The Plains Theater - Page 13

Those look expensive! I don't know if I would go with an actual molding, or possibly just use a veneer on larger flat surfaces. It is good to know I've got some options though. I'll take a look at that website and see if I get any more ideas.


Darker color - check! We'll give that a try in some upcoming renders.

And the continuous ceiling is a great idea! I wanted the coffered part of the ceiling to look like it was floating using the lighting, but why not make it actually floating. I don't know that I will use a star ceiling, but I think having the continuous ceiling under my coffered ceiling would be really nice. The only problem I can think of is how I would span a 19' wide room and support the beams. I know it won't be holding a lot of weight, but I don't know if a 2x4 would be enough. Any thoughts?


I'm definitely going to decouple the entire room, but right now I haven't decided if I'm going with a room within a room design (and put joists between my existing joists) or or if I will go with some sort of clips and channel.

I'm also planning a bar at the back, but I took it out of the render to show the ceiling better. Here's another view showing the bar. I could see us spending a lot of time back there using it as a place to have "dinner and a movie." or a place for me to work while listening to music. Since I'm nearly 6'-4", having a low ceiling worries me a bit. The door header going into the theater now feels a little low without a soffit already, but we'll see how it feels once the riser is in. I would really like to have a more traditional depth coffered ceiling as I think it looks nicer.



As always, thanks for the feedback everyone! I really do appreciate all the different perspectives. It's easy to get locked into one way of seeing things, so another view is always good to have!

Thought I'd go ahead and post this, too. My rack rails came in! They look pretty nice. 1/8" thick, I think. Looks like a plain old painted finish, so nothing fancy, but still a lot cheaper than buying a rack.





They're supposed to spray foam this week, so I probably won't have any pictures, but hopefully the week after I'll be able to put my rack up. nothing really exciting since it'll just be a few 2x4's and some brackets and rails, but theater progress is theater progress, right?

Thanks for the bump

There hasn't been much photo worthy progress. The electricians finished up the wiring, and the spray foam guys started yesterday. They're planning to finish on Friday. The downside to that is I'm not planning to go back into the house for 4 or 5 days after they finish while it cures and airs out. I've breathed enough nasty stuff over the years to suit me

Hopefully I'll have some more pics in the not too distant future. I'm told they'll be able to hang the drywall in one day. That'll be impressive, and I'll believe it when I see it.

As a side note, I've started researching unRaid as a storage solution. I'm running WHS v1 now, and I think for the cost of adding another 1TB of useable space to my WHS, I can migrate to unRAID and gain 4TB-5TB. Anyone have any experience with unRaid and WHS or unRaid and MyMovies they'd like to share?

It seems like the general consensus is it's a great product. Unfortunately, it looks like the only thing I'll be able to use from my old hardware is the case and the power supply. My motherboard uses HPA to provide BIOS backup, and unRaid apparently doesn't care for that. Even then, I think I'll be money ahead considering the amount of space I'm losing to duplication.

Thanks for the tips! I hadn't thought of using blanks to align the rails. I thin the last time I did it I just used some angle iron to hold everything in place. This should make it a lot easier, and it looks like Monoprice has some pretty cheap ones as well. That should work nicely.

Sorry RT. No construction pictures. I don't want to go in while the foam is curing. I did stop by yesterday, and aside from covering the windows and caulking, it doesn't look like they've done much. Hopefully they'll finish up with the insulation this week so that we can get moving.

I did take the day yesterday and go on a movie binge (4 movies in one day! Living the dream!). My wife and son were out of town, so I went to the movies and saw John Carter. It really reminded me of why I love this hobby. I'm really excited about getting this project going once the house is finished! While I was there, I did take the time to count ceiling tiles. I was sitting about 25 tiles back (short side of the tiles) and the screen was about 9 tiles across (long dimension). So assuming the tiles are 2x4, that put me at about 1.5 times the screen width back. I wish I could have sat closer, but the way the theater was laid out, it would have put me too far down the screen. So, investigation will continue. I think Hunger Games will likely be my next trip to the theater.

Now for renderings. You shamed me into it, RT. I tried a traditional coffered ceiling, and I like that it feels lighter, but it may be a little plain. Of course, once rope lights are added, that might change.



Next I tried playing with some colors. I changed the wood color to something darker as recommended, and I think I like the darker wood, but that didn't go with the original wall colors. So I toyed around with that a bit as well. Unfortunately, I'm hopeless at things like colors. I may very well hire the designer that's been working on our house to pick out colors. Here's a couple of attempts



And a little different



What do you guys think? I think I'd like to come up with a color scheme with blues in it to see if I like the cooler colors, but I don't know if it will go with the redder wood stains.

Edit: Here's another one with darker wood that has less red in it. Still trying for a blue color scheme that works.

You guys are raining on my parade. I know you're right, but I really hate looking at carpet

Oh well, I guess it's got to be done.

In all honesty, I'm not a big fan of the colors in any of the renderings, but I was just trying to get the gears turning to see if anything would put me in the ballpark. I'm sure I'll have to go the same route as everyone else as far as ordering fabric samples and getting paint chips and the like.

There is a little construction related news. The foam guys were out this morning actually spraying foam Sorry for the crappy pic, but my lens fogged up and I wasn't getting any closer.



The vinyl guys have also started, but they only had the soffits started this morning. I probably won't get close enough for any real pictures for another few days. I know I'm being a little too cautious, but better safe than sorry. I've used the, "it won't hurt this once," excuse a few too many times during my life.

A little more progress today. It looks like they finished spraying the garage, and the wall between the interior and the garage. When I stopped by this morning, they were already spraying, so hopefully in the next day or so they will finish.



Here's the progress on the vinyl. I think I mentioned before that we decided to go with the fake shake as opposed to real cedar shake just because of the maintenance. As it stands, there's nothing on the exterior of the house that will need to be painted. Everything is either brick, vinyl or coated metal. That frees up my springs and falls for other stuff, like cutting grass I do hope the stone on the front porch will tie the colors together a bit more, but I'm glad the exterior is getting close to being finished.

Tony! Glad you stopped by. I don't know about you, but I'm supposed to be studying right now, and I'm procrastinating instead



If we had to choose one thing we hoped people would say about our house, classy is it! I can't tell you how many times we said that word to our architect and designer.

Thanks for the compliment RT!

Three pages back again

A little progress to report. They've finished installing the "fake" shake and all of the vinyl trim around the soffits. We really like the way the shake turned out. The color works really well. The only other exterior finishes that I can think of is the stone on the front, and the breadboard and cedar posts and beams on the back porch. Here's a pic of them finishing up the soffits.



In theater related news, I did install my "temporary" equipment rack. I would have liked to wait a little longer for the foam to air out, but I just couldn't take waiting anymore. And, I say temporary because it's definitely not up to my usual standards. But once the bleeding started in earnest, I decided speed was more important than quality just this once. I'll need to take it back down to put in the drywall anyway, but that will probably happen when I drywall the theater. Right now the plan is to add a doorway in the back of the closet for wiring access, and use the space at the front of the rack on either side for DVD/Blu-ray storage shelves. But that'll be a project for a long time from now.



It looks like all of the insulation is done as they came back and put in fiberglass between the rooms. So now they're working on scheduling the drywall.

Thanks guys!

You're right, RT. That first step is a bit of a doozy right now. Fortunately, our builder is planning to do a LOT of back filling along the front of the house. We're hoping to only have a couple of steps coming down off the front porch when they're done. That's partly to eliminate steps, and partly to make sure that there is a good slope away from the house for water to drain away. At the very least, there is going to be several feet of dirt added to the left side as that window can't be more than 6' above grade. I'd guess it's around 10' above grade now, so lots of dirt to add there.

As far as the steps go, I don't know what my wife has planned there, but I was envisioning them being made of brick. That's one of those things that my wife and our designer get to decide I'm more in charge of making sure the house doesn't leak, fall down, or catch on fire!

Generally speaking, the water is good for the concrete. The slower you can get it to cure, the stronger it is when it's done. They usually wait for clear weather because the rain makes dimples in your finished floor, not because it's bad for the concrete. So as long as your floor is smooth, you don't have anything to worry about

Wow, how time flies. It's been pretty crazy here lately for sure, but we've had a lot of progress.

First, we've got blue tubs! I'm not sure what this is about, but I'm guessing it's something to keep the grout and mortar from sticking to the tubs when they lay the tile. They did this to the two tubs in the guest baths. You can also see a bundle of my low voltage wiring in the wall behind the tub.



They've got most of the stone work finished on the front porch.



AND, they've finished most of the drywall. In one day, no less . I think they would have finished, but they ran out of the sheetrock. We really like the windows in our living room That wall also faces North, so between that and the porch roof, the living room is never in direct sun, but it's always bright in there during the day.




Sorry for the bad pics, but I was going for quantity, not quality

I've also got my unRAID server up and working. It's been a bit slow going just getting accustomed to a new OS. I'm clearing disks now, so we'll see how it goes over the next few weeks as I get all of my data migrated. I'd really like to be able to watch a movie in our new house not too long after we move in. Obviously not in the theater, but I do want to set a precedent about our priorities