LEVEL 4: Center for Entertainment build - Page 5

So I'm the proud owner of 400sq Ft of 2" 3pcf rigid insulation. They came in 2by4 sheets, 10 to a pack.

Here's the pile.


I like that it's darker in color. Check it out.


I decided to go with the typical corner traps with the 3pcf material. Cutting the 2 by 4 sheets into quarters gives me 4 triangles that measure 24x24x37. I'll stack these about 78" high on each side.

Here's my layout for the space behind the screen.


In other news, I'm done with the first mud/taping layer and started sanding. My shoulders hurt!
 

Edited by stevegravley - 6/29/12 at 10:33am

It's been a few weeks! I finished the first layer of tape and mud and stalled out. I've had company for a couple of these three weeks and the week before I was simply takin' 'er easy. Seemingly unrelated, we've decided to refinance down to a 15 year mortgage. When that happens, an appraiser comes out to take a look at the house. As the space downstairs is listed as "finished", the appraiser raised an eyebrow at its "almost finished" state.

To close this deal, I need to have the room look more finished. I've hired a guy and his team to come in and finish the drywall. It's going to run me about $450. After having done the first coat, I can safely say that I'm thrilled to pass the torch onto someone else. Besides, I'm doing flat ceilings, and I know there's a finesse to that which I do not posses.

By Sunday/Monday, I'll have a room ready for priming! Then I'll be able to resume some of the more fun activities like building the front wall acoustics, stage, and screen wall.

I'm a pretty adventurous DIYer. I did the first coat of taping / mudding / sanding. So I threw in the towel and paid $450 to have someone else come in. By the way, nicest guy with great pricing and super high quality, so if anyone needs a Twin Cities recommendation, let me know.

After watching him work for 10 minutes, I knew I had made the right choice. I know you've all heard the push to pay for your drywall finishing, and I stand behind that 100%. I didn't mind hanging the sheetrock, mind you, but finishing would be a must hire for any future project.

Honestly, I was flabbergasted at the quality difference, not to mention speed!

Here are some pictures of the drywall finished!









Tonight, I prime. Hopefully, I'll have the room painted by the end of the Wednesday. I am painting the ceiling and soffits a dark dark brown, and the walls are a medium blue green type of green.

I stayed up until 3am, Wednesday night / Thursday morning, to finish the priming. I got my primer at Home Depot. They had a special on Killz 2 Latex primer for buy three get one free. I was also able to get 4oz of black colorant into the each gallon which turned out a really nice dark gray.

Yeah yeah, pictures.





I think the room looks really nice in person. It's tempting to leave the dark gray, but I will soldier on!

I've got the dark brown on the ceiling already (you can see I started cutting it in on the first picture). I'm going to clean up tonight and show a movie on a sheet to some family that's in town. I'll take pictures of the dark brown ceiling and show you after I clean up. It's sharp.

Then tomorrow, I'll start on the Scotland Road green for the walls and stairwell.

I need to decide how to handle the sides of the stage on the wall. I have a pipe I need to conceal, so I was planning on having a column around it. Yesterday, I had an idea to ditch the first column and make it velvet wrapped panels, to further enhance the shadow box concept. I just don't know if it looks weird not having a column up front. I've mocked up both.

What do you think?

With the velvet panels all the way to the screen wall.


OR

With the first column, which leaves a bit of space to the screen wall.

Thanks for the feedback. I was leaning towards option #1 as well, and this seals it.

You two kill me with the gray comment! I'm about 10 minutes from painting it green since the gray is just the primer. I do have to agree with you though, it's pretty awesome. I can always change it back, but the wife has spoken!

EDIT: The Internet has drained my will to paint tonight. Tomorrow it is!
Edited by stevegravley - 7/9/12 at 8:31pm

I wanted to show you how I handled making the access panels for the projector lift.

I saved the piece of sheetrock that I cut out for the access panel. Then I primed and painted it.


Next I bought the 6" x 12" cold air return vent, which had some nice ridges to stab through the sheetrock to hold it in place.


Then I cut the rock a bit where the ridges were headed, and pressed it onto the vent cover.


Finally, I screwed the vent cover into the ceiling.


Here are both of the access panels.


Not rocket science, but I thought someone might enjoy the process.

So here are a few shots of the ceiling painted before I apply the paint on the walls.

Le Front:


Dat Rear:


The wash along the front curve from the rope lights:


The color was Mink from Benjamin Moore, flat. I used one coat, and touched up with a roller the next day. No need for a two coats, but I did apply it liberally. When I was rolling it on, it was a bit lighter and looked just like I was rolling my ceiling in liquid milk chocolate. It was... disconcerting, yet delicious.

Yeah, I really like it - AND - it was your recommendation! Thanks!

I'm going to try to get my panels customized. I asked my wife what she thought would be interesting patterns or artwork and she said, "why don't you make each panel into a different forest scene?"

We both love nature and hiking, so this appealed to me, too.

Many of your are probably familiar with using Spoonflower.com for custom artwork on fabric. I went there and ordered the artwork for one panel, just to test things out. My panels will be 3' by 5'. I added a 3" border for wrap and stapling, so the final dimensions are 42" (the width of the fabric, coincidentally) by 66". Here's the design.



This image has some nice contrast in it, so I'll be able to tell how the darks and lights play on this fabric.

Oh, I figured out how to make my design view-able publicly.
Edited by stevegravley - 7/11/12 at 2:43pm

I finished painting last night. I started at 8:30pm when the kids were in bed and powered through until about 1am. I wanted to take pictures, but the paint was still wet last night and the camera battery was dead this morning. I'll post them tonight.

While I was doing the walls, I took the opportunity to paint my in wall speakers. I have four, two side and two rear. The sides are going in the column behind fabric, which is good because I blotched (a new word appears!) the paint on the first screen and I needed the extra screen! It's tricky getting the screen painting nicely with a cutting brush. The holes can clog up or sometimes you get areas where the paint is thicker in an area. It's very noticeable.

I found a method that works well though. First, I take my trimming brush, dip it in and really wipe the edges nice and clean, but still leaving a bit of paint loaded. Then, I very lightly start making quick strokes down the grill, barely leaving lines. After about 10-20 strokes in this direction, I start to apply more pressure and keep going in the same direction, getting the whole face mostly covered. Then, without flipping to the other side of the brush, I go across (the short side) about 20-30 times. Then I flip the brush over and continue going across starting lightly and then applying more pressure as I go. Then, I rotate another 90 degrees and go the long way, but in the opposite direction. Then another 90 and brush that side. At this point, I've unloaded the paint from the brush. I usually get one or two holes that might have either been plugged or had just a little extra, so I take an air can with a plastic nozzle attached and spray that hole. I'm about a quarter inch away and I don't have to do it hard. The hole clears up nicely. Two coats of this did the trick for me.

I hope this helps anyone reading! A grill was sacrificed to bring you this information.

This thread covers all of that and you should read it. It has a ton of great information! The fabric is nicely transparent. As for the art, I found a hi res picture I liked, took it into photoshop, cropped it and sized it to my dimensions, and made it 150dpi. Then on the website, I uploaded the file and they took it from there! Also, I don't know if I mentioned it, but the one panel will cost me about $35 for the custom art work fabric. Not a bad deal at all!

By the way, here is my collection of forest and nature pictures I've gathered for this purpose.

Here are a couple of pictures of the painted room.

I'm adding my 2" Knauf board very soon to the front, so I didn't bother painting it.


The room's a bit of a mess! I'm cleaning it tonight or tomorrow after I install the rear in-walls.

Thanks Vanice! I'm looking forward to moving my stuff to a more organized fashion. I have sheetrock dust on all of my tools that are out right now, so my next task is to clean all of that up. Then I'll be moving my stuff back out to the perimeter so I have a work space in the middle.

Thanks Brad! I was inspired by Sunset Cinema's hand painted screen. Now, I'll always have that under my front wall treatments. (a little easter egg)

You're right; I am very excited for the finished product! I was expecting another 6 months, but now that I see the finish line a bit clearer, I hope to have this time cut in half. We'll see!

It's funny how many IT guys have popped their head in around these parts. It doesn't surprise me. All of the best IT people I've worked with were adventurous, fervent learners, and into AV to some extent or another. All of these are qualities that nudged me into this hobby and probably many others around here.

I haven't seen my screen yet, but I do love my HSU. Happy with every penny I spent on it so far and I haven't even put it into my HT yet. The few months it was upstairs supporting our 32" vizio were awesome. I can tell you that I will be using my room most nights and my 3 and 6 year old boys ask about the home theater a lot. When we've done test screening, they are entranced!

Doors! Since doors seem to be a popular topic here these days, I called my local door company and talked to them for a bit about getting doors. Mouldings Doors, and More is who I am working with, and they are stellar.

Here are the doors I need to order:


Door #1: The entry point into Level 4. I will take out the existing 30" door. It is clearly the largest sound leak from my room. I will order a 1 3/4 inch thick solid wooden door with an oak veneer. I'm also ordering a matching threshold. I plan to get a sound kit for this door from Ted. Door cost is about $160, plus the Sound stuff.

Door #2: This goes into the closet space. I'm getting a solid 1 3/8 inch door for here with a birch veneer. Most of my woodwork will be birch or pine in the HT. The opening is 23.75 inches currently, finished with drywall. So once I add in from the left side, I'll end up with an 18" door. I'm choosing a solid door here because there is a lot of venting in that room and sound easily goes through that door and up through the staircase. The door is $164

Door #3: Into the kitchenette area, I'm putting another 30" 1 3/8 inch thick door. The door is about $160. I want the door to open into the kitchenette area. But this creates an inset non-flush look on the HT side. I will have to try to do something with the door because I'd like to see an acoustic panel over that door and almost have the door hidden. We'll see!

In other news: Four wet towels later, and I'm done cleaning drywall dust off of my tools, cabinets, and components. I've also started putting the backing braces along the top soffits so I can nail up my trim to hide the up lights.
Edited by stevegravley - 7/16/12 at 1:44pm

I have some small updates and a few pictures to share.

I had my CHT SHO-10's hooked up to my record player upstairs on a 1970's Sansui receiver. Not the best setup, but the new record player and CHT did a great job of cranking some pretty solid and dynamic sound. I moved my CHT's and HSU sub downstairs and replaced the speakers upstairs with a pair of older BOSE 201's I had sitting around. They are not bad speakers, but holy hannah, do I miss the CHT speakers when listening to records. They're just so dynamic, clear, and strongly present!

I started building my front wall acoustic treatments. Since I have an access panel, you can see I had to leave part of the top few pieces open so I can access my outside water shutoff valve. I did not build a shelf half way up and found that I have about 2-4" of compression. I'm going to leave it for now, but I'll probably build a midway shelf on the other side. I am covering the front with speaker fabric once I'm done. You can see I got lucky and the trap sits right in front of my water main. Here's a picture of the top of the bass trap where the access panel is.


So I cleaned up the room, moved the tools I will need into the future kitchenette, moved the tools I don't need out of the room, vacuumed, and moved the lumber to the back of the room (out of the way). The carpet still has some drywall mud spots on it, but otherwise still in decent shape, ie clean enough to sit and watch a movie on the floor. Here are a couple of pictures.





I added my bracing along the front so I have something to attach my curved face. Also, until I put up the coffering, here's some perfect clamp storage!


So while I worked, I listened to music. I want to write a little bit about the bass in my room. First of all, the HSU sub is a destroyer... in a good way. I just had to say that, because I'm excited about that thing.

The sub is currently sitting where I plan to have it permanently. While I was working, I was moving a lot around the room and noticed a large variance in DB in the bass depending on where I was in the room. I don't have measuring equipment, but I can tell you that by ear, it seems to be 20-30db difference depending on where you are. The front corners are probably in the +20 range, but that's expected and will be perfect for my traps. The first row (primary seating position) is actually quite loud at about +20 as well, that worked out well! The second row is at a null spot it seems at about +5. The back corner across from the cabinet (pictured below) is really hot at +30. I think I will have to put something in the corner. I thought maybe a 17"x17"x24" stack knauf oc703 equivolent. I can't do the larger 24x24x34 size because it'd over lap into the rear left speaker. The entire back wall is also pretty hot at about +20 or more. I still have plans to add 2 large 4" panels on that back wall which should help.


I also painted my front 3" halogen trim kits black in preparation for the velvet going up.

Oh, and I probably shouldn't admit this, but after I took the pictures, I hung a sheet up and watched the new Conan. Not a great flick, but fun to watch in the closer-to-being-done home theater. The sheet is still up...

Last night, I built the framing for and filled the right bass trap. The front right corner, as you can see above has a bump out where the foundation is. This was my solution. I hope it works well! (sorry about blackberry pics, I left my camera's SD card at work)


I went ahead and ripped a 2x3 down to 2 inches and nailed it to the wall as a place to staple the fabric. I started filling in the 3pcf fiber board using washers and 3" drywall screws. The washers are really reflective, as you can see on the picture. I am covering them with speaker cloth, but I'm still concerned about them shining through. I'm wondering if I need to make a stencil and spray paint them black before I cover them.



So I've got some observations on working with the Knauf board. I like the color, it's nice and dark. I was able to make all of my cuts with a standard utility box cutter knife. I just had to make 2-3 easy swipes. I wore long sleeves, a dust mask, gloves, and jeans. Boy, did I need those. You really do get glass fibers all over! Last night I wore some old jeans that had holes in the knees, and while I was cutting, I was kneeling on the concrete floor. Basically, I was grinding the fibers into my knees. I didn't notice anything until I showered and went to bed and the sheets touching my knees felt like needles assaulting my skin.

Still this morning, knees sting! Yeesh! The sacrifices I make for this home theater!

Oh, and that cloth is my temp screen clamped to the header and rolled up while I work.