Only on Paper – Setting Theater Size.

Link to the start of the most current location / design thought if you want to skip there.

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Original first Post:

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I am thinking about adding an addition onto my Florida (no basement available) house that would contain a dedicated home theater. The maximum addition size would be 25’ x 30’ with some area cut out for porch access to the pool area. (Currently there is a 12 x 19 screened porch that connects to the pool area). A rough sketch is shown below of what I think the new space would look like.



Bottom of the picture is where the main house area would be, with pool to the right. Currently I have penciled in a 12’ wide HT room at the top of the drawing. I am trying to have a second room in the addition to put the tread mill in and some seating that allows me to read in peace. The main house has an open floor plan that I cannot get away from TV noise from the family room.

Here is what I am hoping to accomplish with the HT:

• 110” diagonal 16:9 screen. - I am thinking some a slightly higher percentage of HDTV versus Blu-Ray viewing. Bars on my 61” TV never bothered me. I expect NOT to have an AT screen.
• A single row of seats, 3 or 4 position wide. - Looks like prime viewing would be with heads at about the 12’ mark based on seat calculator.
• Bar in the back that seats 3 or 4 that will allow me to have a meal and then migrate to prime viewing. It would also provide some overflow for rare occasions. 90% of the time I expect to be alone in the theater.

The proper place to put the back wall will drive if I can have an equipment room in the back, entrance location etc. I am having trouble figuring out the right room dimensions to minimize audio issues. Right now, I think I could pick a ceiling height of 8, 9, or 10’. I can widen the room a bit if needed. Using a room calculator that I cannot find anymore (I think it was on hometheater.com – David Henderson was the spreadsheet author), I have just confused myself. I don’t really understand “best”. Also, I am not sure if I made the screen flush with planned speaker enclosures would I calculate from the hard wall, or front of the speakers.

(Concept from an earlier rendition of the room)


Any thoughts from the community would be appreciated.

Thanks
Edited by dengland - 2/5/13 at 5:10pm

Thanks for the responses.

That "L" just has not been allocated yet. I was not sure if I need that to enter into the rear of the room. It could be a hallway. I am still playing with the "cut in" for the porch. Not sure how wide / deep it needs to be to not feel like a cave. The current screen porch is centered around the door (stating the obvious-sorry) and completely open on one side. The other 2 sides have an 18" knee wall. It feels very open. The wife uses the porch multiple times a day to smoke.


Not sure I have a completly good answer for avoiding AT. Part of it the feeling that a non AT would be more economical and more 3D friendly. Not sure I care about 3D. I probably need to do more research before dismissing it. I was not thinking cabinetry even if the quick sketch looks that way. Somewhere I saw a floor to ceiling black GOM over a frame that appealed to me. It was simple and had a nice plain look to it.

Duh... I had used 3 straight Berkline 88's in an earlier 12' plan (turned 90 deg) that I took further with an aisle on both sides. The aisle was about 30". So I knew better. I had been thinking of a single with a double. As I was typing the post I started to think "two double would be more symetrical", but I did not think it through. (Nor did I check measurements on the double). Thanks for the Rtheater link.

Nice build thread. I have subscribed and I am now a lurker. Looking forward to you making more posts. Do you have a sketch that you plan on posting?

Good thought. I guess it is just a matter of defining the right lighting scene and aiming an overhead correctly. Thanks

Thanks for the pointer. Right now it is a little too early in the process for me. My wife is not convinced we need an addition yet. My redo on the sketch is because the when I showed her the space that I was setting aside for her, the response was " I don't need more space." So I am now just planning on meeting my needs. She wants new kitchen cabinets... Sounds like a trade may be in order!

I have read some posts that said very good things about Dennis' work. (I have been reading los of build threads).

If I do get closer to serious, the 90 minute consultation looks like a viable option too.

Done a bit more reading on the ATs. Some of those threads go back in time a ways. Thank goodness for more lumens these days. One of my objections was cost. Afer spending some time in the DIY screen area, the Center Stage XD looks promising. http://www.seymourav.com/screensDIY.asp Cost is not too out of line especially as a DIY.

Now I am second guessing 2.35 vs 16:9. Thought I was pretty sure I wanted 16:9. Read several things on masking. Looks like some folks have done some interesting DIY there.

I am still liking the ~12 wide with a row of 3 chairs. (For now anyway)

Thanks Big. I assume you are showing me how easy a DIY AT can be. OK, I am convinced. Moving forward, I am planning an AT.

I am still struggling with the outer mold line of the addition and where to place the entrance to the HT. When I account for the false wall for the screen @ 2', it seems to get a little tight in the length department. Especially when a rear wall for an EQ room is included. (Small bar is not shown yet)

Reletive to the HT entrance, the closest wall is ~16' from the exit of the original house. I cannot avoid a long hallway. If I enter the HT at the end of the hallway, it would be about even with the row of chairs. If I flop the set-up 180 degrees, I would enter in front of the row of chairs. It feels like I would ideally want the door behind the seats. If I place the HT entrance behind that row of seats, most of the dead little area at the top of the L could either be added to the porch area, or the EQ could move.

The drawing is not really ready for prime time, but here what I have at the moment.



In my mind, the rear wall is there also to help keep the H:W:L not being multiples of each other. 25 x 12.5 would not be good. Perhaps again I am over thinking.

Here is a semi stable theater area. Room #2 took it a little tough in the latest rendering. I ended up going 13' wide to give myself a little more room around the row of 3 chairs. The 7' shown for the chairs is on the narrow side. Preserving 2' on either side should not be too hard. The room demension multiples are gone now too.

I ultimately decided that a hard right followed by a hard left to enter the theater was just a bad idea. To compensate for space, I made a vestibule for the entry way so the door would have plenty of room without hitting anything.




I am also going to lose some room width (and length) to whatever I need to do to the CBS walls that are on 3 of the sides. I have not done enough digging to detrmine if I need to do the equivalent of 6" wide SS 2x4 inside of the CBS walls.

All of the mechanicals (pool pump, A/C, laundry room) are far away, so noise from them should not be an issue. The HT backs up to an 200' easement so the only noise from ther would be an occasional bird. Street is on the otherside of the house. I am assuming I still should do the DD GG in the entire room. Do I have that thought wrong?
Edited by dengland - 9/3/12 at 6:16am

It has been awhile since I have posted. I visited a fellow AVSer’s theater about an hour away with my current house layout and the addition plans shown above. After admiring his theater with its awesome image and superb sound quality, we turned attention to my sketches. After a brief pause, the paraphrased wisdom was, “If you don’t build an addition, you can spend more on quality theater components.” That resonated so much better than my wife’s comments…”We don’t need a house addition, we just need to change where the walls are.” OK, so that feels like some buy in from her, so I started working on where I can move the walls around inside of the existing space.

Due to house having a very open floor plan, I have very few restrictions imposed by load bearing walls. I have spent a fair amount of time working on the remodel options that fall outside of any HT induced changes. These include trying to make a larger laundry room which forces rethinking the Walk in Closet, more pantry space, etc.

I have been leaning on my AVS friend via email bouncing things off of him and have gotten some great advice. So much so, that I am getting lost trying to find things in email when I go back looking. Hopefully, he won’t mind taking the conversation public, so I can keep myself organized.

Focusing on the Home Theater portion:
The best theater option (if better a theater is the only consideration) combines two smaller rooms, a 13’ x 10’ bedroom and a 10x10 room that I currently use as a den, plus a portion of a 3 foot hallway. Here is a before picture of the area without the windows shown. The front BR has 3 exterior CBS walls. The red wall looks like it is load bearing to me. (Photos upcoming)



Here is an exterior view of the front room. Interior vaulted ceilings will make this interesting (more about that later). If you look closely, you can just make out the outline on the bathroom window which is the 3rd narrow room shown in the floor plan above.



Here is one version of the largest theater area that I could create using the two rooms. The back, white, wall would be 6” wide SS 2x4 construction. In this version I was trying to preserve corners for base traps and have two doors for added sound isolation. The bedroom window in the previous picture becomes the screen wall. That load bearing wall (located about 10’ from the front window- hence the 10’ measurement shown) will need a beam and structural support columns. I don’t have columns shown.



I have not put too much thought into the layout yet. One reason is the interior roof lines.

ROOF LINES

Speaking of interior roof lines, this is what I am facing. I have sketched up what I think to be the interior roof lines. Front bedroom has a center height of 10’ and an along the wall height of 8 ft. The ceiling in the 2nd room (the Den) goes from 10’ to 13’3”. The hall is 8’ flat. The closets between the 2 rooms are flat, 8 foot ceilings. I think I am going to be stuck with 8’ flat in the entire area. I think mostly because of the side walls of the Front Bedroom. Here are a couple of approximations of the rooflines.





Here are some interior shots looking towards the closet in the front room.



Here is a view from the hall looking towards the front bedroom. It shows my 10x10 den on the right.



Some years back, I added an access hatch in the front bedroom in order to do the wiring for a ceiling fan installation. I have snapped a few photos with my head stuck in the attic space. Photo below is looking East. The CB wall is the outside wall of the bathroom. To the right is the front BR. Far wall all the way east is Dining room wall.



In the photo below, the front BR is to the right. Most of the picture subject area is the hallway. I think I will have to take great care to keep theater sound out of this area since it provide so many flanking paths to the rest of the house. Right now access to this space is difficult, but during demolition, it should be manageable. I would not want to create a triple leaf problem. I am not sure how much space between walls it takes to migrate from a bad triple leaf cavity to an acceptable separation.



This is an approximation of what it the view is using the CAD drawing.

A Smaller Space

Obviously, the best home theater option causes the most disruption inside the existing space. In parallel with the thoughts above, I have started staring at the front bedroom as the theater space. Room width would be 10’. That probably limits me to a 96” diagonal 16:9. I know several folks have successfully implemented “cozy” rooms. Here is what that space would be. Red wall is load bearing. I have added a communicating door to help restrict sound. With this plan, the 10x10 den stays in place. With this, there is only a single row of seating at the 10’ mark from the screen and rear wall is only 3.5’ behind the seating. Fine for walking in, but not so good for surround space.


Edited by dengland - 11/3/12 at 6:12pm

So, where am I?

I have posted a bunch of thoughts.


I think the open questions that I have are:

1) Using a larger space, does the three exterior 8’ concrete block walls and the beam (with support columns that will need to be put in place) limit me to an 8’ interior ceiling.
1a) If so, how is that constructed?

Excuse my lack of SketchUp skills….I had trouble drawing in the front window correctly. Is it as “easy” as something like this?



The horizontal items would not be connected to the trusses. They would rest on a new wall constructed inside the existing space and the existing Block wall on the right hand side. I don’t think there is a need for another new wall on the right side of the drawing. (Please correct me if I am wrong). The green item would be the added beam to support the trusses that are perpendicular to the front room. Here is an exterior shot that shows the truss interaction.



And a view from inside the attic space showing the front room trusses, front room vaulted ceiling, the load bearing wall, and the transition to the flat hall way ceiling.



Keeping some sort of a vault makes the front window easier to plug. I have not previously posted this view.



1b) Does it seem reasonable that the existing (or slightly different pitch) vault could be carried through to the entire ~18’ depth?

2) If I give up on the large space, would I get enough enjoyment out of the smaller converted space? As a reference point, nightly TV viewing is on 61” using the TV speakers, right at 10’ from the set. This is probably a bad question. Are the obstacles to overcome with the large space not that big of a deal?
Edited by dengland - 11/3/12 at 6:28pm

A couple of props pasted into the larger space.

View of projected vault carried through the theater space. Green beam would be needed for the removal of the load bearing wall. Height of the needed beam is shown a little more accurately than in previous versions.





Zoomed in view of back left corner of front room, showing load bearing wall, start of vault, and truss resting on CB wall .


I am still a little unclear on needed sound control efforts needed in the entire space. Front part of the room (where the current vault is) does not seem coupled to the rest of the house due to uncommon sheathing and uncommon attic space where the two roof lines come together.

Famous words used before ... "It has been a while since I updated..."

It is looking more and more that I am back to an addition being the path forward. I have a new design that eliminates the 2nd room in the addition. That solves a couple of things that were bothering me about the earlier design. One of those being the impact on the screen porch. The new prorch is better than the existing one to me since more of it opens onto the pool area. That 2nd room was alway a bit awkward.




I have run across a deal for a 110" screen and projector, so that will be my target inital set up, but I am going to protect for future flexibility. The screen before having a room goes completely against all wisdom on here .....

Thanks for the comment Dennis. Definitely need the professionals.

I probably should have added these photographs that show the existing structure that in my mind will need to come down. Extension would run as deep on the property as the pool enclosure. In the last photo, you get an idea that the existing porch does not extend to the edge of the house. I would expect contractor would need to remove existing concrete and pour an entirely new slab with footers where the load is on those 3 sides.





One thing I had been wondering is if a seperate slab could/would be decoupled and break the transmission path of the low frequency going back into the main house structure. Or, does that really not do much since the Block wall would just couple it anyway?

This view shows the kitchen / family room that would be opposite the new addition when built.




Thanks again for the input. It is appreciated.

Mine is simply Sketchup 8. http://www.skechup.com/

I have not dug deep enough to do anything more complicated than applying a picture to a surface.

Holy crap. That is a pretty serious modification.
Makes sense. I was not thinking much about the flanking through the soil. I have, however, been thinking about the cost versus benefit of doing the more than just normal drywall on the ceiling based on way the roof lines will intersect. I seem to remember that the sheathing went all the way down on the main house. So, it is mostly a roof on top of a roof where they meet.

I think the roofline can be seen here.

Existing floor plan probably makes it clearer still.


Again, thanks for the input.