Family Room / HT in Siberia (well, in MN)

Hello all.

We DYI'd a small (12x18) dedicated HT in our Columbia, MD house ~ 4 yrs ago. We moved back home to MN in Oct09. Unfortunately, we don't have space for a dedicated HT in this house. So I sold/CL'd much of my gear (100" Carada screen, Mits PJ, Denon 3806 Receiver, and PSB Image Speakers & Subs), only keeping the PS3.

The new MN house:

We'll be finishing the entire basement (~1000 sq ft):
(1) Great Room
- TV area with corner fireplace
- Pool Table area (or kids play area if my wife has her way)
- Small Bar area
(2) Bedroom
(3) Bath
(4) Small workout room
Goal is to get more sq ft for kids to play in, add a guest suite, and also build a better movie/sports experience vs our lil 42" in our main floor family room. Lastly, builder is throwing in basements basically for free now, so by doing myself, I should add to resale.

The plan for the TV area will be:
- 60-70" LCD/Plasma
- Marantz or Denon Receiver
- JBL in-ceiling LCRs and in-wall sides/rears
- sub(HSU?)
- misc other electronics.
- Potential build/wire for future drop down screen PJ
- Build out wall so there's a recessed area for TV
- Corner fireplace

I will no doubt have many questions, so many thanks in advance for your help.

I'll post pics with plan / progress.

Thanks, Brad

Log
pre - HVAC rough-in complete
pre - 4 circuits run from main panel (garage)
pre - much of outlet rough-in complete
3/19 - Installed some of the 20 6" Recessed Lighting (cans) and began to rough-in wire them
3/27 - Framed out corner fireplace. I made to wide, so I'll need to redo.
3/28 - Installed 5 4" cans for the bar area (90 min)
3/29 - Wired another 4 6" cans for pool table area (60 min)
4/3 - wired 8 6" cans for HT area (2.5 hrs)


In Progress:
- Electrical Rough-in
- Framing corner Fireplace and TV Wall

Next / To Do:
- Run A/V wiring (conduit to TV?)
- Rough-in Plumbing for bath & bar
- Fix framing in bath

To Buy:
- Order HDMI cable (30 or 35')
- Order Wall Plates for A/V cabinet drop

Bought/Ordered:
3/23 - JBL in-wall & in-ceilings ordered
3/23 - Monoprice 12g CL2 ordered/received & Sub RCA CL2 ordered/Received
3/24 - 100' of Carlon orange 2" raceway
3/22 - Monoprice 35' HDMI cable

Here's the floor plan. (I used floorplanner.com)

Here's my handdrawn plan for TV area

I agree with the input on PJ/Screen vs 60" TV. My wife is pushing for a more general family room vs theater. Hence, we're likely starting w/ TV. Plus, there's a bunch of light.

I'm planning to wire/conduit for proj and motorized drop down screen so I can add later.

Just dropped $90 (delivered) on 100' of carlon 2" orange raceway. This will be enough for me to run to TV and also to a drop for future projector as well.

- Brad

Brian, where were you a couple days ago before I dropped the $90

With the price of carlin on the web (smart home.com), I should be able to recoup some/much of my $ by selling the leftover length on CL.

Brad

Recessed lighting takes quite a while to do:
25 cans total and chunking away at 'em with an hour'ish each night. I knocked out the 5 4" bar cans tonight. My 4" cans are halo. My 6" cans are HD's consumer electric. The Halos are so much easier to work with. Unfortunately, the 20 6" cans are nailed up. I hope to finish up the wiring on the 6" cans by end of week.

- Brad

Fuzzy, are you just using wire tires to hold your conduit in place?
- Brad

I'll get some pics going. It's such a dumping ground for storage stuff and kids stuff that I'm embarrassed to post pics. I need to clean up and get some pics posted. Progress has been pretty boring (electrical and framing).

Good to see the folks from MN commenting.

I need a solid 1/2 day so I can wire the cans (8) in the HT area. This 90 minute/night thing is disheartening.

Here's the pic of the "TV" area. The framing for fireplace is too big, so I'll need to redo.

For the fireplace, i'm looking at the Heat&Glo 6000 Modern. My plan is to keep the bottom of the LCD/Plasma lined up w/ the bottom of the fireplace to keep lines consistent.

pic of fireplace:

I'm out in Plymouth.

We looked at the SoHo as well and really liked it, but wanted a bigger presence. With the space crudely framed, I think it may be too big. I'm going to get hte framing right and then paint some cardboard to size to get a feel for how big the 5000 really is.

Funny comment on visualizing. When I come up from downstairs, my wife always ask, "what were you down there looking at" instead of what were you working on. I just pound away at night now. It drives my wife crazy, but doesn't seem to affect the 5 yr old or 5 mo old.

I'm going to find some time this weekend to finish the cans and wiring. Next up is finish the framing (a few hrs) and then determine me vs sub for rough plumbing.

ok, i see where you're coming from.

Had my dad over to help w rough wiring for cans. What a difference it makes to have someone feed the romex. 8 cans rough wired in an hour and I should have them finished tonight w another hour.

Another 1 hr and the 8 cans are wired.