The Grove Theater and Basement Build - Page 18

Wow, that sucks about the breathing issues with mineral wool. Glad it was short lived and you didn't have to make a trip to the hospital. I usually wear a mask when doing insulation but that only helps when you are installing it. Once your done and you take the mask off your still stuck breathing all the fibers that are floating around in the air. The sagging has me worried a little too since it would be obvious if the insulation is resting on top of my open cloth frames. That would not look very good. I think I may be leaning more towards the denim now with some standard fiberglass above it. Might cost me a few bucks more but sounds safer in the long run. Thanks for the info rabident.

Did some painting last night. Got two coats of black on the new white trim pieces and a third coat on the ceiling and soffit. Hopefully that is the last of the paint needed for the ceiling. Now I can get back to trying to complete the soffit structure.

I also got a new toy last night. Should help bring those 18's to life.

I remember that pic. I too would drop some salty language.

I haven't put a light on it since it was wet last night but I hope the roller marks are mostly gone now. They seemed to get better with each coat.

Ha! I'll be lucky if I make it to 85% without something distracting me. Although my wife has given me a pretty solid deadline to have the whole basement mostly done by the end of the year so there won't be too much time for relaxing.

It does amp up the motivation when I go down there now. I can actually start to picture the final look. I still have a long ways to go but at least the steps I'm working on now continually change the look and feel of the room which keeps me pushing forward. Can't wait to get my treatments and fabric from BPape. That will be the next big kick in the pants.

It should be for what it costs to ship that stuff. I am currently waiting on an updated shipping quote (seems to take forever) for 2" vs. the 1" wall treatments that he originally quoted. I debated going 1" like you did but there really wasn't that much in savings so I decided to bite the bullet and go all in. The major disadvantage is that I am losing 2" of width in an already narrow room. Oh well, I am trusting the experts on this one. I'm only doing this once.

Cinemar's build was incredible. There probably aren't very many people who wouldn't want that room in their house but probably very few people who could actually make it happen with the precision, attention to detail, and relative speed that Mario was able to accomplish. I'm guessing he put a lot of time in up front before lifting a hammer. I spent a couple of months playing with my layout before I settled on a plan and that was just the size and shape of the room. It evolved greatly as I watched your build and others while I was doing the boring job of insulating the basement and doing rough framing.

So for a few new pics.

First off I am not really happy with the finish on the ceiling. After 3 coats I can still see roller marks.



Finished off the lower light tray in the back.



And now a new shot of the front of the room with the white trim painted.



I also started priming the sub brackets.



Getting the subs mounted is definitely on the list for this weekend

Late weekend update...

So I didn't have a lot of time this weekend for working in the basement but I was able to "nearly" complete a few things.

Most of my time on Saturday was spent getting the lower curved portion of the front soffit cut and installed. Using a pencil, string, and some fancy math I was able to get half an arc traced on a piece of 3/4" MDF. I then stacked another piece of MDF the exact same size below this piece and clamped them together. So now I could cut both halves at the same time and everything would be symmetrical. One thing I underestimated was the time it would take for the jigsaw to cut through two layers of 3/4" MDF. Now I had used this same jigsaw and blade on two layers of 3/4" OSB and it was slow but tolerable. On MDF this thing crawled... It was mind-numbingly slow. It probably took me an hour out in the cold to cut a 55" long curve. I don't know if I needed a different blade or what but that sucked. Anyway, so back inside we used the same methods as the rest of the light tray on the soffit and got the curve installed. It really looks good and once the front is on the tray I think I will really like it. A few shots...





The underside showing the curve a little better.





That was about all we accomplished on Saturday.

On Sunday we started by closing up the hole in the IB enclosure.



Nothing too exciting here. We framed the inside of the hole with 2x2s and then used a plug made of one layer of 3/4" OSB and two layers of 5/8" drywall with green glue between each layer. Hopefully I will never need to open this again but if I do it will just be a matter of removing 6 screws.

And then it was back outside for more MDF cutting. This time to finish up the LCR speaker box pieces. So at this point I now have all of the pieces cut so I can begin assembly of the 4Pi speakers. Really looking forward to this but probably won't get started until next week.

At this point my help left and I went back inside to the warmth of the basement and began the install of...



I began with a lot of enthusiasm but it quickly turned into a lot of work. For one, they are heavy and getting them into place while trying to mark out hole locations is an exhausting task. I was only able to get 1 1/2 installed on Sunday before I had to quit work for the day. I went back at it last night and was able to get them all nearly installed. I am 95% complete. Ran into an issue with my mounting method and the metal support angle I installed awhile back. On with the pics!!

A full view of the sub wall "array".



A closer view. If you look closely in the middle between speakers two and three you will see 4 brackets missing. This is where I ran into (literally) issues with the metal bracing angle on the back side of the wall array.



And a shot showing a single speaker with all brackets attached. I had my companies fab shop make these brackets to my specs.



A close-up shot of the bracket. My mounting consists of these brackets held in place with 5/16" x 3" machine screws and 5/16" tee nuts.



So I now officially have equipment in the room. Tonight I plan to hook up the Behringer EP4000 and a receiver and do a little "testing" to make sure everything is in working order.

I know! I get goosebumps just looking at it. I have not fired it up yet. Hopefully tonight!

I won't "borrow" every idea but you guys had a lot of good ones. It was like a how-to for home theater rooms.

Thanks Austin, I'm really happy with how they turned out (minus the angle mishap). I just hope that they sound as good as they look. Though I will reserve judgment until the room isn't so live and I can eq them.

I keep pushing to try and be done by Thanksgiving. The weekends are flying by. I'm afraid that the fabric frames and columns could drag a little bit. Those two tasks are going to make or break my schedule.

Thanks SM2K. It will be very similar as I don't plan on adding any of the decorative detail that the Bacon Race theater used. Mine probably won't show up as much as yours though since mine will be painted black. At least I think it will be black. Part of me wants to see what the gray of my panels would look like up there.

I remember you mentioning that they took awhile to break in. I mainly just want to make sure that they are wired up and working properly. I will try and temper my first impressions.

Well, my initial thoughts are mixed as I expected them to be. It took me awhile to get everything set up using an old receiver, DVD player, and one speaker I had sitting around not being used. I started out with a CD to get my feet wet. Pretty much zilch for output. I had to put my fingers on them just to make sure they were working. It was at this point that I noticed the dip switches on the back of the Behringer. So after a quick internet search trying to back up my assumptions I was ready to give it another try. This time I went for a DVD. Started off with the first one I could find that I thought would have some bass to it... Saw II. A little better this time. Not great but better. So it was off to the DVD pile again for another movie choice. This time I found Black Hawk Down. Ah Ha! This one should do the trick. Skip to chapter 4 and things started to come to life. That's better. I could actually see good movement in the subs and started to feel it a little more. As stated before, it was pretty boomy but what can I expect from a hollow shell of a room and absolutely zero adjustments. So test one was a success. Everything appears to be working which is the best part.

One thing that has me a little worried is the feel outside of the room during good bass scenes. Just for grins I went upstairs above the theater to see what I could or couldn't hear. For a room that still isn't completely sealed off I was pleased with the lack of sound transmission upstairs. The part that has me worried is the vibration I get in the floor. And this is with the subs no where near their peak output. It was pretty evident. Am I asking too much of the clips that connect the walls to the floor joists? Generally most subs don't have a direct connection to the walls like this one. Anyone have any thoughts on what I might do at this point? Probably not a lot I can do.

The old credit card took a hit yesterday. Purchased my acoustic treatments and fabric from BPape and also purchased my screen from Jamestown Home Theater Screens. Went with a 130" wide 2.35:1 scope screen with the Seymour XD material. Very exciting times.

True... true. Me too. I think it's like a 4 week lead time so I have plenty of time to get stuff done before I get distracted by a screen sitting in a box saying "put me up, put me up".

First row eyes are about 11' from the screen. Should be in your face but not so much that you have to turn your head at all.

Thanks Craig. It was a big week for me finally getting some actual equipment in the room. Hopefully this weekend (or early next week the way it's been going) I will get the last portion of the light tray finished, get some holes cut, get a few coats of paint on it, and install the lights I've been talking about for almost two weeks. This is definitely a fun stage and very rewarding when you get to cross off another item on the to-do list.

So it was a limited amount of work this past weekend. Only had an hour or two to work on Saturday and Sunday I had to quit early. But I did accomplish something as you will see.

Saturday morning I finally attached my first piece to the face of the light tray. Then I realized that I only had a handfull of 1 1/4" Brad nails that I was using to help hold it in place while the glue dried. Oh well, not a lot of time to work anyway so I went ahead and cut and routed my pieces that I would need on Sunday.

Sunday basically consisted of finishing the light tray and getting some wood filler in the holes and joints.

Had to make sure that I got the A/V passthrough



and the electrical outlet for the projector in before putting the face on.



Got the subs covered up so hopefully they will stay reasonably clean.



And now a couple of shots of the light tray.







And here is a shot of the supports for the arched section over the stage.



An up to date view of the front of the room.



And the back.



I also finished cutting all LCR speaker pieces so those are ready to be assembled when I find some time.

Tonight I plan to sand everything down and hopefully throughout the week get some sanding sealer on it, prime it, and have it painted by the weekend. And FINALLY, I will be ready to cut holes for the lights and get them installed. Next weekend will be all about lights and columns.

I will definitely report back once I get the room complete and everything dialed in. Right now it is too early to tell. Just a feeling based on my initial testing but I think they will work out just fine even though they are offset to the side. This was a concern of mine too but I really wanted an IB and this location was my only option. I figured if I ran into any issues that I might be able to augment the sound with another sub or two behind the false wall.

Shouldn't be a problem. I am less than 2 hours up 65 and not too far off the interstate. Right now I have a goal to be done by Thanksgiving. Going to be close. Probably going to have to have a big push in November to make it happen. Ideal situation would be construction complete just before Thanksgiving so that I can spend some time over the long holiday weekend dialing everything in. Not sure what your timeframe is but maybe we could set something up after that. That is if I can get it done.

Finished sanding the light tray last night and got a coat of sanding sealer on it. Not sure if I will get to work on it tonight or not. If I do, I will be giving the tray another light sanding and then applying the same drywall primer (dark tinted) that I applied to everything else. Hopefully the primer will show me if I have any spots that will need to be sanded again. Crossing my fingers that I got it well enough in the beginning.