The Once and Future Theater - Page 2

No, I thank YOU, sir.

That sounds like sensible advice. I'll do what I can to remove the corner bead without making a huge mess, and leave the wall on top of the floor. In fact, I'm thinking more and more about leaving the flooring in altogether, and just laying pad and carpet over it, when the time comes. The "meticulous" (there are less polite ways of describing those tendencies ) side of me insists that I don't want it there and that I shouldn't squander the half inch of height... heheh. Then I ask people what removing it will involve, and they don't know - but the fact that it is glued down is a little upsetting.

Anyone who has removed glued-down pre-finished hardwoods - feel free to chime in with your experience.

Fred

You guys are making this too easy. Now with so few decisions to make, I can focus my energy on actually doing something.

Thanks!

I'm sure most of you who have been reading and posting (thanks!) had forgotten this thread existed, but your return is eagerly anticipated.

So, in the theme of doing the room right the first time, some things have come up. I'm still pulling down drywall (sad face). I've uncovered the details of a few things that obstruct my idealized way forward. I knew they would, but now looking at the rate of my progress, I start to wonder where the balance in trade-offs should be. Clearly, I'm the final arbiter, but opinions are needed!

How much does that soffit get in the way, and how much time would you be willing to put in to get a ceiling suspended from isolated joists, hung on isolated walls (true room-within-a-room)? I'm starting to waver. (and my wife is a little discouraged by how slowly things are going - I am too, but I have more patience still) Please watch the video, and let me know your thoughts. I have more questions for later.

Well, I had a friend in from out of town and we were able to get a lot of work done today. Things went much more smoothly than it has working alone, so we cut no corners and got rid of all the soffit and old framing.

Now it's time to start planning to get rid of the window!

Also, I just received my calibrated microphone and external soundcard, so I will hopefully be getting REW up and running over the next few days. I'm still waiting for a cable or two, but they should be here for the weekend.

Good Times!

So, an engineer friend of mine came out with a strong recommendation for SharkBite fittings and PEX tubing to relocate the water supply line you can see in the video. Anyone have any experience with those?

Thanks guys for the experiences. I took my hired hand out for dinner and afterwards we went back in to reconsider the challenges the plumbing were going to cause.

I think we've found two really good solutions to two problems. There's only one problem(?) left (HA!).

The short length of copper pipe that runs under the floor joists in the corner of the room - the one I had earmarked for PEX - is just going to be moved. I was looking at it wrong. I thought it fed water to the guest bathroom, but it does not. It feeds a spigot outside; a spigot that I can put anywhere. So unless there is any code or other real reason no to relocate the spigot to the corner of the house (so that it doesn't have to cross under any joists), that's what I'll do. I'll cut out the pipe, plug the hole, and make a new hole to re-install the spigot. The biggest challenge there will be replacing the cement board siding, but I'll be doing that to plug the window anyway.

The other plumbing problem is a supply line that runs near the large drain pipe (through the old soffit). That line also runs under the joists. There are three places that I can extend the pipes so that the whole problem section gets pushed out of the room entirely. It'll sit above the poured foundation wall, entirely outside my soundproof envelope. The best news about this is that I won't have to worry with any adapters or compression fittings - my brother-in-law is good with sweating copper - and I'll only need a few fittings for the whole project.

The only thing I'm not sure about it the blocking between the joists. The blocking runs in a row down the length of the room - right in the middle. My understanding is that the blocking is there to help minimize flex in the floor. They're not actually load-bearing, but they contribute to the solid feel of the main level. I don't want to get rid of them, but there's going to have to be some way around them. At this point, I'm imagining notching them to allow a place for the new joists to run through them. If someone needs a picture to understand let me know... Is that a reasonable idea?

Fred

Thanks! I hope I can keep it moving (accelerating)!

I almost forgot! You wanted more pictures!

Here's a picture, and a hot tip: demolition can be dangerous!

Soundproofing is the primary consideration, and yes there will be a soffit in the finished room - mostly for ventilation.
In fact, I considered just wrapping all that stuff in framing and leaving it fully outside the theater, like you're suggesting. I decided against it because I didn't want to think later that I could have done anything more. That way, if I'm unsatisfied, it'll be because my expectations were too high, not my effort too low. Moving the plumbing is going to allow my to suspend the ceiling from new isolated joists. There will be absolutely no mechanical connection of the framing for the theater to the framing of the rest of the house, short of caulked spaces in door frames, I suppose. (Honestly, I haven't really worked out how a room-within-a-room gets set up against other structures without coupling in those places, but that's a ways off yet. I'll get it figured out before drywall goes back up.)

Thanks for the suggestion. I appreciate it (even though it sounds like I have dismissed it out of hand). The conversation keeps me honest. Also, keeping the conversation moving helps keep me focused and motivated.

I should be honest with myself, and you all - my loyal readers: There will probably be a week or two missing from actual documented progress. My little sister just had a baby today, so from here on out you can call me Uncle Fred. I'm sure between that and borrowing a truck to unload my wood pile, I'll be less productive for a while. Hopefully, I can get some good images together so I can flesh out my designs and share them (looking for feedback and improvements, of course).

Oh, a question for anyone with construction and design experience: how small a joist can I use and expect a double drywall ceiling not to sag? Keep in mind that it won't be supporting a floor - only two layers of 5/8 drywall and some soffits, and a projector, of course. Is 2x8 too small?

Fred

Well, good news. I talked with my dad, who works with engineering specifications of this sort for a living. If I understood him correctly, which I think I did, and if I've read a few wikipedia definitions correctly, which I think I have, I've determined that a 2x8 will be adequate for my ceiling joist span.

Mostly as a future reference to myself, but as general information for anyone considering their own span, here's a few good links.

First, the weight of drywall - according to the first good search result I found - is 2 pounds per square foot. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_d...alf_inch_weigh Even doubled, to 4 psf, that's a rather low dead load (remembering that my ceiling joists are like attic joists, with no floor laid on top).

Take that information and go to American Wood Council's online span calculator. Link Choose the species and grade I was instructed to (southern pine, No. 2), choose the member type (ceiling joist) and the spacing and sizing requirements of your application (in my case, 24 inch spacing, 2x8, and the smallest dead load option available) and the deflection limit you can tolerate, and the calculator gives you the maximum span. For my case, even assuming 10 psf dead load which is likely more than double my actual dead load, a span of more than 12 feet is manageable with a deflection limit of L/480.

What does that mean? Well, it means that even if I used four layers of 5/8 drywall, a 12 foot span supported by 2x8 southern pine wouldn't sag more than .3 inches. I can tolerate that!

I know I skipped the deflection limit calculation. Here is it. Deflection limit is given as a fraction (L/480, in my case). The span (L), 12 feet in my case, (I'm rounding a little) divided by 480 gives the total deflection. 12/480=0.025ft. 0.025ft x 12ft/in=0.3 inches or just under 5/16 inch. Ta Da!

I'll see if I can find someone to check my work here.

(Edit: my number for the weight of drywall was wrong for 5/8 gypsum. It's actually just over 2 psf - appox 2.2. That won't matter in the slightest, but it does make me more confident that I don't want to try 2x6.)

Having developed plans for the major obstacles - the window, the plumbing, the decoupled framing - I'm ready to start ironing out some finer design points. I've been trying to work with sketchup, and I'm no good at it. It takes me days and I still don't have a drawing that I can make mean much. Anyway, I took a page from someone else's book, and drew it on paper - as close to scale as I could without a ruler and graph paper. I think it came out pretty well.

In the hope that some of you are feeling creative, I'll post the blank that I photographed first. Please feel free to download it and draw all over it. Eventually I'll probably post several versions of it with different construction details on each version. In this drawing, the outer line is the limit of construction. For the top of the page (let's call it the north wall, because it's up - does that bother readers in the southern hemisphere?), that outer line is poured concrete foundation. The same is true of the eastern edge, and the eastern end of the southern edge. The western edge has been limited here by the second set of windows on the northern wall - the windows that will stay. Along the bottom of the image, poorly labeled, is the drain pipe from the rest of the house. It's near ceiling height, and will go inside the soffit. Near the midpoint of the south wall, there are a number of diagonal sections - this is where other drain pipes join with the main pipe, heading to the exit of the house in the east wall.



So, the first drawing I've made is for layout of the speakers, seats, riser, stage and soffits. I'll probably do some kind of proscenium as well, but it will most likely mirror the stage very closely (acoustics pending) Pardon the crudity. Notice I'm toying with the idea of armchairs for the first row. I like the idea of them being able to swivel around and be more social - but I'm not set on that. The second row sofa I drew has recliners on each end - I'm not sure I'll end up with that, but we saw one at a furniture store that was reasonably priced, so that's what I've been envisioning.

The speaker positions are flexible (as is the door), but I feel like these are pretty close. I'll hopefully be able to take lots of acoustic measurements and be confident in their locations before it's too late. I haven't decided on columns; they were in my initial plan, but I'm not sure any more. The screen here is about 9 feet wide. I hope that works out - I don't see why it won't. I've placed the front speakers a little narrow to keep them inside the 16:9 image. I've also hopefully left enough space for a set of masking panels for the sides of my 235 screen.

Also, the riser I've set here is two steps high - about 14 inches. I'll show you why in my next post.

To get the room length I need, I've had to plan on relocating a door. The new position of the doorway at the landing of the stairs seems to interfere with the triple stud in that wall. As that wall runs down the center of the basement, and the triple stud is just about in the middle of it - I'm assuming it needs to be there.

Further, the entrance to the theater will need to be onto the riser. Since the step up to riser height is outside the theater, what I'm planing on doing is building a landing at the base of the stairs two steps high. This will move the new doorway to one side of the triple stud. I'll just continue the landing along the west wall of the theater, so that the stair landing is the same height as the riser.

The problem this makes is that the existing soffit for the drain pipe is too low for the doorway to be comfortable However, I can decrease the size of the soffit by a few inches if I remove the air duct from it, leaving only the plumbing. The new doorway will still be a little low - about 6'5" I think.

Luckily, since the air handler is under the stairs, raising the landing and extending it to the theater makes moving the ducting easy. It'll just run under the riser instead of in the soffit.

Here's the picture of the landing at the bottom of the stairs. The end of the theater will be almost exactly where the edge of the doorway is visible at the right in this image. The triple stud is just to the right of the double gang switch box. For reference to the floorplan I posted, we are looking "north," the stairs run east, and the theater is in the room to the north, but out of frame to the east. I'll repost the original floorplan of the whole basement again to help that make sense.



This plan doesn't show the new landing I'm talking about, but it does provide reference for overall layout.


So, whadaya think?

Sorry about the scale guys. I'll try to include something more descriptive in future iterations. However, if you look at the lower right of the image, I've noted that one line on the page is 10 inches. I think that the studs I drew, and the plumbing, are a little small, while the furniture and soffits are a little large. However, the stud spacing is pretty accurate.

I need help... Advice. For estimating materials, would you work from drawings? Does anyone have a good tool for estimating materials for stages, risers, soffits? The numbers are killing me.

So is the price. The nice man at Lowes explained to me some options for delivery of large orders and the way bulk pricing discounts work. Basically, if you need $2500 worth of stuff or more, submit one order and the guy at the contractor desk will whisk it off to someone at some corporate location, who'll mark it down for you. Then delivery is $79 per trip. Well as anyone who has done the math recently will know, it's very easy to spend that much money. I'm pretty sure I'll hit than number on lumber and drywall alone.

So I suppose I need to make as careful a plan as possible up front, to avoid extra delivery trips and minimize overage. Blarg.

How about some good news? I got a spare bit of house wrap from a construction site, via the architect, who happens to be the spouse of my wife's coworker. Why is that good news? Well, you need house wrap for when you remove a window and frame over the opening. House wrap is generally sold in huge rolls, for like $150. I only need about 25 square feet, so even the small roll (3' by 100' for $30) is overkill - not to mention I'd have a seem in the middle of it. On the other hand this bit of scrap that was destined for the landfill will suit my needs exactly, and for free.

The best part of this is that having secured some house wrap, I'm ready to remove the window this weekend. I'll be sure to take pictures so that all of you who wonder what it would look like to punch a giant hole in the side of your house will be able to live vicariously through me.

Well, I concluded I was going to have to work from precise drawings to be happy with my estimate for materials. I acknowledge that my order won't be exactly right, but I'll do what I can to make it as close as possible. My backside is just too water-tight, I guess. So I set about serious drawings tonight, and I haven't found the compromise I like. I need a recommendation from someone who has built one (a theater, a riser) before.

I started with this viewing distance calculator and Dennis Erskine's recommendation that the screen not exceed 80% of the room's width. Since I want a wide screen (2.40 is the number I'm using, but I plan on building custom a little large and masking down), I settled on 42 inches high. So that's about 101 inches wide (or 70% of my anticipated internal room width of 145 inches), for those keeping score at home. A screen almost 8 and a half feet wide is not especially large for cinemascope, I know, but neither is my room.

Next I putzed around in the viewing distance calculator and with my paper sketches until I decided (arbitrarily) that the first row should be slightly closer than the THX recommended 36 degree viewing angle. I settled on 40. That puts first row eyeballs 8.5 feet back (102 inches). That's right at 2.4 times the screen height.

Since riser height and position is the whole reason to do this, I went next to this vertical viewing angle guidleline to see how high I could mount the screen. Long story short, I used some trigonometry and an assumption about first row seated height and generated this diagram you see below. I limited the screen height to 15 degrees above the front row, to keep from getting a sore neck. Then I left about 6 feet (maybe 2 inches short) and found the second row height using the drawing tools.

This image is to scale! You might not like the scale, but it is. 1 inch is 2 pixels. (At least it was before I uploaded it to photobucket, which reformatted my bitmap to jpeg - I'll attach the bitmap for anyone who wants it.) The whole white image is the entire space inside finished drywall (within an inch or two). I didn't draw in the floor or speakers or anything but the screen and heads. The difference in head heights is the riser height. I assumed 38 inches above floor for each eye. So, using the pixel counter features in MS Paint, I've determined that this scenario requires a 20 inch riser. I can't really build more than 14, so what do I push or pull?

Please help!

I went reading for other's designs - it looks like maybe my first row is too close. Opinions?