Theater Build: Mike's Money Pit - Page 5

Micro-update. The first coat of finish has gone on the stage!

Indeed! They do really beautiful woodwork. Thanks!

Don't I know it. My problem is that the cabinet maker is also doing the kitchen and some other rooms, and I asked them to please focus on those so that the main living areas of the house can get wrapped up. The good news is that we're getting pretty close to having the rest completed. Believe me, I'm really anxious to get going.

The good news, though, is that not all work has stopped in the vicinity of the theater. The tile guys have been busy. The kitchenette/snack bar floor tiles are all in and grouted, as is the floor and shower tile in the bathroom. It all turned out beautifully. It's all covered right now, but I've attached a photo of a section of the kitchenette tile below.

Also, the inlaid landing (with the film strips) has been installed, along with the rest of the stair treads.

And, this week we expect to get the ductwork connected to the HVAC equipment that supplies the theater, and bring that equipment online.

We're still waiting on a couple of bits of Lutron gear in order to be able to activate the screen and lower it to ensure that it survived its trans-Atlantic trip okay. That's due any time now as well.

In summary, there's progress, but it's slow progress. I'm looking forward to being able to report forward movement in the theater itself before too long.

Here's that tile. You can see the racks in the upper right of the photo, with the poor dusty UPSes in place. Wall colors to come, naturally:

Just a quick photo update. Today we finally got all the Lutron bits together in the same place and programmed the RadioRa 2 Main Repeater to allow a keypad to control the two QS motors in the Screen Research screen.

I ordered the screen with extra black drop so that I would have some flexibility in the vertical position of the screen. So, here you can see the screen fully extended (lower than I would be likely to ever use it), and at a more "typical" height. The final position will probably fall somewhere between these two.

Note that the screen also has a top masking curtain (acoustically transparent). I didn't take a photo with the curtain down, but it works fine.

Having verified the operation and condition of the screen, it will now be retracted and mummified with plastic until we finish the rest of the dust-producing construction.

Me, too!! :-)

Construction micro-update!

There has been some progress in the theater of late, mostly involving baseboard and the beginnings of the finished wood on the big book case up front. I plan to post some pictures of that soon.

In the meantime, here are two photos of the area just outside the theater, and both of serious interest to movie watchers! The first is the kitchenette cabinets, which is where the refreshments will be found. In addition to storage, this run of cabinets contains a dish washer and a fridge/freezer with ice maker. The metal grooves in the wall above will hold glass shelves for drinking glasses and the like. The popcorn machine will go on the countertop at the far end. This is a pretty wide-angle shot because of the tight space.

If you squint really hard, you can see, through the door at the right of the image, some of the Sapele baseboard around the stage area. It looks fantastic.



The second photo is a peek through the bathroom door, at the new vanity cabinet. All we need to wrap up the bathroom is to hang the mirror and light fixture, install the door knob and door stop, put the cabinet pulls on the cabinet doors, and put the toilet seat on. Just waiting on the pulls and mirror.

Greetings!

I wish I had more progress to share, but perhaps what progress I have to share will explain why things are moving slowly.

The carpenters have wrapped up cabinetry elsewhere in the house, and have been working in the theater. It's hard to take really good photos to show what they've been doing, but I'm going to try a few!

First, this is the casework near the entry to the theater. (The door is temporary and will be replaced -- see below). The wood is Sapele, and the corner is mitered and bookmatched (you can see the grain flow around the corner). Where the keypad will go to control the lights and power the theater on and off, you can see that the woodwork has been routed so that the keypad and its faceplate will fit flush.



The baseboard throughout the theater is also done in Sapele. While most of the walls will be treated in stretched fabric, the door and window openings and a few other spots get these Sapele treatments:



Speaking of baseboards, the step-downs onto the stage and then into the pit have all been treated with wide Sapele, including some veneers. Here's the step-down to the stage:



Here's the left edge of the pit, looking back from the stage. (The large piece of Sapele against the wall is a veneer plywood destined for one of the doors -- see below).



And, here's a shot of the curved front of the stage, looking across towards the right side of the pit. The stage itself is protected with cardboard.



I've mentioned the doors a couple of times. KYDG's specs for the doors called for a minimum mass per square foot of door. It's a lot of mass, so the result is a hell of a lot of door. Here's the first one, construction complete, ready for finish:






Just to give you a sense of scale, here's the thickness of the door!



The doors are built around a conventional solid-core door, but they have been wrapped on all sides with Sapele, including a Sapele veneer panel on the front and back, surrounded with an inlay detail. Each door will require three 4.5" ball bearing hinges, and will be gasketed on all sides.

That's it for now! More in a week or two as we have more woodwork to show!

Thanks, me too! Unfortunately, we did hit a bit of a roadblock. The fabric KYDG and I selected two years ago for the walls has been discontinued by the manufacturer, so we're trying to locate a replacement. Sigh.

Two more tiny updates. Most work is focused still on finishing the rest of the house, but we are still doing certain woodwork in the theater to get it into shape for the first round of acoustical testing.

This is one of the two massive custom doors, sitting in its cradle with the first coat of finish drying. You can see the special gasket on the bottom of the door that presses down onto the threshold when the door is closed


And this is the threshold for that doorway. That's one piece of wood, folks. It had to go over tile on one side, and slope down to meet the level of the carpet on the other. There are days when I would like things to go more quickly, but this kind of work is not quick.

Three more little update photos.

First, a test-fit of the threshold from the last posting:



Now, the two doors into the theater, with the finish applied, hung in place. Handle hardware is being powder coated, so it will be installed once that's finished.

Not a lot in the way of updates, I'm afraid. The same carpenter/cabinetmaker who is doing the theater work is also responsible for the rest of the house cabinets, and that work has taken much, much longer than expected. So, we're in a bit of a holding pattern while the last few things get finished in the rest of the house. Then it will be back to the theater full time, hopefully fairly soon. They have managed to sneak work in on the theater here and there (e.g. while finishes have been curing on upstairs work), so the cabinet doors for the big front cabinet have all been built and hung. I'll try to get a picture of those soon.

We did get one neat thing done this past week, though. The goal with the bar counter was to keep it as minimal and visually lightweight as possible. So, although it will be clad in the same Sapele woodwork as the doors and other moldings in the theater, its core is welded steel to make it strong enough. That steel work was completed and anchored into the floor (jackhammer, concrete). So, that's pretty nifty to see, and it's ready to get the woodwork wrapped around it. Right now it's still surrounded by a jig that is holding it in place while the concrete cures, but I'll post pictures when possible.

We also received the shipment of all the Lutron shades that will handle blackout and masking duties, so once we're able to get construction underway again, we'll have them ready to go. Basically, everything is on site and ready to go except a projector mount for the 1000ES. At CEDIA, I was told Chief had a new mount coming for the 1000ES (it's probably out by now), so I was waiting on that purchase.

Elill, the binary diffusers are made by RPG.

It's not a really exciting photo, but it's an exciting day anyway. This evening I brought home a carload of components from the storage facility. Tomorrow, they go into the equipment rack, along with a bunch more! I will be taking pictures as we go. The Sunfire will power the seven main speakers in the theater. The Extron handles video distribution for the house. The Pioneer and the JVC are for some legacy media.

There has also been some progress on woodwork in the theater. The countertop and main legs for the bar counter have been built and mounted on the steel framework. I'll try to get some pix of that shortly.

Just a quick mini-update from today's efforts. We got one of the two racks mostly populated, and started on the second. I'm working with my friend Derek, who is a professional rack wiring specialist (he's in the first photo below). He's doing a great job on making the rack far more beautiful than I ever could manage. He got all the speakers done today. We'll get the rest of the gear installed tomorrow and move on to network and A/V wiring. I'll also take better pictures with a flash.

Here was last night's nightmare. My dual APC UPSes had sat in storage for three years. The batteries were disconnected, but I made the mistake of not actually pulling the batteries out and storing them separately. Several of the batteries in one UPS swelled, cracked, and leaked. They would have done that anyway, but because they were in the UPS, I had to substantially disassemble the UPS in order to get them out, because they were wedged in so hard by the burst sides. Sigh. Fortunately, APC designed these UPSes well. The leaked battery contents were completely contained to the battery tray and so it was easy to clean out. Now we order more batteries...

That side is all Derek!

Thanks for the tip! I ordered from a different place that offered replacement packs using 9Ah batteries instead of 7Ah, so they should provide longer runtime when running on battery. We'll see!

A mini update from today's activities. Nearly all of the components are in the rack now. As happened yesterday, a couple of them occupied nearly all of the time. Today, the big time sink was the mount for the Samsung TV that will serve as both computer monitor and preview monitor for the rack. I made the mounting plate myself, starting with a 6U Middle Atlantic blank panel. I sure could have used a VESA template to mark off the holes -- I had to measure, which is time consuming. And then I had to drill accurately, which I managed to almost do (notice that there are three screws into the TV, not four, but that's enough to get it done...). I used a step drill to bore the holes for the cables to pass through.



Heres a shot showing the TV installed, along with the other rack components. Just a few spaces left to fill with actual components. Most of the 1U empty spaces you see are just for spacers for ventilation.



Finally, just a fraction of the boxes that have been emptied out into the rack.

Great question! The specs say yes. I have not actually tested it myself. I should do that. Perhaps I will try today if we have time. The model is UN19D4000. It fits within 19" rack rails with just enough space on the sides to be able to drive the screws, and it's a bit over 6U high. I used a 6U panel to mount it, and it will slightly overlap the Middle Atlantic custom shelf below, which has a lot of dead area at the top.