Andy's Maple Ale Theatre - Page 2

Thanks Doc. We're leaning towards wood and stone for a woodsy-cosy feel (but not rustic).

Well about 99% of the flooring is down, which is exciting, and I am almost done the main framing around the theatre room (just working around the rack and stairs right now).

In the meantime, I need to catch up on a couple of updates - just for my own records really.

First was our little collection of condensate lines from the furnace.



(you can tell they originally weren't attached to the drain and the water dribbled everywhere - they're tied now)

Since we have an unused sink drain pipe next to the HWT in the (new) furnace room I was hoping to redirect all those lines into that drain pipe and not have them all over the floor. I heard issues and dangers about sewer back-ups going into your furnace if you connect directly to a house drain, and I also saw some good solutions to that as well.

But the big point that I didn't see noted too often is that you want the condensate lines there to keep priming the P-trap in the floor drain, otherwise the P-trap would dry out and you get the smell of a thousand houses in your basement (or their sewers at least :-) )

Here is the current progress on the furnace room.



Although I am doing my best to soundproof I have to keep reminding myself that it is on a best-efforts basis due to space, time, and money constraints. It is staggered-stud and you can see I have the inner-side of the wall filled with insulation. What you can't see is that I have the inner side almost fully drywalled as well.

I spoke to a tech fellow at Roxul and he said it was fine to wrap the Safe'n'Sound around the large duct (he discouraged wrapping the entire length of duct with it, and I told him that wasn't my plan). I plan on using QuietCoat on the ducts and then drywalling them in using metal studs.

Still lots of work to be done on the ceiling part.

The small wall bit to the right of the door opening will have to be modified as I apparently need a vent into the room for the HWT (another one of those constraints on my soundproofing desires). I am going to try an idea where the vent is fed by a drywall duct within the room that has inner sound dampening. This would give me the non-forced airflow for combustion but make it challenging for the sound waves to work their way out.

Hopefully Safe'n'Sound doors will go on sale soon and I can get the door and see how it's working so far. Not very soundproof with a door-sized hole in the wall !

A tricky framing area at a corner between two interior walls with lots of don't touch me's in the ceiling.



The box and force-fit within the beam flanges for the left section worked great. This created a surprisingly solid wall even before I added the section under the I-beam for the other wall. For the right wall section I put a 2x6 under the i-beam and used liquid nails (you can see the temp clamp in the pic). I also connected it to the left wall and plan on putting a vertical flange for bonus lateral movement resistance.

Big sigh as I post the last update that will probably happen before June. We're going away on a nice family vacation and then returning to go to our 20th university reunion. Before that I have to do all the spring house stuff, as well as pack for the trip and let's not forget Mother's Day and both my kids birthdays !

Anyhoo, current pictures below. I bit messy with the tools and such lying around. The insulation is lined up in the back pretending to be the bar.



View from behind bar (insulation moved)


and the rack now in place! Under the stairs will be a DVD shelf area.



Have a happy May everyone !

Off to Puerto Rico ! Woo hoo !

Long time no post ! Well we had a great vacation, and everyone had all their birthdays, and school is almost over for the boys. I'm slowly getting back into the thick of things...

Recent accomplishment: Pocket doors !

These are actually around the corner and are for access to the storage room. All part of the basement, and the storage room is where I will be able to access the rear of the rack. It's like a big dance ... move stuff here, build there, now I can build here, move other stuff there ...



When i stand back, the doors and the framing around it (mostly hidden behind the beam) doesn't look that complicated. However at the time it was a pain. Especially since the door hardware instructions were small blotchy photocopies that didn''t quite make sense - so you're never really sure what part is the critical part until you complete that step (or are 5 steps farther).

I've also completed the wall around the corner and am forced to confront the unavoidable ...


... tidying up the electrical panel !!

If possible I am going to change the title of my thread to reflect something that I found on the internet that I will have in my theatre.

I found a tin sign of a beer that I used to drink called Maple Brown Ale. Alas Upper Canada Brewery is no longer with us (bought out), so I was quite pleased to find this sign for sale on Kijiji.



I plan on hanging it at the bar, of course !

Happy Canada Day everyone !

(and July 4th for our neighbours !)

Don't all hobbies have a price tag ? This is the main reason I am trying to do as much as I can by myself - to keep the costs down.

That is, until it is time to put the equipment in and I want to upgrade ! LOL.

Current status:
Working on sorting out the satellite stuff that is tangled in with my electrical box. To clean it up right I am going to need some parts that I can't seem to find at the local satellite-type shops. So while I troll ebay and wait for stuff to arrive in the mail I'll probably work on the furnace room and lighting plans.

Summer is so busy! It's hard to get a big chunk of time to tackle those things that need your full brain.

Time for an update.

The service panel clean up is going fairly well. Took some time to learn-up on satellite in order to better plan the distribution area. I got most of the tangle out of the way, now I am just waiting on switching parts.

The security panel did not have any play in the wires, so I just called the company in to move it and deal with the splicing. So I am waiting on that too.

So in the meantime I'll do some IKEA hacking and put in the media shelf next to the rack.

Here is the space under the stairs where I want to have shelves for DVDs etc. :


I purchased an IKEA Billy bookshelf for $69. However it is going to be too tall for the space, so I chopped the sides down:


I have to create new holes for the dowlings and mounting hardware, so I lined up the removed pieces and did some markings:


Hmmm ... the dowling holes seem to be non-standard (or metric). Well, I have always wanted an excuse to buy one of those thousand-bit package deals you see at the big box stores, so I finally did. On the left is the little green box of drill bits that I have been using for almost 20 years, and on the right is the new wad of 300 various types of bits and sizes:


Good thing I have a large selection! The winning size was 19/64.

(the smaller holes are 3/16 for those that are interested)

Put it all together, frame around it, and voila !


I also had to jig-saw notches in the bottom for the trim that is going around the entire thing.

Well - now I have to focus on packing for our interior canoeing trip next week. We're bringing neighbours who have never gone interior camping before, so I want to be doubly sure we got everything in order.



("With the kids hockey out for the summer I'll have lots of time to work on the basement" .. yeah, yeah, sure, sure ...)

Thanks Mike !

Boy, I always forget how busy summer is. I had all sorts of great ideas of getting lots done over the summer, and here I am looking at the basement wondering where I was almost 2 months ago. Very disappointing from a progress point of view, however in the mean time I had to repair the play fort and we have had some great family time.

We had a great backcountry canoe trip with the boys and our neighbours! I have to show off some quick pics:

This is right out of the camera - no photoshopping:



We covered 22km, which is not bad for 3 adults and 4 kids between 8 and 11. We did a day hike once:



Discovered some small waterfalls:



Had some fun:



... and saw amazing sunsets and stars:



Alright ! Time to clean all that camping gear out of the basement where I was sorting it and get back to some progress !

Thanks !

We were up in Killarney doing the Bell Lake-David Lake loop near Silver Peak.



The only bear we saw was on the road, so all was great !

Well, the summer is over. Lots of fun, little progress on the basement, and the kids are back in school tomorrow.

Thank goodness.

I did get a few side projects done:

- Built a new roof for the play fort. Severe storms ripped away the old tarp roof so I did some re-configuring of the beams and made a nice red roof. A challenging one to assemble by myself.


- with all the left overs of the basement so far, I built a cat tree for the new kittens (before they destroy the upstairs). Man that was a lot of rope winding. Don't mind the duct tape - that is just temporary


- and yes ! I did get something done in the basement this month: I finally cleared out the area around the service panel. What I mess I inherited. Still a bit more re-routing to do before I can frame around the window on the left, but big steps!


Although lots of kids extra-curricular, I'm hoping to get some motion during the next couple of months. Cross your fingers !

Thanks guys !

I'm back at the framing and hoping to finish the walls this weekend. In my spare time I am researching:
- speakers
- insteon
- lighting stuff
- riser and stage construction

... oh wait ... I forgot I still have to do the soffits !

Sure! But with a name like INVADER ...

Getting caught up on some pictures...

Framing is basically done, there are a few bits and pieces that I may not address now.

New addition was the wife's alcove at the bottom of the stairs. I needed to build something to hide the stack pipe, so why not ?



And because it is wide, it helps mask the fact that the left wall is a couple inches farther out than the right wall (again, due to piping issues that I did not want to move).

Post a few more tonight...

Thanks for the comments !

So the first IKEA hack went so well my wife thought I should do it again.

At least in this case I didn't have to re-size the units!

First photo shows the "Wii" area, complete with old 46" rear-pro TV that I bought off craigslist a year or so ago and it works great as a large (and durable) screen for the youngsters and their friends. (did I say durable ?).

Lucky to have some help from my oldest:


Through the wall to the left you can see my workbench. Gotta move it again!

Cabinets all done. Whoops ! Those glass doors sure are clear !



Wall all cut and framed around the units. I'll get the (opaque) doors later on.

Darn - another pause in the work coming up!

My wife and I were supposed to go to Bryce Canyon this weekend in Utah, however the forecast is 80 chance of snow ! Not quite ready for the white stuff yet - so we are taking some time to try and re-direct to Sonoma which is supposed to be warmer. Hopefully it will be nice there !

Gotta start looking for my hiking boots.... hmmm ... under that stack of insulation maybe?

Whoa - has it been that long since I posted ?

Way (way!) too many distractions and side projects throughout Oct and Nov. Halloween is a big thing for us and we usually spend a fair bit of time for the party, but this year since we are so busy it was all done the night before.

While all the distractions were keeping me out of the basement during that time, I HAVE been getting some progress in:
1 - planning the electrical circuits
2 - buying stuff !

I found some great deals that I am super excited about, in particular:

SPEAKERS !



A pair of Paradigm Monitor 7s (v6) and a Paradigm CC590. The CC was a demo at the store and he basically wanted to clear for the new stuff. I wasn't really haggling, but I ended up walking away 3 times and then I couldn't refuse.



Mmm. 12" sub. Big step up from my little 8" upstairs.

Just when I thought I couldn't spend any more money, Smarthome had their big BFriday 20% Insteon sale, so I spent more money getting dimmers and an ISY-99i. A little early, but I gotta save where I can!

Some build updates to come...

I'm now essentially done all duct moving / building. Some tasks were long, and some I had to do 3 times to get it so I was satisfied.

For example, I have this duct feeding a vent in the kitchen upstairs that conflicts with where the valence above the screen will be. I installed 3 different solutions until I found something that kept things clear for the valence.

Photo below is of the top right corner of valence. I had to build my own boot that would fit in that space and connect with a modified angle-vent. One of those things I was always pondering on my drive into work.

Hole to kitchen:


Solution!