MY $54 DIY adjustable velvet screen border

My dedicated HT has a 3 year old 120" 16:9 Black Widow screen painted onto the drywall. After reading many different ways to make an inexpensive velvet border that can easily be adjusted to a 2.35:1 size, I came up with the following:

$26.98 - 3 yards of Roaylty 3 Black velvet (reg $14.99/yd) used a 40% off coupon
$14.94 - 3 pieces 21/32" x 2.5" x 10ft pre-primed mdf from Lowes (sku 5965)
$11.97 - 1 pc 1" x 2" x 8' styrofoam sheating from Lowes (sku 14539)

I basically cut the mdf to fit around the outside of the screen, wrapped the velvet around it and stapled the black velvet to the back. I then air-nailed the pieces to the drywall to make the 16:9 border. The nails disappeared through the velvet.



I cut the 1" syrofoam to tightly fit into the sides and cut it to the correct height (in my case 7.25"). I had to put two pieced together in order to fit the 105" width of the screen. I butted the edges together and used Wood Joiners that I had on hand (Homedepot sku 45774), then wrapped the joint with duct tape. The styrofoam is lightweight but the 1" thickness gives it enough strength to hold its shape. I then cut and wrapped a piece around the sytrofoam and air stapled the velvet to the back.

The 3 yard piece of velvet was just enough to make all the borders.



The bottom syrofoam piece for the 2.35:1 screen is just force fit and sits on the bottom trim piece. The top sytrofoam piece hags from two velcro straps that attach to velcro pieces stapled to the drywall.



It only take a minute to adjust the screen from one size to the other. The difference in depth of the trim and the syrofoam is invisible from the front and even barely visible from the side.



Here's a picture of the back of the wrapped syrofoam piece:

at the base of the second row riser.

My first choice was a store-in-place system but I don't have much room below the screen because of the electric outlets nor do I have much room above the screen due to the speaker outlets. I looked at the system with magnets but my screen is painted on the drywall and not an AT transparent screen that that system had. Couldn't figure out a way the magnets would work for me. Also, that system would have required 6 yeards of velvet instead of the 3 that I used.

Bob

... and it appears to me that (1) he has access to the back of the screen and (2) in this thread by Warren http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1392527, it shows a fabric wall for the screen - see post #2 -- "OK so first here is the "screenwall". In this case the whole wall is the screen! A few pics first of the material. I just put some 2x4s along the ceiling and wall on one side, 2x4s on the floor (the subs hold that "down" since it was temp I'm not going into the floor), and I stapled into the drywall on the last side."

I have doubts whether the magnets would be strong enough to work through 1/2" drywall. Let me know if you try it and it works for you.

it is almost impossible to see that the 1" panels stick out further than the border even with the lights on. The velvet on velvet makes the depth difference disappear.