The Monkey_Man Home Theater Build - Page 2

Hey thanks, its making sense to me now. I have my AC power feed at the start of the run so it makes sense to run a second feed line along the first LED strip to feed the second leg like you mentioned.. Man there are a lot of options out there. You either pay $500 for a kit that meets my needs or the extremely inexpensive kits like you linked above, oh the decisions...

Drywall is all hung (thank god). First coat of mud is up! Not pictured is the second coat of mud is done. I'm waiting for the third coat. I'm paying to get the mudding done. Best $400 I have ever spent. They are doing an amazing job. In the mean time I'm planning the rear riser. My room is shy of 19 feet. What's the minimal depth I should build the rear riser for theater reclining seats. I don't want to push the front row too close to the screen which will be mounted on the wall.



Here is a shot of LED channel. I'll mount a piece of trim to hide the plywood and then I'll mount crown to that as many have done here.

Here is a nice dust precaution I picked up from DIY channel, a zipper you can mount on visqueen, I think I used 4 mil. A god send when sanding the mud.



I framed in the riser, I went with hungers because I was going to mount the buttkickers in the riser, but..... I changed my mind. I'm just going to mount the BK's in each chair. All well, I kinda want an active riser You will notice the nemesis of my HT build, that damn red pole. All well (again), if I would have built my room to avoid the pole, I would have lost use able space in the basement.







The stage, how do you guys like my design, it might catch on around here I used Google Sketchup to figure out the arc.









I'm turning and burning!

LOL, yeah.. the theory was to be able to pull the wire if need be. However, never going to happen. 1/2" tube 12 gauge CL2 speaker cable, I had to use tons of conduit lube to pull. Not to mention all the turns the smurf tube makes. Think of the smurf tube as fancy speaker wire holders

I'm 1000 lbs of sand deep thus far in the stage. I'm estimating about 2500 total pounds needed. I tell you what, you will never have as much second thoughts in the entire build until you dump that first bag of sand in the stage. It's utter insanity. It's one thing to see it done on the forums, but its complete different when you commit to it in your own home.

Sand is in the stage, 2600 lbs to be exact. That's 52 bags of play sand. I would love to say it was so much fun, it wasn't. Here are some pics of my suffering.

Some shots of the riser. I'll deck the stage this weekend.

For the rear riser I'll have a single seat to the right of the pole and a 4 seat arrangement to the left. The left side rear seating arrangement will have a center love seat. Front row will be 3 seats. I plan to go with the bullet model at the Theaterseatstore http://www.theaterseatstore.com/palliser-bullet-power

Painting the ceiling flat black isn't going well. I went to a local paint store that offers the Benjamin Moore line and they talked me into using a band of flat black that the retailer makes locally called protech. It's pretty darn flat, but pricey. So I bought 2 gallons. The issue is it dries so fast it's hard to roll the ceiling with my skills. The second coat covered well because I picked up the pace, but there was some odd roller patterns going on, not so much roll lines but roll patterns. I explained this to the paint guy so he recommended the BM extender they had there to slow drying time. I was concerned as its specifically formulated the BM Aura line. I used about 2oz in a gallon out of the 8 oz recommended. Now my third coat came out horrible. I'm using a lambs wool 1/2" nap roller. Finish looks like it wasn't back rolled. I kinda feel the extender was the issue as the second was almost acceptable. I rolled on grey tinted primer which went on perfect on the first coat so i know my technique is somewhat acceptable. It was a custom primer that the dealer offers so i know some of their paint is god. So I'm stuck. I need more paint but I don't think I should buy another gallon of the protech flat black paint. Should I switch to BM like I planned in the first place? However it wouldn't be factory tinted as they don't carry gallon containers of it. The other option is going to the Rosco Super Saturated Black Velour paint which others have used here, but it sounds like a pain to use since you need to cut it with at least 1/2:1 of water. So I guess I'm looking for a flat black that is "easier" to roll but performs as intended. Any recommendations on rollers or nap length? I picked up some purdy white dove 3/8 rollers. But I think 1/2 might be a better choice. My thinking was the lambs wool might be putting too much texture.

Interesting! What was their rationale regarding the difference between the paints? What roller type and nap length did you use? I hear yeah on drawing the line at some point. I'm not a bad painter but this is my first ceiling and its way more challenging than a vertical surface.

So you mixed the recommended 1:1? There was a old thread where it seemed most people did .5:1. At this point spraying sounds like a good idea but I don't want to spend the money to hire it out. I love buying tools but a good sprayer is expensive. It seems that spraying is way to go though. My luck I would spray it and still mess the back roll.

That just cheered me up

On man you got me thinking. I assume you back rolled after spraying?

Last night I ran to to the paint store and picked up some Benjamin Moore flat black Regal Classic (ultra base). What a difference, it rolled beautifully. It was actually blacker than the Protech. However, it not as flat. There is a defiant light reflective sheen to it. So now I have a nicely rolled ceiling good color but reflects more light. Can't I just have my cake and eat it? I'm going to let this sit for a few days to see what I should do before trying out the Rosco. Never thought painting the ceiling black would be so complicated. Sorry had to vent.