and make nice covers for the speakers

Well after a full weekend of work... things are looking great! I will very very possibly be done with all the construction and painting this week then this weekend I will get to hook up all the toys!


I can't wait to paint the thousands of little stars up in there!


This is the entrance to the theater... I am building lightbox poster frames that will go down each side (3 on each side) and after I do that, the light in there will come out and the only light will be from the poster frames, the "theater" lights that will be mounted in each step, and the big welcome to my theater sign at the bottom of the stairs.

I need some advice.... in the this picutre...



You can see the black on the back wall... those are curtains that I started putting up, but I didn't go all the way around the room because I am not sure I like how those black curtains look.

I want that wall (it is a concrete wall) to look really nice... and I am planning on putting 3 lightbox poster frames on that wall.... but I also need the wall to absorb some sound because of a pretty bad echo in there right now (which is why I was going to do curtains.

Somebody please give me some ideas of what I could do along that wall. Maby I just don't know what kind of curtains I need... those I have now are blackout curtains.

I wonder if red curtains / drapes would look good? Like dark red

anybody know where i could get some dark red drapes maby that match the poker table cloth?

Well I finally got all the dirty work done so there should not be anymore dust from sheetrock mud or cutting wood. Got everything cleaned up last night and started painting.

The screen is what I am spending the most time on painting and getting it really smooth. It looks really good with just 2 coats of Kilz white primer... but... this weekend I will be painting my Behr Silverscreen and White Pearl 3 to 1 mix paint and will probably do at least 3 or 4 coats.

I am also getting the A/V equipment set up this weekend (subs will be here Tuesday!!!), breaking the coaster pavilion chairs out of the box, starting the star mural painting, and starting construction of my many lightbox poster frames... so the fun stuff begins!

I will post pictures again after this weekend.

Well this weekend went pretty good... I lost my card reader so I have to find it before I can upload all my pictures... but I took this picture with my phone so I could at last upload something... The new pavilion seats are awesome and they look pretty good next to the one chair I already had!

Ok, my subwoofer just showed up in the UPS truck... they are huge and I am very excited to install them tonight!!!

Well... the subwoofers sound absolutely amazing.... I now understand the difference in a subwoofer built for listening to music (like I have always built before for my PA systems and vehicles) and one built for movies and really really low bottom end... I don't think you can understand the difference until you hear both, at least I didn't.


The red drapes along the wall really made the room have a theater feel. The black leather cover for my loveseat on the back row made all the seats the same color, so I really like that too.

I still have to run a trim board at the top and bottom to hide the ends of the curtains...


The subwoofers match the stage very nicely I think


Now all I have to do is finish the outside of the equipment rack and made a black glass door for it... and on the right side, I am going to make a two sided rack to match the left side and hide that speaker, but, the whole thing will be on a hinge so it can swing all the way open so there can be access to the electric panel back there.

Well I started "Phase 2" 2 weeks before Christmas and have been working on it every chance I get since then... it seems like it is taking forever but I guess when I think about it its only been a little over a month

well i did phase 1 not quite 2 years ago... i basically just put up walls, ceiling and carpet and made the bathroom and bedroom because i rented the basement out to a friend... but... he just moved out 3 months ago... so thats why i was able to go ahead and turn the basement into a true theater / game room.

More pictures coming soon! I just got the star ceiling painted and I got a couple of my poster lightboxes done! Popcorn machine just came in and got it hooked up and the screen is finished... everything is coming together!

They actually came from walmart. I was really happy how they turned out... I believe they were $14.00 for a set of the long and $9.00 for a set of the short like what is over the stage. I will have to count how many are on the wall... I forget how many it took.

When I get home tonight I will get some better pictures for you...

I just folded them over it'self every however many inches I did and then stapled them to create a fold.... and then I actually put a red rope light up at the top and capped it off with a 1 x 4 (light and 1x4 not pictured yet) so you can't see where i stapled them at the top and at the bottom. and the red rope is a very cool effect... it glows out from under the 1x4. I will try to post pictures tonight of what I am talking about so you can see how I did it... I still have the package for the exact drapes i bought, so i will take a picture of that as well so you can see exactly what I bought in case you are interested in getting the same thing.

lol... yea i had to get it to match my front row!

I don't know if i am allowed to give a link to a website on here, so i will PM you where i bought it