Black & Gold Theatre Build - Page 2

I am glad they have added the waiver into it...I did not know about that. Repealing it would be even better. In this economy, forcing sprinklers into homes makes the cost a bit higher...and further hurts the already crushed housing market.

Another update, the theater room walls have been built! The shape and design is done. Now time for cutting wiring holes, running wires, putting in boxes, etc etc.

Wall going up:



Putting on the IB3 connectors for sound isolation:



My wife decided to help out. How could I say no, she had just made the most delicious Matzah Ball Soup for supper. Even though I am starting to feel like I never want to eat Matzah again, the soup was quite tasty.



And lastly, the corner of the room, with its cut out. Took a bit to make that area, but I like the way it looks:

Most of the electrical wiring has been run. Still need to run the lines for the riser front and the front of the room, under the stage (the HTPC and AVR will be under the stage).




It is odd how the rows of straight boards look tilted in the picture...but trust me, they are plumb.

More updates:

First, they repealed the "you must install a sprinker in your home" law. Now our already troubled building industry will not be fully destroyed.

Second, more pics!

Hat channel going up. Home depot sells it as furring strips in my area. It is over in the corner near the drywall, if anyone is looking for it. I also found that most Home Depot workers have no clue what it is.


Wiring is "stapled" up nice and neat. Why do they call them staples when you have to use a hammer to put them in and not a stapler?


My bud Chris tapping the air inlet lines off the existing ventillation system.


The two incoming air lines hanging in the room. We ran it a bit and the humidity in the basement vanished almost instantly, it was magical! I will be SOOOO happy this next winter. That is my cat Anubis...he is my home inspector. He will now spend the next several hours looking closely at EVERYTHING I did.


Next up is the false soffit and true soffit around the top of the screen area. The return line will go in the far side, by the outer wall, and travel around a corner, through insulated materials, and back into the return duct for the ventillation system. Then we will run conduit lines, one to where the projector is to be mounted and one to the outside of the room.

Thanks!

Yeah, the HT equipment will have its own circuit.

Finally ran the speaker wires. I am doing two side surrounds and will be using one of those devices which allow you to place two speakers in series on the same output from the AVR without hurting it...forget what they are called. I am doing this because of that bump in the back. I do not want the side surrounds behind the front row, but if I place them on the wall by the front row the bump blocks the sound from hitting the back row.



Drywall for the ceiling. We just need to run some conduit, build the soffits, and up goes the ceiling drywall. I am a bit excited!

Thanks!

That is a great idea, stockmonkey2000. We are going to use plywood as the top layer, with two layers of drywall under it. I wonder...will one layer of drywall be good if I use plywood as the first layer and green glue between them?


On a slightly different note, I officially HATE conduit now. It was a pain in the butt to put through the ceiling. I am sure I will be thankful later on.

OK...pics of the orange smurf tube...the smurfs fell into a Tang container:





Almost seriously hurt myself cutting the holes. I was unaware that the hole cutter might snag and suddenly stop...so I was not using two hands on the drill. Luckily, my grip was not as strong as the twisting action of the drill, so after 180 degrees of sudden twisting it broke free from my hand and stopped. I was swollen for many hours, and now (two days later) my wrist is still sore and tight. Just a word of warning for you all.

The furring channel is almost completely up, just need to cut down a few of them to fit. Next, the plywood and drywall.

I spoke to Ted and he said replacing a layer of drywall with plywood is fine, just treat the plywood as if it were drywall. So the layer of drywall placed towards the inside of the room needs to screw the whole way into the furring channel and not just into the plywood. Green glue goes between the two, etc.

I just put down a bead of acoustic caulking...wow...just wow. They make it look so easy on the youtube videos. My friend makes it look so easy when he does it. I am here to say, it is an art form.

My first attempt put on way too little. It looked good from a distance, so I went the entire way around the floor. When I went back to press it smooth with my finger, I found it was actually crappily done and not nearly enough put on. So...I did it again, pressing a little harder.

Yep, since I did not take into account that I already had a bead down, I put on about twice as much as I needed...for all but one of the walls. I was able to use most of the caulking my finger picked up to fill in that one wall...the floor sure is not smooth and flat!

So kudos to all you who can do this effortlessly, my hat is off to you. This project is teaching me two things. First, that construction is as much art as labor and two, that I am glad I went into the computer industry!

I just ordered this step light for my one step:

http://www.pegasuslighting.com/led-m...s-louvers.html



It comes with both a sideways and an up/down faceplate. I bought the primered one, so I can paint it black. It fits into a standard single gang electrical box and uses line voltage. I am going to get an extra deep one to save myself wiring troubles. I think I am going to put yellow plastic wrap inside the louver to turn the light golden.

Got worried for a moment! Thanks for looking out for me.

More pics!

The return vent is slowly going in. Harder than I thought it would be. It is that new black colored, hard insulation material. It is going to turn the corner (not yet built) and go outward the same distance as the already existing house main return duct does...that way there is symmetry in the room. It also puts a nice 90 degree bend in the ducting to help minimize sound transfer out of the room. The ducting will have doube drywall with green glue on its outside as well.



We also installed the 4 gang box for the electric and the low voltage wiring for the projector. Had to get creative due to the whisper clips, hat channel, layer of OSB, AND layer of drywall that it has to pass through.



I moved the box back a little so that I could put the projector on either side of the joist and still be able to plug into it easily. I need to slide the conduit up a little.

Once the vent return is done, the OSB goes up, then the drywall....and the ceiling will be complete! Oh, I also am going to be installing a smoke detector in the room which ties into all the other ones in the house. That way if a fire starts in the room I will know about it...and if I am in the room when a fire starts somewhere else I will know about that as well. Safety is paramount, after all.

After a short hiatus...an update! We finished the soffit for the vent return line and almost finished the vent return line...just need the part the flex hose connects to where it meets the rigid portion.

We also put up most of the OSB for the ceiling. Man, that stuff is heavy!! Soon the rest will be up, then the drywall on the ceilling. Starting to look like a real room!

Argh...after getting the soffiting done, I realize I have to shrink my screen. The width is just too wide...the image will be under the side soffits and, after drywall, etc., the wide speakers will have no where to sit.

I want a 2.39 screen size so I can do constant image height with the Panasonic AE-4000 projector. With the projector, you setup the 2.39 first and save to memory...then the 1.78 and save to memory. It then changes automatically for you (or manually with one button press). The 1.78 and 2.35 screens both have the same height, just the 1.78 is not as wide. The projector zooms in and out to make the picture fit based on the two saved memories. Very nice.

However, I just determined my screen can only be 95 inches wide.This makes a 40" high 2.39 which is a 40" high 1.78. A 40" high 1.78 is only 71" wide...that is pretty small. On the other hand, the tallest my screen can be is 48" high. I was thinking of doing a hybrid of both. I will setup the screen to be 94" wide and 48" tall. This gives me a 2.39 screen of 94" x 39" = 92" diag with 7" white bars at the top and bottom and a 1.78 screen of 85" x 48" x 98" diag with 4.5" white bars at the sides.

This should give me the best of both worlds. I have seen pictures of a light controlled room, where the white bars are on the bottom and top of the screen. Frankly, I could barely see them...anyone with them have any issues or bothers? I will look into some sort of automated or motorized masking system later on, but I think the hybrid setup is my best soluion. What do you all think? Should I give up the CIH? If so, is there a better (for the same price range) projector I should look at instead of the Panny 4000?

Sorry guys, the Verizon union strike is eating up all my time. I am a non-union Verizon employee, so I am working 6 days a week, 12 hours a day. Mad overtime pay though, which will help the theater build move along.

I sealed all my joints with the acoustic sealant and ran the rest of my data, voice, and video cables into the theater. I just have to run my electric wire out of the theater and over to the electrical box and all the goes inta/goes outta items will be complete.

UPDATE!!!

The ceiling is FINALLY on! One layer of OSB and one layer of Drywall on the ceiling with liberal amounts of green glue between them:



And you can see the puddy around the front height speaker brackets:



Pics of the ceiling, front and back:





And the header is finally over the doorframe: