The "2...3...Oh Sean! This might turn out to be a nice theater!?" Build Thread

Happy Valentine's Day all!

First of all, I would like to thank Al Gore for inventing the Internet ; without him doing that, we wouldn't have this awesome forum to learn from. Next I'd like to thank everyone that puts their time, knowledge, and efforts into helping others out around here, the site is truly invaluable.

Well, I finally bit the bullet and moved out of the apartment-in-the-city lifestyle and bought a house out in the burbs. I know, I know, "The burbs?....Really?" Yes really. So, now that my fiance and I are no longer confined to sharing our bedroom/office/kitchen/bathroom/theater with about 1000 square feet of space, I can finally have an actual theater room; and the fiance is happy to get my screen out of sight. Now onto the space.

The home fortunately or unfortunately, I haven't decided that yet, has a finished basement. It is a rather open floor plan down there with the only real wall separating the rooms being a closet, therefor I'm not completely restricted to certain walls. I know most people start their build threads with sketches of their idea and what not, but I haven't completely decided on the design yet and I don't know how to go about uploading a picture from sketch-up. So I have just taken pictures of the current state of the space.

I plan for the inner room dimensions to be roughly 14' wide by 18' deep with whatever ceiling height I have left after soundproofing, current ceiling height stands at 7'9" which I'm kinda bummed about but what can you do? There will be a home recording studio/equipment room located off the back of the theater.

There are several ceiling obstacles that I will have to work around, but I won't know what most of them are until I tear the room apart (which I have barely started on). I will need the AVS community's help through this as I have never taken on such a large project before and plan to do it myself. Many things I have an idea about but will still desire the input of others.

I would like to have 2 rows, but I am worried about ceiling height constraints. The riser I plan to build will be 14" high and you will have to walk on the riser to get to the rest of the theater. I have a rear door entrance to the room, plan to have a 30" wide walkway between rear wall and riser. The riser will have one stair between the floor and the top that will be centrally located in between the rear row seats, and then have a left and right walkway to the main floor and front seating (centered with screen). I know I'm already working with a low ceiling and once the soffit is in it will only make it more difficult. (This would all be easier with my sketch-up to look at, I apologize and I will work on figuring that out)

I will use the majority of the equipment from my old apartment theater, but will also be replacing some items to suit the build. Current Equipment that will be reused:

-JVC HD250
-ISCO IIIL anamorphic lens
-Cineslide transport system
-45" high 2.35 Seymore AV XD material
-iRule control
-Oppo BDP-93
-Belkin PureAV conditioner/back-up

I plan on going with at least a 9.1 system, so I will have to buy a new receiver and might as well buy new speakers (need advice on this area).

Well, on to the pictures to help everyone imagine what I am imagining. I have used a sectional sofa along with my old screen wall to mock up my plan, the room is a mess please forgive me.



This will be the theater entrance, from the bar. Currently there is no door and the "doorway" sits at 34.5" wide and 81.5" tall. So, I obviously will need to frame out a doorway and install a door.




This is the theater entry and you can see the bathroom doorway. I am thinking the best move here would be to wall up the current bathroom door and place the new bathroom door just to the right of the theater door. This way I won't have to soundproof the bathroom, if anyone has other suggestions please let them fly.




This shows the where I plan to put the screen wall and seating (seating distances, not actual spots. The rear row will butt up to the left and right walls and split down the middle for entry to the riser) Picture is taken from the door way of the Studio/Equipment Room.




This is the back of the theater from the screen wall. You can see the entry to the Studio/Equipment Room to the left, the entry to the bathroom to the right (still unsure about this one), along the right wall is the closet that separates all of the rooms in the basement (I will be removing the walls of the closet that run parallel to the theater's rear wall in order to create a wider room), and the two HVAC vents that feed the room (one is in the ceiling near the light that will be removed and the other is just left of the screen framing in a section of the ceiling that is 18.25" lower than the rest of the ceiling.).




This is the closet that I was referring to in the rambling above. As you can see I got anxious and already removed the doors and most of the innards that were there and started to pull the paneling down.




This image is taken from another "room" in the basement that my build will be invading. I will have to build a wall to divide the rooms (unevenly as I want a decent sized theater) and then build a slightly angled wall from the dividing wall to the "bonus" room's entry. It will be angled in order to not have a narrow "unwelcoming" entrance. The paneled wall in the center of the picture is part of the closet that is being removed, but I will be leaving back of the closet and angle from where it stops to the divider wall in the "bonus" room. You can also see that section of ceiling that is 18.25" lower, where the beams come to an end. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe that all that is in there is the duct that leads to the one vent, hopefully this is the case and I can just use a newer smaller flexible duct and reroute to the side of the theater in the soffit.




These are the wonderful ceiling issues that I have. Down toward the screen wall I'm not so worried about since there is no impact of the ceiling being low down there, or is there? The lowest part is what I believe to be just duct work, the next step up I have no idea about. I'm guessing it is a support beam and possibly plumbing? I won't know until I tear down these PITA ceiling tiles and drywall. Now the elephant in the room, the 4'x6'8"x5.75" rectangle, is just something I will have to work around. My current design tries to hide it as best I could think (again I need to get my sketch on here) but I don't know if I need to build the ceiling to mirror it on the other side of the theater or not? (for acoustics?)




This is what the elephant looks like from upstairs. Please forgive the mural on the wall (it was there from previous owner), we have only been in the house for about a month and just decided on a paint color, just haven't painted yet. This is to my fiance what the theater is to me, lol, so it isn't going anywhere.




This is the doorway to the Studio/Equipment Room. I will frame it to a single door operation, having the door open toward the theater and to the left. I plan to have an opening in the center of the back wall for the PJ/Lens to go from the Studio/Equipment Room to the theater room (not sure about how this would affect the acoustics of the room, again any input would be appreciated).




This is what the ceiling looks like in the Studio/Equipment Room, I assume that this is what the ceiling looks like behind those tiles in the theater room. This room was used as a "Workshop" by the previous owner. The joists are 2x12s, then plywood, then the wood flooring of the main level. When music is playing in this room and you are standing in the master bedroom (directly above) it sounds like the speakers are in the bedroom. Hopefully this will be corrected with DD+GG, insulation (don't know what I should use), and I'm still not sure if I should use clips for the ceiling or not. I know it will improve my soundproofing efforts, but will I have the height? Will it make that big of a difference?




This is another picture of the other side of the Studio/Equipment Room. As I said before, the previous owner used this room as a "Workshop", I'd hate to completely tear that workbench out so I'm planing on shortening it and re-purposing it as my desk. There is a perfect spot for the equipment rack in this room, I'll just remove those shelves and the closet doors. The wall to the right (barely in the picture) is the wall that separates the theater from the studio and where I will have the PJ/Lens.




Well, that is it for the pics for now. I briefly mentioned it in the captions, but never did in the intro, I plan to use 5/8" DD+GG. I will probably use Genie Clips for the walls, but not sure about the ceiling due to my height limitations. How big of an issue would this be? Also, I tend to see people using standard pink insulation, is that better than the type made out of recycled denim?

I'm going to work on putting the sketch on here. Please feel free to ask questions, answer questions, and throw ideas out. I apologize if this post reads odd and out of sequence I came off the mid this morning and haven't had any sleep, there is no time for sleep with so much to do around here!

-Sean

Yes, the rectangle is from the soaking tub. I have no idea how it is being supported, lol, I will find out once I tear that part of the ceiling out. The tub steps down one foot below the floor level, in total it is 16" deep. After going to measure and looking at the numbers, it makes me think that it is framed out by 2x6s. Does that sound about right? Judging from the Studio, there are 2x12 joists, so that is roughly the foot that the tub goes down below floor level upstairs, and then the rectangle is 5.75" lower than the rest of the ceiling, so that would be a 2x6 plus the little difference from a foot and a 2x12, right? Do you think 2x6s could hold that kind of weight? The water line can go up to about 11" in the tub, did a rough calc and came up with 145 gallon capacity. That's about 1,210 lbs of just water ! I never thought about it's structural capability before you asked. Now you have me wondering. She (my fiance) hasn't been able to use it at full capacity yet because our hot water heater is too small and she ran out of hot water. We plan to get a tankless for her. There is a separate stand-alone shower on the other side of the master bath.

What do you think, 2x6s? I'll find out for sure once I fully tear it all out.

-Sean

Here is my current floor plan sketch, very basic to give an idea.




The house was built in 1967, I bought it from the original owners who helped design it. There are several unusual things about this home, most of it is commercial grade product and not what one expects to find in a house. I do believe that there is a steel beam that runs perpendicular to the soaking tub in length that is housed in the area of the ceiling that is "the middle step" (shorter than the duct, but longer than the tub). As for the floor joists, in the Studio/Equipment Room the floor joists are 2x12s that run perpendicular to the soaking tub in length (same direction as the steel beam). So, if the tub is resting on some of the floor joists, or that beam, it would only be on the shorter side's ends. I'm not sure what the "under side" of the tub is made out of, but the "top side" is shells in some sort of an epoxy resin. The bath vanity counter top and the floor of the shower are all made with this as well.

-Sean

This is all I have so far when it comes to dimensional sketch. Still brain storming.


-Sean

Forgot to respond about the seats, my mock theater is using that sectional split up just to make sure that two rows would fit comfortably. I plan to buy theater seats for the front row, but I haven't decided if I will do theater seats on the back row or just 2 love seats. I'm also debating on if I will do 2 or 3 seats for the front row, I would love to eventually add d box to the theater and read that you get more mfx from single seats than a wide platform. I don't think I have enough room for 3 singles up front, but I feel it would be a shame to only have 2 seats up front.

My reasoning behind the center isle for the rear row was that I am afraid the height of the riser would put someone right in the light path of the PJ. I figured if I left the gap in the center in front of the PJ, then I wouldn't have any clearance issues. What do you guys think?

-Sean

I toyed with the idea of ramps rather than stairs, so that once entering the theater's door the floor gradually inclines until level with the riser, then back down or stairs to the the studio. Not sure about it though.


I used the sticky about calculating riser height and that is what it came up with, well it was like 13.7 something feet. I also thought about what you suggest of having like a 10" riser and then the feet of the seats on an additional riser but didn't know how that would be trying to sit down? Has anyone ever done this?


This post was really interesting to me. I hadn't even thought of arranging it that way. So I started playing with that idea. However, I believe I unfortunately found a prohibiting factor:



Found this I-Beam looking around in the utility room. The duct on the left appears to run directly to the one vent in front of the mock screen wall. So, this I-Beam runs parallel to that and is in fact the area in the ceiling that hangs down between the tub and the duct. I measured it and it is 12" tall and 6.5" wide, my guess it runs the width of the house. So this beam and the the tub would create a clearance issue for a raised rear row from that direction, bummer.


It is the best I could think of. I am really intruding into the bonus room in order to make this theater the size I'd prefer. Here are some pics of the bonus room entry with some cable covers laid down to simulate where the wall might be.





I'm afraid that if the wall gets any closer, we might start losing shins, lol. About the symmetry thing, I wasn't sure if I needed to do that but now I know. I will have the right side angle toward the screen just like the left. While on that topic, should I build the ceiling on the left side of the room to come down just like the tub on the right?


Thanks! The link didn't work for me, but I've seen the movie and know what your referring to, lol.

I already started to try to tear the ceiling tiles down and stopped because I wasn't sure what I had here. I forgot to ask this yesterday. Has anyone ever seen this or know what it is??




Do you think this is soundproofing? There is drywall, then the tiles are attached with a thick brown substance ensuring that the tiles do not touch the drywall. And the tiles don't look like normal ceiling tiles, or at least not what I've seen. The ceiling on my main floor is a material called Tectum, which is an acoustical panel, and I mean the entire main floor's ceiling is this. If they used that on the main floor, do you think they would soundproof the basement? I just don't know why they would with no doors on any of the rooms down there.

-Sean

Well, the current design has all that stuff down in front of the screen where we won't be walking around much. If I flip it, it would put all that directly above head.




Lol, it does look like cow patties. As for the asbestos, its always on my mind. I called a few asbestos removal companies and they pretty much said not to worry about it, lol. They said just wear a mask when tearing stuff down and make sure I vacuum everything up. They offered to accept pieces for testing but didn't suggest it as they seemed confident it would be fine. Somewhere between $500 and $700 per sample is what I've been quoted. I don't know if they are all too busy or if they really don't think its that big of an issue? My fiance's brother works for a restoration company in a different state, I've talked to him about it. He said more or less the same and said if we were to insist and hire someone, we could expect to pay ranges well above $15-20k just for the removal, if there is asbestos.

-Sean

Thanks mizedog, the bar is totally "That 70s Bar". Unfortunately my Marshall head is just a valvestate hybrid, I mean it is still nice, just not as nice as the full tubes.

Dennis, thanks for the info. I recall some sort of lead based paint disclosure being signed in the buying process. My question is since there is nothing at all that is painted down there would this still be an issue? There is wallpaper, wood panel, drywall, and those ceiling tiles down in the basement. Oh, and the stained cedar around the fireplace. No paint. The window/door removal would be refering to an exterior door, right?

-Sean

Edit: The studio room does have either a primer or paint. What if I was to drywall over the existing wall/pegboard?

Interesting Big, I will experiment with putting blocks under the sofa and see how I like it. It would be nice to save some headroom.

-Sean