My Mahogany / Invisible Speaker build - Page 2

Thanks, MM. We definitely enjoy the look of the room along with the sound, and your system was what enabled that combination.

Regarding screen shots, I can try to post some, but I've never been able to really capture it well. Someone once posted that sharing a screenshot is like calling someone up and having them listen to your high-end stereo system -- either the phone or the camera is going to limit the quality of what comes through. I guess I can sort of relate to that sentiment.

In any case, my next task is to calibrate the projector. It's still just out of the box and I'm sure I can improve on that.

Bryan

I went with 2 3/8" total overhang. That gives room for the rope light between the carpet behind it and a 3/4" by 1" lip of wood that I installed in front to hide the rope light. After easing the corners of the plywood with a 1/2" roundover bit, the carpet wraps down the front of the step and is stapled into the lip. The rope lights just snap into some plastic channel that I screwed to the bottom of the plywood.

Couple shots below -- sorry for the poor quality but hopefully they show what I did.

Here's a shot of the bottom of the plywood for the lower riser, ready to install:


And here's the step detail, almost ready for carpet. (Note that the step, which was free-floating at the time, was turned backwards with the overhanging lip temporarily facing the back riser - otherwise, it would tend to tip forward until I permanently installed it.)


Bryan

Well, I'm going to dust off this build as I start the 2nd phase of the project, which will be to build a bar in the area just outside the HT. I have a space about 14' x 14' to play with, and in that I'd like to build a useable and comfortable bar area.

Features:
- 42" display over the bar that can show the same or different content versus what's playing inside the HT
- Smaller display, mounted vertically, near the HT entrance for the "now playing" content (essentially a dynamic movie poster)
- Kegs on tap
- Single drawer dishwasher
- 18" built-in icemaker
- Undercounter refer for garnishes, bottled beer, etc.
- Integrated 42U rack for current and future IT needs

I'm planning to build it myself, as I did the HT, out of mahogany and ideally it will all look like it was planned together with the HT, once completed.

At this point, I'm very interested in feedback and suggestions... All are welcome, but I'd particularly like to hear from those who have a bar near the HT and thus have experience in what works and what doesn't.

With that, here are some shots of the actual space and some shots of the 3D model I've been playing with in Sketchup.

First, the space looking directly into the corner:


And a similar view of the model:



Looking at the 2nd corner, you can see the entrance to the HT on the left:


And the similar view of the model:


A few more shots of the model....

Here's a "plan" view from directly above. You can see the stairs coming down on the right and the HT entrance on the left. I'm hoping that angling the bar at a 45 helps to fit into that area without blocking access into and out of the HT:



This is looking down and into the bar area. From left to right along the back wall, you can see a sink, the icemaker, the rack space, and finally the small refer underneath a built-in coffee maker. Also, you will notice that I'm playing around with the type of faucet tower to go with.



This is from inside the bar, looking back at the rest of the room. There are three counter heights here: The bar itself is 42"; the white counter on the left is lowered to 30" -- I was thinking this to serve as the main work area for mixing drinks -- and the white counter on the right is the standard 36" height. You can see a single-drawer dishwasher under the work area. To the right of that are side-by-side 24" refers that I plan to convert into kegerators. And I should add that while the bar surface is shown as wood, it's actually going to be granite with the molded wooden front "armrest" area:



Finally, the view from inside the HT, looking out at the bar:



That's where things stand today -- all plans and no action. Actually, we are going to be starting this project soon by tearing up all the carpet in that area and having the concrete floors stained and finished. So while we're waiting for that to happen, please fire away with your comments. Have I left enough space to move around? Are any areas inside the bar too tight? Are the counter heights reasonable? Can I pour a beer from the HT side without having to walk all the way around? Etc....

Thanks,
Bryan

Thanks, Driver_King. I'm happy with the sound of the system, but as is often the case, I don't know what I'm potentially missing as I have nothing to compare it to. I would offer that this transducer-based system is more about the final look of the room and less about audiophile-type sound. I can get it plenty loud, but I wouldn't say I can take it to reference levels. I don't need or want a room where I can put that much sound power into the air, so it works for me.

I'd add that this application is probably at the high-end of what you can do with a single receiver/amplifier. I'm using an Onkyo TX-NR5008, 9.1 channels, rated at 145W / channel, and it works very hard during a loud performance. If you haven't already, check out RedTopDown's installation and note the 9 or so external 2000W amps that he's using.

For bass, I have two Hsu STF-1 subs, one at each front corner. We also wired the room to be able to add two more subs in the rear corners, though I haven't felt the need to add those yet.


I don't feel like I'm lacking frequencies at either the high or low end.

Hope that helps,
Bryan

Update: My son-in-law and I were able (barely) to muscle out the carpet on Sunday, getting the room ready for the concrete finishing guy. If you've had the joy of moving 50 yards of carpet before, you'll appreciate how heavy that huge roll is!

Here's how the bar area looks after two days of surface grinding the slab. It's a very loud and very dusty process...



Overall, the slab seems to be in good condition, though there's one significant crack. He doesn't seem too concerned about it, though.



When we poured this slab, we first installed PT 2x material around the perimeter -- this was both to insulate the slab (radiant heat tubing) and to provide a place for the carpet guys to nail their tack strips.

Now, however, this wood is not desirable for a finished concrete floor, so Monday evening I spent sawing and chiseling out the top 1/2" or so of the wood. Today he'll install a skim / float coat of special concrete that will fill the void on top of the wood and bridge between the two sides of the gap. I think there's a chance of hairline cracks developing along this joint, but for the most part it's around the perimeter. Only where the bottom of the stairs leads out into the room does it cross, as shown above. Worst case, I figure we can put a rug down...

Finally, here's a shot from inside the HT, all taped up. As you can see by the "floaties" caught by the flash, it's a dusty process, even with all this plastic.

While the floor guys continue on the stained concrete floors, I want to start getting some of my appliances ordered. One of the challenges that I've been trying to solve is what to do with the kegerator setup. My goals:

- Utilize two 24" undercounter refers / kegerators set side-by-side
- Each can hold up to a half-barrel (full-sized) keg, or a couple 5 gallon home-brew kegs
- Some way to keep the beer cold all the way up to the faucets

It doesn't appear that there are many small refers that can handle a half-barrel keg, but the Marvel 61HK appears to be one of them. These come with a single tap tower that's normally installed directly on top of the kegerator, but I want to remove that and replace it with some piping to a remote tower that sits on top of the granite bar top. Since that granite is 42" high, that should leave me 6-8" between the granite and the tops of the kegerators in which to run the beer lines, perhaps inside some 3" PVC with expanded foam insulation around them.

Since pictures are worth a thousand words...

Here's a reminder of the setup. In addition to the side-by-side kegerators, I also want a matching refer for bottled beer, garnishes, etc.



From the other side of the bar, this shows the two kegerators and the remote CO2 bottle.



And here's one with some of the cabinetry stripped away, showing the idea of the insulated pipes between the kegerators, utilizing the hole in the top of each of them (where the normal tap tower would have been mounted):


What do you guys think? Has anyone done anything like this? How about keeping the lines cool -- either air-cooled or liquid-cooled?

Thanks for any and all ideas...

Update: The concrete floor work is done and I must say I'm pleased with how it turned out. It's a mottled effect with various shades of browns, from dark to light.

Going back a few days, here the installer is floating about 1/4" of engineered concrete on top of the existing slab:



The floated floor.



And the finished floor:


Unfortunately, it's not easy to capture the look well with my camera so until I get some better lighting going in the area, I'll just have to ask you to trust me that it looks better than in these pictures.


To make the transition into the existing HT, I milled down a piece of Mahogany to about 3/8" thick, with a taper along the front. This got epoxied down to the concrete floor, and then the carpet guy epoxied a tack strip just behind that. Now he just needs to wait a day for that to set before he comes back to stretch the carpet out and finish it along the new threshold piece.


To finish this out, I'll eventually run some toe-molding around the perimeter of the room to cover the gap under the existing base molding, but that will be done after the new bar cabinetry gets installed.

Thanks all!

Mfusick, I probably invested ~5 hours in watching the various intro and medium-level Sketchup tutorials and playing around with it (including a few fails in there) before I was able to feel confident enough to start building the model. I don't do this for a living, and while I've used some 2D CAD programs a fair bit, I wouldn't say that's a requirement for using Sketchup -- it's a very different approach to drawing / creating things. You might be amazed at how much you accomplish by simply drawing a rectangle and then extruding it out a distance (the Pull command)... every cabinet I drew is just a series of these operations, defining one piece of wood at a time. Of course there are shortcuts, too, including being able to import library elements, for things like the refers and the beer tap tower. Hope that helps!

One of the things I want to do before I can finalize the plans is to figure out what style and sizes of frame/panels I'm going to use for doors and for various parts of the cabinets. I just purchased a 3-piece router bit set for making these, and wanted to start by trying it out on some pine.

Here are the various pieces, including a small glue-up for the panel:



Following the instructions that come with the bit set, the process starts with installing the "stile" bit in the router table and zeroing out the fence so it's inline with the router bit:



Running the inside edge of all four pieces yields this:



Then, with the "coping" bit installed, you mill the ends of the two rails so they fit into the vertical stiles:

As you can see, the height of the bit wasn't quite right, but by measuring the error and then raising the bit by that amount, I was able to dial that in.


Finally, I ended up with a decent frame:



On to the panel -- here it is after a couple passes with the panel raising bit:



I kept raising the bit by ~1/8" or so, then making a pass around all 4 sides, until I got to the final height. Again, by measure the thickness of the edge and figuring out what more needed to be removed to fit into the 1/4" slot, it wasn't hard to get the panel the right thickness:



And finally, the prototype door milled up and dry fit together. Considering I didn't spend any time milling this stock or ensuring it was all the exact same thickness, it turned out pretty well, I think.


I think the design is okay, but I'm toying around with what I can do to kick this up a notch, specifically with some applied molding around the inside of the flat part of the frame. I'll see what's available in some new router bits and see what I can come up with, and if anyone has any ideas, please send them my way...

Thanks for all the thoughtful comments and suggestions, TMcG! I just checked out your build and, given the thought and effort you're putting in there, plus your real-world living with these choices, I certainly value your inputs.

A couple thoughts back...

I like the idea of ice being closer to the work area, and I will play around a bit to see if I can make that work. My thought has been to make that working counter lower (30") which easily accommodated a single drawer dishwasher, but it has been bugging me that the dishwasher should probably be closer to the sink, so I will look at that. My wife would love to donate our full-sized Bosch dishwasher from her kitchen to my bar, and that would buy me some points if I could make that work. One thing I don't want is to allow a full-sized dishwasher door to interfere too much in moving around the bar, particularly where it gets tight back there by the sink.

The ice maker will require a full 36" counter height, so I'll have to see how that would fit near the work area, but I also probably don't need that full 5' of working space to mix drinks. I also want a "passive" drain on the ice maker (vs a pump), so closer to the sink / rear wall will be preferable for that.

On the kegerators, I wanted to have the ability to have at least one full-size keg (half barrel) or quarter barrel (same diameter), and most refers and kegerators I looked at didn't seem to be able to accommodate that large of a diameter (there is usually a "bump" in the bottom rear of the refer that gets in the way). The Marvels I've now ordered seem to be one of the few that do, and while I agree that I probably don't need more than one keg that size on tap, I wanted them to match so ended up with two. I think that mostly I'll be running a couple home brew (5 gal) kegs in there at once, but when we throw a big party (which we do a couple times a year), I figured I'd rather have too much keg capacity vs. too little.

I'll continue to play with the design and post some more thoughts here.

BTW, I'm going with African Mahogany, too.

Good point on the dishwashers, and those Summit kegerators are nice -- I debated between those and the Marvels.

I'll be finishing my Mahogany to match what's already been done for the adjacent HT. If you look back to post #29 on this thread, the bottom picture is probably the best one to show the finish. While I built it all, I didn't want to tackle the finish so I brought in a professional for that. I believe he used a series of gel stains to even out the various colors of the wood, sealing each section with shellac as he went, then put a satin poly on top of that. Not nearly the perfect finish that a French Polish would yield... we didn't attempt to fill the pores, for example.

FWIW, you're looking at both Mahogany and Sapele in that picture. I had to mix and match various species in the HT more than I would have liked, but unless you're really looking at the grain patterns, it all seemed to work okay in the HT. For the bar project, I was deciding between Honduran and African Mahogany, and given the similarities, went with the AM that's about half the price here locally.
Edited by cowger - 6/12/13 at 11:21am

Great analogy on the CAD programs. I'm sure that experienced 3Ders will use what they like; for me, I'm having a great time on my Huffy...

Thanks for the comments on the cooling. I agree and I'm leaning toward air cooling, given its relative simplicity and the short runs I'll be doing. Here's the faucet tower I ordered:


The website states that it's designed to be air cooled, so I'll play around with that and a mock-up of the PVC chambers once I receive everything. There was an 8 week leadtime for both the kegerators and this tower, so I wanted to get that process underway. I plan to start on the rest of the cabinetry and then finalize that portion of the bar once I'm satisfied that things will work as expected...