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

Back to the asbestos, the companies that I had talked to suggested that I read about asbestos on the E.P.A. website, so I gave it a look. According to the documentation there, I should be clear, but I do still constantly wonder. Thank you all for your concern as well!

Thanks Dennis, I will call someone out to test for lead before I continue. I gave the E.P.A.'s website a read on lead and there I am definitely in the possible issue area.

As for the tub, calm down everyone, lol. It wasn't an "after thought" that someone just threw in the house. The house was designed by an architect with the input from the owners, the owner was a civil engineer. I'm sure there is proper support for the tub, we just haven't seen it yet, after all the tub has been there for 45 years! That is a loooooong time, no offense intended to those who are older than 45 , so I think its safe to say it will be ok. From everything else that I've seen in the house, I'd say they didn't do any "corner-cutting". It will be exciting to finally find out though, but I gotta get lead tested first.

-Sean

Thanks Schneedoo, I will give that a read and most likely have a conversation with the NLIC. The city that I live in doesn't require permits for most of the things that I plan to do, so I will figure out the proper disposal procedures for lead based paint materials and treat the few painted items as such (assuming this will be suggested by the NLIC). I will need an OTC permit if I end up re-routing my duct work, but that would come post tear down and this issue would no longer be a factor.


Yes, there was a Lead Based Paint Disclosure. The sellers checked two boxes stating:

"Seller has no knowledge of lead-based paint and/or lead-based paint hazards in the housing."

"Seller has no reports or records pertaining to lead-based paint and/or lead-based paint hazards in the housing."

Again, I purchased from the original owners so its not like the "telephone game" has skewed the knowledge from owner to owner over the years. However, that doesn't mean they were telling the truth either, I just have to assume that people are as honest as I am. Come to think of it, they left a paint chest in the utility room containing cans of all of the stains and paints used around the house (in case a touch-up was needed) with little notes as to which is which. I will go give those cans a look.

No disclosure about asbestos as according to the E.P.A. the house doesn't fall in the category for such requirements (that doesn't mean there for sure is no asbestos, after all asbestos was in everything so I am still cautious, but it is highly unlikely to be present).

Good point about having results in hand. Could be good, could be bad, lol. Once I read the DIY section of the E.P.A. website and discuss things with the NLIC, I will decide whether or not I will get the house tested. I of course don't plan to sell the house, but if I ever did....I see where you're coming from.

Now, back to the "window/door removal" criteria, I will not be removing doors, just relocating/adding doors. So, is this technically still an issue? Does the word "removal" here mean just a simple taking a door off it's hinges or does it mean no more existence of a door to said room?

-Sean

This is the paint chest that the owners left for us.







This contains all of the paint/stain used both inside and outside of the house. I know it doesn't look like much but a lot of the interior walls are/were either wallpapered, ledgestone, wood panel, cedar siding, or brick. The oldest can of paint in the chest is the one in the last pic, from 2004. My guess is that all of the drywall had wallpaper on it at some point, but they did a remodel starting in 2004. The majority of the paint and stain is from 2007 and that was the same year they added the current appliances and wood floors. I'm feeling pretty confident about there being no lead-based paint in this house.

-Sean

I understand that thought, however it appears that the house originally had wallpaper on the walls made of drywall and that they removed the wallpaper on a few walls and painted that. In fact, several walls in the house are viewable at the same time and they did this funky "paint job" that runs the whole distance. It goes from the dining room into the formal living room, into the family room to the hallway. This "paint job" has the majority of the wall as white, then a ribbon (yes, a ribbon), then a light yellow, then another ribbon, then a darker yellow. On the white section they painted murals containing more ribbon. The other room in the house that has paint is the master bath, I have to assume it had wallpaper on it before the pink paint simply because all the other bathrooms have wallpaper.

On another topic, I have updated my sketch a bit. I dropped the idea of the crown molding (which was the angled segments in my previous sketch, lol) and have decided things would be much easier and less traditional if I just use 1x for my columns and beams. I don't like the color of the wood in sketch-up but I used it to show that it will be stained wood. I have dropped the riser to a final height of 10" and the love seats will have a 4" rise directly below them. I drew a line from where I believe the PJ's lens to rest to the top and bottom of the screen, it barely clears my center beam and I feel that it will still be too close to have a rear row seat in front of it. The right side of the theater now has a mirrored angle toward the screen. I plan to have the wall/ceiling from the foremost column (where the front wide speaker will be placed) to the screen wall covered in black velvet. From the foremost column back will be split, flat black paint on the bottom and a graphite grey on the top with acoustic panels to match (graphite Acousti Suede). The ceiling from the foremost beam (not drawn yet) to the back of the room will be Behr Midnight Sky (a dark blue) and will be treated to a NSM. The soffits currently stand at 5 3/4" x 1' with an extension of 3.5" for a light box, bringing the bottom to 9 1/4" wide. They will be finished with stained 1x and drywall painted with the Midnight Sky blue and the NSM to extend to those areas to give an effect of a continuing sky. The center beam will be done very similarly. I understand if I end up moving my HVAC ducts that the current soffit design will not be able to accommodate the duct and will then have to be redesigned (an issue that will be easier to see once I am down to the framing of the basement, exposing everything). My columns will stick out 2 1/2" from the wall and be 11 1/4" wide, finished with stained 1x. The "chair rail" is simply a stained 1x4. The beam that runs down the center will start right before the tub, helping conceal the fact that it is there, and the second beam (not drawn yet) will start right before the actual I-Beam I believe to be running left to right before the screen wall, in order to conceal it as well. My current issue is trying to figure out the proper transition from the 1' soffit to a 14" beam toward the front of the room. I can't figure out how to do it without looking odd, which is why I have yet to draw it. I don't know if I missed anything or not, but feel free to ask and continue to throw ideas out there. Let me know what you all think of the changes.





-Sean

I guess I had failed to mention that the dining room and formal living room are both sunken the same extent as the tub in the master bath. The faucet side of the tub shares a wall with the formal living room.



My dog is a ham and works his way into pics all the time.

I went into the utility room (under the dining room) and checked out how it is supported. There are 4x12s that run perpendicular to the massive I-beam. They are then sandwiched inside the lips of the I-beam, it appears that a hole was drilled on the underside of the lip of the I-beam and a metal rod was run up through the center of the 4x12, then welded flush with the I-beam. The faucet side of the tub butts up against the other side of the I-beam, so I assume something similar was done to create the frame of the tub. The tub runs along the outside wall of the house, so the foundation would be holding up on side in length.


Hey, we are indeed neighbors, I will have to check out your build as well.

-Sean

LMAO, I will! I'm just not there yet!


I know I'm the only one that seems to like this idea, lol. I am just not having seats up against the rear wall, I have been watching movies like that in apartments for the last 5 years and it sucked. I guess some are saying that the unfortunate viewers to be sitting in the far left/right rear seats will be hosed though in this design, something I didn't initially consider. My reasoning behind walking up on the riser to get to the rest of the theater is because I absolutely love the theaters that "start at the top" and the rest of the room is sunken in. I, unfortunately, don't have the ceiling height to allow the riser to start at the entry nor do I have the money or desire to bust through the foundation and dig the front of the room out to create this effect. My best solution to accommodate the "style" I'm looking for was to step up to step down.


Thanks, the house is very interesting. It is a mid-century modern hillside ranch. I am struggling with how I want the theater to look, as I would like it to be just as impressive as the rest of the house, but I'm still not sure what to do with it. I had a previous design (never posted on here) that involved a lot of curves in the soffits but decided it looked a little too much like a modern night club, not what I am going for. I don't know if my current design is too boring or out-of-place. I have toyed with the idea of "theme-ing" the theater in a mid-century modern style to match the rest of the house, but not sure if that's what I want. It might be cool, make it kind of a bomb shelter look with subtle curves and retro-futuristic furniture. But those chairs and couches just don't have the comfort of modern day theater seats with recliners, cup holders, etc.

I'm still not sure how to go about the projector in the equipment room. I know that is where it will go, to keep it out of the theater, but I want to make the space "up-gradable" for future PJs. Also, I don't know if I should separate the rooms with a piece of glass or not. I know that the more glass the light goes through the more degraded the image gets, so not sure where I stand on making a "window" for it. Any suggestions on this?

-Sean

Well, its been a while since I have posted, not much going on demo/construction wise. However, after all of the suggestions to change the riser (thanks BTW!) and talking to an acoustical treatment company I have redesigned the room. I have taken elements of the rest of the house and put them into the room to pull it away from that "traditional" look and connect it with the house aesthetics wise. The majority of the home lighting is ambient light from trough-style light boxes, so I have added this, both along the floor and ceiling. The acoustical company suggest to try and have no parallel walls, so I have done this. However, my back wall and screen wall will still be parallel, so I have decided to find some sort of stone to match the stone in the rest of the house (hopefully find a thin veneer that looks like the real stuff in the house) and use it along the back wall. My thought for that is that the stone faced wall will be broken in so many directions that it will no longer be parallel to the front wall, I didn't discuss this with the acoustic guys so I'm not sure is this will hurt or not but it should look nice and tie into the house nicely. The riser has been adjusted up against the rear wall (I won't be sitting there so I'm not too worried how good the rear row's sound will be right under the speakers). The riser is still 14" tall and has 2 stairs, 5" and 10" rise, made of 2x12s that will appear to float and will be stained to match the 2x12 wall columns. Here are some pics:

Sky View




From Screen looking to the rear of the room




Side of room angle



I'm still debating on using a pair of QS8s as front wides on those front 2x12 columns. Audyssey suggests direct fire speakers, but the QS8s would fit there nicely. Otherwise I guess I would go with 2 more SHO-10s, but I would have to build in a wall cavity to put them in just after the first column towards the rear of the room. I don't know how that would work with sound, both in proofing and listening, if there was a 20"x12"x12" cavity in the wall, obviously still DD+GG around that area but still. Any thoughts? Thanks!

-Sean

Ok, a few changes here reference the stone and the stairs. I have reduced the amount of stone, but I still need opinions on it, and I have chamfered the bottom step.

New rear stone wall. I need help deciding if the stone should carry over the whole width of the columns or just half (both versions depicted)




This is the new chamfered front step. Better?




Also, FedEx dropped off some goodies today. I ordered some Tectum samples last week, another change in design when I decided to flow the rest of the house into the theater. I won't be using the exposed material like I have for my ceilings but I will still be using the product for my acoustic panels.





Front of the panels.




Rear of the panels.




Gunmetal Grey is what I plan to use for the majority of the panels.




Black is what I plan to use down by the screen to help eliminate reflections.




I am liking the finishes of the Fabri-Glass and Fabri-Tough over the Tough II, the NRCs are close so I'm guessing it will come down to ppsf to decide which one I'll use. Fabri-Tough is very similar to my ceilings and a little higher NRC so there is a good chance I'll be using it.

-Sean