The greene room - a journey begins.

Alright, I did it, I started a thread. I guess that makes it official, I have a project under way. I am in the planning stages however since there seems to be infinite wisdom on these boards I thought I would “think” out loud. If you have suggestions or learned a valuable lesson that you never posted in the “what I would do different next time thread” I want to hear about it.

Okay, so the project. Just what the heck am I doing? Good question, here is the loose plan in my head. This will be a multi use room in an already finished basement. We watch a bunch of movies, but also watch some TV, use the computer down stairs. I am not looking for a dedicated home theater but rather an area that has a theater like feel to it when desired.

Anyway, I am going to build something long and wide (about screen length) that will house the center channel and a 4cu/ft sealed 15” sub (I like music too, thus the sealed). Most likely I will just frame something out and then build frames covered with speaker cloth (maybe with a beveled edge) to face it with. I will keep the 42” LCD there but mount a drop down screen from the joist above to drop just in front of it. Mount PJ somewhere over or slightly behind the couch. The couch (and PJ) will be roughly 11.5’ from the screen. I am thinking about a 100”, or 106” screen. I am about to pull the trigger on an Epson 8700UB. Once I throw it up there I will hang a sheet to decide on the best screen size.

So, now the spots I am hung up about. There is a small closet under the stairs. There is some sort of plumbing/tank that the well feeds in the back of it. Other than that the closet is empty. I think it might be an excellent place to punch a hole and put an equipment rack in (home made). The construction of the house has three beams spanning the basement. One of them goes over this wall. There is no solid wall under this beam since stairs and nearly 10’ by the computer desk are open under the span. I just can’t imagine it is weight bearing. Any thoughts on that? The beam next to it is 11” tall x6.75” wide and that also has the 10’ span under it with no support there. That is also the beam that I know the wall on the second floor is over. The one I am thinking about cutting under is 12” tall and only 4.5” wide. Above it on the second floor is nothing except a short half wall. The other option for the “rack” (I know people don’t like this but I don’t mind the equipment up front) will be to build some sort of built-in in the corner upfront at a 45 degree angle. The closet idea I think will look cleaner and be easier to work with, but I am unsure if it is feasible. Would like to hear thoughts and suggestions about the equipment location .

The other “idea" is to create a soffit parallel to the beam. Then wrap it around the perimeter of the room. At least the three sides (L, C, R) and maybe came back across near the couch to give the ceiling a recessed sort of look to it. This would also hide a good chunk of the PJ hanging from the ceiling. I could also mount some accent lights shining down around the perimeter and if I bring it far enough out up front I can mount some small spots to light the screen.

So that is the rough idea and plan. Please chime in with any thoughts or comments you have.

Images ... current set up. The Fishtank is the main ambient light issue. The windows are covered in Velore Drapes and they are under a deck so don't get all that much light anyway.









Faux paint

Just looking at recessed cans. Those of you with drop ceilings, did you use the 5" or 6" ones?

Well, the wheels are rolling. I got my Epson 8700UB and am loving it, and that's projecting on a sheet!

Sheet shot . THX mode and all settings as it comes out of the box. Didn't think it was worth twaeking for the sheet . Really we were just using it to get an idea of screen size but it looked good enough that we've been watching a bunch on it. Pretty cool to watch some nature shows where whales actually look huge! CARS - love the bass in this chapter . Lots of reflections off the side wall, ceiling tiles, and flourecent light covers. No suprise here.


Spent a bunch of time preparing for this....

Rim joist sprayed. My house leaks (hopefully "leaked") like a sieve! Hopefully this was money well spent. Seems to me like too much heat gets trapped in the space above the drop ceiling and the floor (was like that before too). People say not to worry because it rises but I don't know. Seems to me I would be better off not losing that heat in that cavity and having it come directly out the vents upstairs instead. Will have to do some research down the road. I have WAY too many projects going on right now.

Anyway, spent a chunk of the day with a friend tracing wires trying to figure out how this place is wired. For some stupid reason they had only 2 zones in the basement. One small room, now the gym has it's own switched lights. The entire rest of the basement including the laundry room are controlled by one switch...at the top of the stairs going down none the less. Managed to brake the laundry room light off it today. Going to tap from the same original power source and run seperate switches for the laundry room and the lights over the computer. Ultimately I will put in some cans and likely some small cans or rope light in some sofits.


Experimenting with solutions to black out these drop tiles....


Still lots of planning to do. I think I have decided to stick with the motorized screen idea (was starting to toy with the idea of a fixed screen). Most likely the Focupix Tension Tab 106". I was considering the Elite Cinetension at 110" but the cost is quite a bit more. Not sure if it is worth it for the extra 3" of horizontal width. I don't think the actual quality of the screen differs much, but then again I am a total newbie and don't know very much about this stuff!

Cheers!

Well I cut a hole in the wall next to the closet with the well water pump (to put a switch box). I reached around back there and found a cylindrical beam that aparently supports the span above (perpendicular to the wall I cut in). Had someone with construction experience look at the wall and he also felt there should be no issue cutting into the other side of that closet space for the "rack". As long as I don't mess with that front corner or the rest of the wall where the door is. I'll open up the wall from inside the closet and see what I am dealing with.

For the ceiling tiles. I found that foam board (or maybe some new acoustic panels without the ridges) covered in car headliner looks really good. It looks sleek and modern, soft and plush with low light reflectivity.

An electrician friend is coming over to take a look at what I have going on. He doubts I'll need another circut but didn't want to say until he looked. I was just looking at my box and there is a 20amp circut that leads to an outdoor outlet that used to run a hot tub. That is no longer even there and the only thing on that line are a string of Christmas lights along the deck railing. That might be all I need really.

Ripped out more of the flourecent lights and got a few zones going now. Got a suggestion for some cans and will research more on that. We'll say what my buddy says about that too. For the main area (24x14) I am thinking 6 cans. Two in the rear, then two over the seating, and two more between the seating and tv/screen. I'll put them all on the same run with the swicth upstairs but run another switch to the front 4 so I can kill them if I want. Sometimes when I am watching TV I like a little ambient light in the room and the two rears should do that well (along with the fishtank). I would like to run a two way switch to the one at the top of the stairs. Sadly there is no access to the wall it is in from below. Worse yet the wall is solid wood construction with a hole bored up to the swicth. I'd be too paranoid about not being able to get wires back through to mess with it.

So, slowly it goes but it does go . I posted in the dedicated theater section but can anyone reading here tell what the pros and cons are for choosing to make a side wall column from MDF vs sheetrock?

had an electrician friend over and got the thumbs up on my work so far. Gonna go to Joanns tonight and gets some fabic to experiment with and some flat ceiling panels from Lowes. While I am there I will look at the Can lighting. He brought up a good point of being sure I match the the small sofit cans with the nearby larger room can's trim style.

He is also going to run a home run to my main box with 2 lines out. One will power the AV stuff and the other the new lighting. That will leave the powered sub on the outlet run along the back wall that really has almost nothing else on it.

So, I am anxious to do some stuff. The planning takes a long long time. I have been goign over stuff in my head and reading here for months and had a good idea of what I wanted. Once it came time to get the details ironed out it seems to have taken on a life of it's own.

I am going to put a short ceiling to floor wall (about 2-3 feet long) nect to the desk. I plan on getting some curtain track to embed in the sofit there so I can pull some curtains and isolate the room more (thanks Ted for helping me solidify that idea).

Two things I am still going round and round about are how far out to extend the front wall sofit, and what screen to use. The sofit I was just going to use the same width all around but I am entertaining the idea of pulling it forward more, like 2-3ft.

I go back and forth bewteen the motorized/tensioned Focupix and Elite screens. Was thinking about a Da Lite but this will be the first screen. if this get serious then I will go with a better screen. if I really get into it I would probably do a fixed wall screen with masking system.

Oy vey, decisions, decisions... feeling sort of lonely here. 6 posts and all from me! I feel like that dude I see on the corner every now and then talking to himself .

Gasp - visitors, whahoo! Okay, now I am blatenly asking for help and input . Hope the cavalry is out there in the background and will chime in.

I cut open the wall . Looks like as I thought the steel post is the support. There is framing that I “think” is just to screw the sheetrock too (can someone confirm this?). I can almost twist (flex) the left most 2x4 so there can’t be much if any weight on it). It looks like the stud is toenailed directly into the 12” beam that spans the house width with no 2x4 “header” (guess that 12” beam is enough aye ). I am thinking to cut it out (the stud) except the top 6”s or so (to use a cripple stud (?). Then run a sort of header and move that stud over nearly flush to the steel beam. The space between the studs now is 16 and my widest equipment is 17” (Blu ray player). I can pick up about an inch and half and just squeeze my equipment in there. There will still be only one stud but I am "pretty" sure that will be okay). This stuff is pretty new to me (only messed with walls once or twice but had some supervision and didn’t do much structurally – I think it's the same case here). Can someone, anyone hold my hand here . I am on, am I overlooking something, anything?







Regarding the questions from my contributers .

Juan - yeah, I am going to build approximately and 18" "shelf" out from the wall. It will hold the TV, and hopefully when the screen drops it will flush out with the front of it. It will sort of be like a raised stage. It will have a few Pillars to hold it up. Between the pillars will be several open frames covered in speaker cloth. The center channel and sub will be behind the cloth wall. I was thinking to pull it out over that. Probably won't do it though.


Chain, yeah I was quite amazed at the sheet to tell you the truth. Still not sure if I am going to do the Focupix, Elite, or other. Open to suggestions. As for the Spray foam. I had three options ranging from like $800+ to $1300 depending on how much work I did. I opted to do all the prep work and saved about $400 (taped the drop ceiling supports, removed all the ceiling panels, and moved all the furniture and stuff to the center of the room.). I decided to let them clean up everything (cost a couple of hundred but was worth it I think). They basically just covered everything in drop clothes, sprayed, and cleaned up. It was 6" deep and about 10"s tall. The entire perimeter was done (Not sure what that was but maybe you could guestimate from the Sketch up above). It cost me $1100.

got some confirmation from the people over in the more lively "dedicated" area that I should be okay movign that there 2x4. So, I am gonna go for it. Project for tonight, rip out the rest of the Flourecents in the gym area and put in the cans. Run new wire and switches for the fishtank/theater area. Decide on the excat sizes and cuts for the Sub box. 4 ct/ft, 15" Rythmik kit. Hopefully I will be routering and glueing it up tomorrow some time!

frig, nothing ever takes as long as you think it will! Word to the wise, if you remove drop ceiling panels number or mark them somehow. I thought they were all the same size, but alas I was wrong. What a PITA trying to figure out what went where. My 2x4 panels have a grid of 6 raised squares per panel and I had some issues getting things to line up. Now I noticed that some had the panels notched (top make them smaller) or had a nub of another panel (to make them longer). Subtleties that I missed when taking them out. Makes sense, I think most rooms are out of square so they need to compensate somehow. If doen well you just shouldn't notice. I didn't, and now I am paying for it. Well see how much it bother me down the road. Might need to buy a new box of panels and customize the ones that are off. Then again, I will be replacing the front 9 panels by the screen with solid flat ones covered in the ehad liner. Guess I'll have those olds ones to play with.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get some wood cut for the sub, clean up the mess from tonight, and drop those wires for the other cans.

we have light . It's mandatory to have a very messy work space with tools strewn all about right? How else would you waste all that time walking around looking for the one you need? Ugh, I actually ditched my sweats and donned some painter pants to store gear in the pockets. As usual took w a y l o n g e r than I anticipated.

Cut the pices for the sub and realized I miss read my plans. Thankfully I cut the pieces too long. I cut for all the pieces to overlap one another. Problem is I didn't account for any to be the ones "overlapped". So a few of my pices are 3/4's of an inch to big.

Anyone built thier own sub? I've done drawers before but they are shallow. I am trying to think about the best way to actually construct the box. I am thinking about putting the back wall flat on the table and then building the 4 sides as walls. I'll recess the front inside the face opening and have the braces inside to help if from falling in (once the sides and solid and glue cured). I will probably use 1/2 MDF to recess the driver and I will overlap the front panel entirely, and all the faces of the sides and tops. That should make it plenty strong and take care of any small errors on my part involving gaps when I try and fit the front face perfectly in.

Not really sure that is the best way. Any one have suggestions on this? Anyone even reading this?

Hey Mayhem - actually what I am going to do is use the back auto ceiling upholstery material on flat suspended ceiling tiles. At least that's the plan. I will do the entire ceiling sofit to sofit extending out three rows forward (8ft). That should take it back to almost the sitting position.

So going out from the equipment closet I figure I need - anything I missed?
HDMI - will need a swicther? Need one line to the TV and one to the PJ.
Sub out
Speaker wires

going in -
Cat 5 or 6 to stream to Blu Ray
HDMI's
power
Cable in - coax

Seems like there should be more. What am I missing?

no one on that wiring? No one on the wall question, sub building question.... Man, maybe I should move this over to the dedicated theater section....lots of action and input over there with people throwing around their thoughts and ideas. Sorry man, I am just cranky. I really could use some input and thoughts though.

Not a lot of progress today. 3 and half hours and got about squat done. Ripped out the last of the flourecents, pondered my wiring plan and light placement forever. I placed soem cans in the grid and wired some. Only two have power. I cut a hole in the wall bigger for the three gang box but I think I am goign to go with a 4 gang. Since I can't get the switch upstairs to be a three way I am just goign to interupt that zone down here with another switch. I'll just need to remember to turn it on before going up or the swicth upsatirs won't do anything. My plan is to use a puch switch so really it won't get flipped down here but can be dimmed enough that they essentially go away.

Wondering if I have enough light for the area. There will be 8 across 24 feet long and spread apart laterally by 4 or 5 feet. Since there is a HVAC duct on one wall and there will be up front too it narrows the ceielign area. The photo shows them 4 feet apart. I think 5 feet would move them to laterally and the way they are now they the one over the sofa will be about over each armrest. The other thought was that instead of doing 8 (4 sets of 2) to do 4 sets of three. That actually may be too much though. There will be three switches though. One for the 2 over the sofa, one for rear most lights, and one for the last 4 that are on either side of the sofa set.






Never even got a chance to figure out the exact dimensions for the Sub box. Also got a pile of lumbar delivered today that needs to be panited and stained. Havign some windows installed next week and that was job I did not want to take on. I am not a fan of heights and there are some huge windows too.

Unsure of what I am goign to do with the sofits. Was going to do small sofit lights to wash the wall. In thinkign about it I am not sure how it will look since the windows will break it all up. I might do some sort of crown of lip and do the rope lighting instead. The one down side of that is with the screen down part of it will be blocked. Then again it would block two of the cans too.

Well, I need some sleep. Place is a mess with wires everywhere. Most are dead and the one that isn't is wire nut'd and taped up. I'm the only one here anyway since the g/f is away on Vac.

Well, not done yet but in the final stages.... waiting for some more material for the ceiling and an HDMI cable. Just a twaek or two more on the trim and phase one (by far the largest aspect of it) of the basement is complete.

Okay, I'm sure I forgot some stuff. Furthermore the details are often not listed. For example for the Basemolding I attached 3/8" wood to the back side to build it out. I wanted it to accept some vertical trim flushly. I also added 1/2" MDF to the upper half of the back side of the basemolding for the backwall. I did that to leave a void on the bottom half to run my HDMI, and speaker wires to the screen wall.

Been awful quiet around here. Would really appreciate some feedback. An "I like it", or a "hey you could have done this or that", or even an "not sure I like....".

Anyway, here it goes.....

What I did -

-First I bought some new tools : ).
-traced the wiring for the entire basement. Then I removed 9 fluorescent fixtures ranging from 2 to 4 bulbs each.
-rewired the entire basement (lighting). Used well over 300ft of 12/2 Romex.Went from two zones for the entire basement area to having 9 separate zones most with dimmers.
-Installed 17 can lights, 3 sconces, three runs of rope lighting on two separate switches, and three new ceiling outlets. Had too measure and cutout all the holes for the cans in the drop ceiling panels.
-shortened some forced air ducts and capped one off.
cut a hole in the wall, sheet rocked, framed and made a built in "AV rack". Installed low volt boxes for cable runs in and out. One for "in coming" and one for "outgoing" wires.
-Trimmed the hole in the wall for the AV rack (with reclaimed wood - sanded, stained, and sealed). Cut 24 gauge sheet metal surround covers with 4 to 6 screws per panel - steel wooled then painted satin black. Gives a flush and very clean look to the rack, lowers dust issues.
-built my first wall ever - a 4' foot long wall (first time build - from bare concete floor and sill plate, to studs, sheet rocked, mud and tape), Did this to help define the space and match the column on the opposite side of the room. Also will have shelving on back side of column for the computer area.
-built two wall columns from scratch - MDF, mounted them, stuffed with R 19 insulation.
-Made custom cutout to have J box accessible per code.
wired for, mounted receptacles for 3 wall sconces in the columns and ran Romex.
-built, filled, smoothed, primed, painted, and mounted soffits for aesthetics and to hold rope lighting
-built from scratch an 8 foot long cabinet complete with GOM clothed beveled edged frames and a curved, routered front edge for both the top and bottom parts. The center panel will have push type drawer slides and pop out to reveal two drawers to hold Blu Rays and DVDs.
-covered the drop ceiling panels with automotive headliner material
mounted a recessed (flush) a curtain track in the left soffit to make the computer area "go away" if desired.
-built a sealed 4 cu/ft box and mounted the 15" 600watt Rythimk Sub Woofer. Used a 1 inch roundover on all visible edges.
-mounted the Epson 3500UB PJ to the joist, ran power and placed an outlet near it. Used a low volt box cut into the ceiling panel to run wires and maintain a clean looking installation.
-added (3) 15Amp circuits (only thing I didn't do myself - I had an electrician friend connect the runs to the panel once I pulled all the wires and set up the J boxes, outlets and switches they were going to. I want to live and be able to sleep peacefully at night with no worries about electrical issues. I also had him give a look over on all my other wiring.
-Ran what seems like miles of 14 gauge speaker wire. Wired for 7.1 surround sound (only 5.1 is up currently).
-Mounted, leveled, found power for and installed a 106" tensioned motorized drop screen.
-Painted walls, columns, sofits, trims, sub box, and the console unit up front.
-Installed chair rail.
-Ripped down 1X4 inch pine and routered it to make trim to mount under the soffits. I wanted something not very tall but sort of deep. Used a Double Roman Ogge edge.
-Modified the corner edge trim with a groove on the edge.
-Added blackout material to the velvet curtains.

Still to do:

Finish ceiling panels (waiting for material to be in stock).
Decide how I want the ceiling where the rope light shines upwards (white edge, no edge, other color, all black?)
finish baseboard on back wall (waiting for longer HDMI for LCD TV before I can do this.
Finish trimming out columns
Calibrate PJ.
Calibrate audio.
Install subwoofer and amp into the box.
Mount two rear speakers for 7.1
Curtains for divider between media area and computer.


For the overall project:

laminate floor in computer area.
Build a wrap around desk for the computer area (Fiancee wants a space for a sewing machine or something (shrug...)
Build out the wall behind the couches to place the fishtank (semi flush) and house two beverage coolers (one for wine, one for beer), and a space for blankets and stuff.
get carpet installed.
Install 6 panel doors.





things I learned

having no equipment lights upfront makes an awesome difference. I didn't think it mattered and wasn't gonna move the equipment except I really liked the sleekness of the built-in rack and had the space to do it. I am SOOOO glad I did. I makes a HUGE difference.
everything takes way longer than you think.
careful about butt joining sofits - if you have a light tray that doesn't work. Plan ahead and cut before building
cutting sheetmetal plates precisely to sung up to equipment takes a long time
really plan out your base molding and trim ideas before hand. I am thinking about bumping some stuff out deeper and it will force me to do a ton more work. Nothing worse than doing things twice because you planned poorly.
think about coming up with your entire color scheme ahead of time.

over a 150 views since I put up the new pics and not a single comment. No one has suggestions, likes, or dislikes? For me the whole value of these forums is sharing of information and ideas. Well I guess that's why I had the 2 month gap in posts rather than documenting the entire process in detail, one way sharing and exchanging of information.

ahh, input, and interaction. Wow, that feels good. Thanks for the input and thoughts. Yeah, to be honest I have yet to tweak the 8700. So far I have been pretty impressed with it out of the box in THX mode. Once the trim work and a few other little tid bits are done I will work on that. I did get a balibration disc but have yet to run it.

Thanks again for the input. I was starting to get a complex like the little kid being ingnored on the playground .

Anyway, hopefully if I have time this weekend I will be posting more pics. I took a lot during the process. I often found that helpful (or at least enjoyable, to see the progress or the how's) in other people's threads.

I blacked out the first 2 rows of the ceiling panels (and ran out of material). I will probably do the first three rows (the first 6 feet from screen to my sitting area). That about covers my upwards peripheral view as I look at the screen. From what I have read our perception of image quality is due the surrounding hues and shades. Having more black around also helps eliminates reflections. Relfections of light cause distracting bright areas above the image that might draw your eye. They also can reflect light back onto the screen and wash out the depth of the blacks the PJ can produce.

Ah, the front end. It was a LOT of work, but in the end I really like how it came out. I basically framed out stand with 1x2's. I created it to be the about the same width and the screen. I also made it deep enough to house the 4Cu/ft Sub I am going to put in it. I routered the front uprights (1x2's) with a nice edge bead. I was try to save money anywhere I could.





I built framed insert panels to make up the front end wall (I got the idea from the Flying Pic Cinema thread - thanks to that person if he see's this). I wanted it colored color, but knew the sub would be in there and wanted it acoustically transparent and no reflective of light. I was gonna put the center in there too. Though the fabric is GOM I just felt it might block some of the highs. I decided to allow the center to have it's own area and maintained the factory grill. I liked the look anyway. I cut the frames on a 45 degree angle to give the bevel and extra depth/texture.



I used a large radius (like 40 feet!) to create a curved front edge for the top and bottom solid MDF pieces (the top piece is actually what the framing is sitting on in the first picture. You can see the rough first cut of the edge. You can even see the lines from the first attempt at finding a nice sweeping radius to the back. It was to curved and didn't leave me enough depth on the sides for the sub). The 1x2 frame was just mitered to create a curve but the top and bottom pieces were cut with a jig saw and the routered smooth. I'll get better pics over the weekend hopefully. Here is the last pic when I was mock fitting the panels before the top was put on.

yeah, I think this place is all about exchanging and gaining ideas from one another, go for it. Tons of what I did I did because I saw it somewhere else. Maybe a few ideas were utilized in a different way but I doubt I have done anything "new".

Yellowstone with most of the lights down. You can see the computer on the left. Thus one of the reasons for wanting the curtain. The track is there, just need the materials.



Lights up. From that short wall and to the left in the computer area is going to be laminate floor. You can see the sub in it's testing position after having just mounted the woofer and Amp. It's home will be in the stand behind the two panels on the left, concelled. This things digs a lot deeper than my old one! You can also see the unfinished ceiling panels and the way I ran the wires for the PJ. I have some sort of "hum". The Sub won't power down on auto. I also notice it with some of the other audio stuff on. This is going to be PITA to trouble shoot. Not many people have chimed in so I guess I won;t expect it now either, but should anyone have any ideas they care to share to help me out I would appreciate it!

Thanks Un4TBL .

I read the "hum" sticky in the other forum. Looks like I might have a gound loop issue. Going to trouble shoot more this week sometime. Not sure when, I am slammed at work. Lucky for me if that is the issue I have the main cooper ground wire running right past the outlet for the AV outlet. That would make my life way easier if that is the solution.

Turns out it was the cable box coax. I ran it through the monster power conditioner I had a nd it's gone. Thanks to the guys in the Audio Theory section for the help!