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Hawaii Home Theater Construction - Page 2

post #31 of 336
5/2/12 at 12:50pm
Thread Starter 
Progress continues. Inside the HT with ceiling going in above...




Master bedroom floor right above the HT. Walls of the second story go up today.

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post #32 of 336
5/2/12 at 3:17pm
Matt,

You are right the views are awesome. It is great to see everything moving right along with your project. Framing is usually fairly quick...

Keep up the great work,

Jim
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post #33 of 336
5/3/12 at 11:31pm
Thread Starter 
Another day, another rainbow (and another wall)



Rain continues to slow us down but progress here and there continues
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post #34 of 336
5/4/12 at 3:33am
I'm curious about the permitting process, it looks like you will be casting quite a shadow on your neighbor, any problems with that?
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post #35 of 336
5/4/12 at 4:14pm
Thread Starter 
Hey DC- no problem yet. The building height is restricted to 25' and the second floor needs to be 7' away from the property line at a minimum. We clear both hurdles. The house you see in the picture is the one house we are closest to with a total distance of about 18-20 feet between houses. Luckily they are very good neighbors. This is one big reason I am going to sound proof the room.

The ground elevations are different with my neighbors. The houses behind me are about 8 feet or so lower so we tower over them. The end result; we have a great view of the mountains.
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post #36 of 336
5/4/12 at 6:58pm


I look at this picture and I keep thinking "How many Hawaiians does it take to raise a wall?"

The answer is 6

Two must wear yellow.
Two must have suspenders
One guy needs to come dressed for a picnic
It helps to face the rainbow
and there must be tunes playing.
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post #37 of 336
5/5/12 at 1:37am
Thread Starter 
Geeeeez, when will the rain stop!!!!!



And yes, you guessed it, another day and another rainbow. I should have called this the Hawaiian Rainbow theater......

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post #38 of 336
5/7/12 at 12:02pm
Thread Starter 
The rain finally let up a bit over the weekend. The HT hasn't moved much but discussions are ongoing. Wood trim is still being worked out. Carpet that has some personality for a HT is not an easy find, at least at Home Depot. I'll need to branch out to a specialty store which will mean a bump in price...oh well. Still working on figuring out how to nicely arrange my equipment in a rack when most of it was designed for shelves. This might also turn out costly. The framing is just about done above the HT:

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post #39 of 336
5/7/12 at 5:10pm
Is the pepto-bismol underlayment for tile? Looks like the stuff I used on top of lightweight concrete before the slate floor got installed.
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post #40 of 336
5/9/12 at 11:18am
Thread Starter 
Good question. My contractor got tired of putting plastic over everything every other hour when it would start to rain. It was wasting too much time and costing too much for plastic. This continues while we reamain on hold due to the truss people not living up to their promises so until then, everything is getting wet- NOT GOOD!!! The pink stuff was a labor saving solution to water proof the surface. It mostly works except for a couple areas where the water is finding a crack or two. Hopefully the wood floors below are not getting destroyed.
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post #41 of 336
5/9/12 at 2:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by psychdoc View Post


I agree with you in this; if I had a free never ending supply of bulbs for my projector I wouldn't bother with a tv.

Bulb life is only a small part of PJ vs TV discussion - after all, you can buy a lot of bulbs for the cost of adding a 70 to 80" TV.

If you are going to use the room for various purposes in addition to movies, the TV is a good idea. For casual TV watching most people don't want to sit it a darkened theater room. During casual TV watching, I'm usually multitasking with a magazine or iPad - both of which require some addition light.

Same for watching sports - IMO it's no fun having the guys over to watch the big game when you have to drink you beer in the dark.

Finally, it also allows you to "save" the "big screen experience" for great movies, concerts, etc.

Looking forward to seeing your progress.

Now if this was a dedicated theater only room - I would say skip the TV.
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post #42 of 336
5/9/12 at 3:19pm
Thread Starter 
Screen Shot- well said. That is exactly why I'm using both. In addition to that, I'd love to have the family in there as much as possible and I don't see that happening if they always have to be in the dark. Having a tv with bright room conditions just opens up the utility of the room to so many more options. I just need to figure out how to securely mount the thing onto a wall that is a floating on Kinetics IsoMax clips. That could be tricky. The only thing I would slightly disagree with you on would be the big games on the big screens. I look foward to seeing all the big games on the big screen. I can handle drinking a beer in the dark.... nobody better spill on my Fortress seats!! Ha.

Here is hopefully one of the last shots of the second floor without a roof on it. In the distance will be the bathroom. It doesn't look like much but it should look really nice when completed. Next to the bathroom and to the right is the walk-in closet. For Hawaii standards it's huge.



The trusses are (re)scheduled to go on tomorrow. We shall see if that holds up. I'm crossing my fingers.

I'm still working out the rack from middle atlantic and how much home automation I want to get involved with. I plan on buying the new Control4 to get all the equipment in step with each other but it might be fun to also have a few lights and other items controlled as well (without getting silly about it). Still learning as I go which is half the fun of it.

The last two Aerial SW12 subs arrived yesterday. Cross that off the list. Only items left: Control4, MidAtl Rack, and Fortress Seats. Lots more to follow.......
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post #43 of 336
5/14/12 at 12:32pm
Thread Starter 
Here is a single Kinetics isomax clip. I was surprised how small they are.



The crane moving the trusses to the top of the house;



The front of the house with the emerging new profile;



The second floor above the HT is really taking shape now. Really nice view of the mountains in the background;



The back of the house from the next street. Thankfully the picture window is between the two houses for a maximum view of the scenic mountains.




Up close view of our massive window for our new great views from our new master bedroom. The HT is directly below.

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post #44 of 336
5/14/12 at 6:34pm
Matt,

Very nice...
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post #45 of 336
5/14/12 at 11:21pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks!!

On a side note, after talking to Koolau I've decided to add some length to the theater. There just wasn't going to be much room behind the back row. The old dimensions were going to be 24x19x9, not counting any acoustic treatments, wood trim, or sound proofing. I'm adding two more feet to the length but once the floating walls are made (wall within a wall on the iso max wall clips) along with the interior acoustic treatments and woodwork trim, the final dimensions now should be roughly 25.25 x 18.25 x 8.75. That should work just fine.

Has anyone used the audyssey DSX program (11.1) setup with high end speakers? I currently have all Aerial Acoustics and would love to hear if anyone has played with those speakers or similar speakers using the DSX program (width and heights).
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post #46 of 336
5/15/12 at 5:36am
From my reading those that have tried the wides and highs report that the biggest bang is adding the wides, I've been tempted to pull out some extra speakers and experiment with some wides, The problem is where to put them in a room that wasn't planned with a location in mind. I think there was some chatter in the Denon 4311ci receiver thread on this topic.
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post #47 of 336
5/15/12 at 11:31am
Thread Starter 
Covering the roof;

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post #48 of 336
5/15/12 at 6:57pm
Matt,

Sorry for throwing this in here but I was unable to send this photo via PM... To answer your question, OC703 (Owens Corning) 4" thick....


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post #49 of 336
5/16/12 at 11:15am
Thread Starter 
Thanks Jim! Please feel free to post anything here regarding your experiences building your room. I'd love to see how you did it as I'm sure anyone reading these posts would like to as well, especially if they actually saw your finished HT.

I was curious what you did in your back angled corners. Your solution is pretty darn good. I assume you framed your fabric and placed the frame just ahead of the OC703 so it doesn't touch the lumpy material.

Did you ever run the sub in your room prior to the bass trap? If so, how much of a difference did it make?

I still need to meet with Koolau to discuss how we can build the columns and wood trim so any AT sits flush with its surroundings. That is one aspect of your room that really looks great. The devil is in the details and your room is full of them.

Thanks again!
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post #50 of 336
5/16/12 at 11:31am
Thread Starter 
General question for anyone reading; has anyone used Icynene spray foam insulation as part of the sound proofing process?

My contractor brought it up as he was approached by someone that said he does it and recently added it to the sound proofing of another local theater and it really made everything dead (sound proof). I'll be using insulaiton anyway as called for by the version of Kinetics I'm going with but would love to hear if anyone has heard of using this stuff. My HT is directly below my master bedroom and next to another bedroom so sound proofing is a priority (as I'll never hear the end of "turn it down!" by the wife otherwise). Thanks everyone.
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post #51 of 336
5/16/12 at 11:46am
Avoid foam like the plague
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post #52 of 336
5/16/12 at 12:43pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks Ted! A close friend just said the same thing. Does the stuff rattle when dry?
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post #53 of 336
5/16/12 at 12:54pm
Well, I know I do...
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post #54 of 336
5/16/12 at 5:20pm


Took a 1" piece of OC703 covered it in fabric and mounted in front of the 4" triangle wedge pieces. I ran the sub before any acoustic treatment and then after the room was all done. I can not tell you how just the bass traps worked as it was all done at once. I have had experts tell me bass traps are a must and I have some experts say they do not play as big as a role as you might think. I am sure some of the experts here can elaborate since this is not my forte.



Once you determine the thickness of the acoustic panels then you make the wall come out that far with the wood. I believe the 4 X 8 sheets of Maple was 3/4" thick and so the carpenter had to put a sheet of plywood for lack of better term that was 1/4" on the wall first to get the desired depth. It is a extra step but gives a cleaner look. In the above photo if you look over the door you can see the maple has not been installed but the 1/4" has.


Quote:
Originally Posted by psychdoc View Post

Thanks Jim! Please feel free to post anything here regarding your experiences building your room. I'd love to see how you did it as I'm sure anyone reading these posts would like to as well, especially if they actually saw your finished HT.

I was curious what you did in your back angled corners. Your solution is pretty darn good. I assume you framed your fabric and placed the frame just ahead of the OC703 so it doesn't touch the lumpy material.

Did you ever run the sub in your room prior to the bass trap? If so, how much of a difference did it make?

I still need to meet with Koolau to discuss how we can build the columns and wood trim so any AT sits flush with its surroundings. That is one aspect of your room that really looks great. The devil is in the details and your room is full of them.

Thanks again!
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post #55 of 336
5/17/12 at 5:16pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks Jim! I wish I were there taking notes as you built your room. I'll likely have a lot more questions for you as I start building out my room. I wish I had the skill set of my Dad when it comes to this stuff. It's funny how building and woodworking skills can completely skip a generation. I should have concentrated more when helping him out as a kid. I guess it's time for a crash course

Anyway, as you know, I'm modeling my room after yours with some minor differences... I'll use some birds-eye maple trim somewhere to match the speakers and some other smaller touches but a huge data point will be what the "Illuminator" program from Kinetics tells me. At that point I'll hopefully have a reliable roadmap for the room, at least as far as acoustic treatments go.


I've heard people outgrow their racks, sometimes quickly. So with that mind, I'm considering using two racks; one with the amps and the other with the more sensitive components (i.e. Kaleidescape) instead of one huge rack almost filled from the start. I'll also have space to grow with new amps or components down the road. I noticed you did that with your Mac amps and it looks great. By the way, did you dream up your room all on your own or did you model yours after some other room?

Thanks again for posting.
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post #56 of 336
5/18/12 at 6:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by psychdoc View Post

Thanks Jim! I wish I were there taking notes as you built your room. I'll likely have a lot more questions for you as I start building out my room. I wish I had the skill set of my Dad when it comes to this stuff. It's funny how building and woodworking skills can completely skip a generation. I should have concentrated more when helping him out as a kid. I guess it's time for a crash course

Anyway, as you know, I'm modeling my room after yours with some minor differences... I'll use some birds-eye maple trim somewhere to match the speakers and some other smaller touches but a huge data point will be what the "Illuminator" program from Kinetics tells me. At that point I'll hopefully have a reliable roadmap for the room, at least as far as acoustic treatments go.


I've heard people outgrow their racks, sometimes quickly. So with that mind, I'm considering using two racks; one with the amps and the other with the more sensitive components (i.e. Kaleidescape) instead of one huge rack almost filled from the start. I'll also have space to grow with new amps or components down the road. I noticed you did that with your Mac amps and it looks great. By the way, did you dream up your room all on your own or did you model yours after some other room?

Thanks again for posting.


Matt,

That is the good thing about AVS is that there is a lot of valuable information here.

I am looking forward to seeing how you will use the birds eye maple to match your speakers like I matched my walls with my speakers. I am guessing you are doing maple wood walls through out the room is that your plan? I am also interested in seeing what this Kinetics plan comes up with.

On the topic of racks, I initially had one rack by Ikea that was 7' 6" tall and it was tough see the equipment on the top two shelves being 5'10" so I went with two MA racks that are about 71" tall that fits me better. This I thought would give me more room for my equipment and future expansion. When I designed the room for the two racks I did not know that I would be buying mono block amps which quickly filled what empty space I had left. Now if I need to add something down the road I will have to pull something off the rack. There are several things that really do not need to be there, but ideally a third rack would have been ideal. I forgot do you have mono block amps? If so make sure you have enough room because I know you have your K system which will take some more space also...

On how I came up with my room was a combination of: getting ideas from others and seeing their HT's, my own ideas on how I wanted my room to look, and third what my space / room size would allowed me to do.

Best of Luck....

Jim


Here is a picture of my old rack set up....

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post #57 of 336
5/18/12 at 1:59pm
Thread Starter 
Hi Jim,

Sounds like your old rack was meant for me (Im 6'5") . Still, your two rack setup was a great upgrade and really made the look of that closet transform. I keep on measuring things to see if two racks are possible for me; it's very, very close. If I can, I think I'm going to do it. I don't have monoblocks but I do already have two amps and plan to add more Bryston's as my system grows. I'll probably slowly buy the 300wx2 4Bsst2 as my system matures. Beyond that, there is also a chance I'll add a color management system like a lumagen down the road if the coloring is off with my Sony 4k (I haven't even been able to open the Sony box yet.....). Bottom line, I really don't think one rack will work for a long term solution.

I've been tinkering with ideas regarding the wood and still have yet to come up with a final solution that will work. One step at a time I guess. Right now, with the current delays ongoing (when it comes to a big house addition and HT there are going to be lots of delays- it is what it is), I have lots of time to try to plan and figure out the details.

I meant to tell you, I was roaming around in that other forum and finally saw the HT that you've talked about in the past (intentionally being vague here). I must say, even though that other HT looks like a lot of money was spent on details, yours is better looking (in my humble opinion). If you were to plop down my Fortress chairs and add a few pieces of my gear to yours.... that room would be PERFECT!!!! Of course, that is just my personal preference. All kidding aside, you should seriously consider entering yours into that EH competition. If mine comes even close to yours.... I'm gonna do it..haha There is a lot to do to make that happen. Thanks for being open to helping with your experiences.
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post #58 of 336
5/19/12 at 2:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by psychdoc View Post

Hi Jim,

Sounds like your old rack was meant for me (Im 6'5") . Still, your two rack setup was a great upgrade and really made the look of that closet transform. I keep on measuring things to see if two racks are possible for me; it's very, very close. If I can, I think I'm going to do it. I don't have monoblocks but I do already have two amps and plan to add more Bryston's as my system grows. I'll probably slowly buy the 300wx2 4Bsst2 as my system matures. Beyond that, there is also a chance I'll add a color management system like a lumagen down the road if the coloring is off with my Sony 4k (I haven't even been able to open the Sony box yet.....). Bottom line, I really don't think one rack will work for a long term solution.

I've been tinkering with ideas regarding the wood and still have yet to come up with a final solution that will work. One step at a time I guess. Right now, with the current delays ongoing (when it comes to a big house addition and HT there are going to be lots of delays- it is what it is), I have lots of time to try to plan and figure out the details.

I meant to tell you, I was roaming around in that other forum and finally saw the HT that you've talked about in the past (intentionally being vague here). I must say, even though that other HT looks like a lot of money was spent on details, yours is better looking (in my humble opinion). If you were to plop down my Fortress chairs and add a few pieces of my gear to yours.... that room would be PERFECT!!!! Of course, that is just my personal preference. All kidding aside, you should seriously consider entering yours into that EH competition. If mine comes even close to yours.... I'm gonna do it..haha There is a lot to do to make that happen. Thanks for being open to helping with your experiences.

Matt,

If you can squeeze in two racks great or make the one a little taller... just make sure all of your equipment will fit.

There are many ways for you to do the wood / trim work... I am sure you will find one that works for you. Are you going with the star ceiling?

Thanks for the nice words on my HT. I have heard that comment before when comparing the two... I guess it just boils down to personal preference.

By the way, your theater should be even better then mine since you can correct for all of my mistakes and use mine as a base reference. I am sure you will knock it out of the park!

Cheers,

Jim
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post #59 of 336
5/25/12 at 9:25pm
Thread Starter 
Picture of the roof in the back yard. Tomorrow everything gets the final covering. Then hopefully we move to the inside soon and the HT!



Pics of the finished roof to follow.....
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post #60 of 336
5/27/12 at 1:12am
Thread Starter 
The roof is done!!!!!!





Home Theater with the two extra feet..... facing towards the wall that will have the screen



It looks like I will have two racks, each facing each other positioned on each side of the door entering into the theater. Here is the one to the right...

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