The "My basement flooded so I get a basic theater" Theater

I'll be slowly building a dedicated theater room in my basement, and will be looking for advice, opinions and suggestions. There was a single finished room in the basement which I was using as the "cave" until it flooded. I had only owned the home 6 weeks at the time of the flooding, and we'll just say its one of many things thats gone wrong. With that being said, budget is very tight and I don't have a timeframe of when I will complete the build. I figured I would go ahead and get a build thread started and seek ideas. I've been a long time lurker, and while I'm impressed with many of the measures that everyone goes to in their dedicated rooms, I simply won't have the budget for many of those things. What I do want to know is where I can appropriate my funds best in order to get the best result for the least amount of money.

Ok, on to the details. The room itself is quite small, but should work for my uses. Room is approx 12.5' wide x 16' long. The biggest issue I may run into is that the ceilings are only 7' high. The ceiling height could cause some unique challenges.

Due to electrical issues before the flooding, I had to rip down the ceiling. The home was originally built in 1927 and still had much of the original wiring. I've removed as much of it as I could, and put some R-19 bats in the ceiling to attempt to help with noise transfer to the next floor. I also plan on installing black ceiling tiles with a "reasonable" STC rating. The best ones I've found in black that don't cost an arm & a leg seem to be by Armstrong and have an STC of .55. Any suggestions here will be welcome. As I'm short on height, I was planning on using a product called CelingMax which attaches directly to the rafters and allows the installation of standard 2x2 ceiling tiles. I wanted to use the tiles for sound absorption and also to keep access to the ceiling if I ever need to get in there for any reason.

Here are a few pictures before the ceiling was pulled down. Old couch which will most likely get donated and a TINY TV that I will be replacing. I was initially thinking 50" Panasonic VT50, but I think I would like to get a projector down there instead.






More photos to follow.

Eventually I'd like to upgrade a lot of this, but one step at a time.

Current equipment:

Pioneer Elite VSX-92TXH Receiver
Panasonic BD310 3D bluray player
Dish Network Hopper DVR
2x KEF iQ3s
2x KEF Q1s
1x KEF iQ6C
Klipsch RSW-10
Monster EP IR 3650 Power Center (hate this thing and would love to replace).
Edited by havok2022 - 10/7/12 at 5:42am

A few pictures once the ceiling was brought down, wanted to show the LOVELY electrical work I found in my ceiling which consisted of two runs of romex completed disconnected at either end and left in the ceiling as well as romex duct taped onto knob & tube which serviced two rooms on the main floor. This has since been removed.

Water damage started appearing on the night of 8/31. I began to gut the room the following weekend.








Ripped down the walls to locate the source of the leak. There were a total of three cracks in the foundation.






Chiseled out the cracks and packed with hydraulic water stop cement.





Painted several coats of Drilock over the entire room. Ripped out all the soaked carpeting.






Edited by havok2022 - 10/6/12 at 3:23pm

Getting married in a week, so I haven't had much time. I'm attempting to do some minor prep for a sub floor. Going to use Dricore subflooring. I had a few gift cards and a coupon that was getting ready to expire for Lowes so I went ahead and purchased about half the flooring.



A little motivation to get me through the build. Just kidding, stocking up for the wedding which is only 7 days away.


Edited by havok2022 - 10/6/12 at 3:26pm

Mike Holmes would have a field day with this home. I feel like Tom Hanks in The Money Pit. Within 6 weeks of ownership we've had to spend a ton of money on insulation, as the home wasn't properly insulated. The electrical systems are a nightmare and I'm working to try and get those fixed. The basement flooded (as pictured). The main floor tub spout has shot off....twice. The upstairs shower leaked. The upstairs sink leaked. Both shelving systems in the closet fell off the wall (see picture).

Ya, its been awesome. Thus the budgetary concerns.

Any suggestions instead? I thought of DD + GG, but I wanted to have access and that also may be out of my budget in the immediate.

Holy hell people, focus! The leaks are fixed. I'll try to address these questions best I can and then we can move on possibly.

Mike Holmes has unlimited funds, I do not. The source of the issue was really a gutter downspout. Whoever poured the cement walkway outside the home actually poured it at or above the brick line instead of below the brick line. The first real wind we got knocked the downspout off the house. When the remnants of hurricane Issac hit the midwest, that rain storm dumped a TON of water via that broken downspout directly on the corner of the home instead of pushing it away. At which point it worked into the 1927 block foundation and traveled through the cavities in the blocks until it found a way out. Insurance didn't cover it for a few reasons.

1. I don't have flood insurance, the house is built on a hill.
2. They don't cover seepage anyways, only drain backup.

I did hire an inspector, and we have spoken with them since. There are a few thing I'll point out. No matter how good an inspector is, he won't be able to see through walls. This wouldn't have been caught regardless. The rest of the basement is dry as a bone and sealed up nicely. (for now). With that being said there are other areas of concern I had, and they did give us money. We're also in the process of pursuing the seller. It's a real mess and a very stressful headache/lesson that I don't want to go too far into.

We repaired the downspout and sealed around it to make extra sure. We also used an outdoor cement sealant around the area where the walkway meets the brick line and some silicon as well. There have been about 4 rain storms since the one that caused the flooding which produced as much or more water than the one which caused the flooding and there have been no further signs of moisture. The base plates of the existing walls are treated lumber. I'm also putting down Dricore which will allow water to flow under it. I will mention that the water did in fact make it to the drain in the home during the first flood, it just went through all the finishes to get there. So I believe the slope in the basement to be correct if there are further issues, which I'm taking steps to address.

Pump systems are for basements that are below the water line. Being that I'm on top of a large hill, there would really be no need.

The only wall that would allow access to the horizontal rafters is where the stair case is. There is no access except for the last 4-5 feet of the room. So when it gets sealed up with drywall, there is no getting to it without ripping it back down again.

Also, I was under the impression that tiles with a decent STC are far superior to a sheet of drywall. Not the case?

Its been some time since I last updated this. Between getting married and the holidays I have been very busy. Was able to get the Dricore sub-flooring mostly down this weekend. We just need a few more squares to finish off under the stairs and to put and end where the flooring will end in the basement. Snapped a few pictures. Having the electrician out on Wed to fix a few things unrelated to the basement project. Going to see if I can get some estimates down there for wiring the lighting, installing a plug for the projector, etc. When we took the baseboard off the stairs we found an area of older wood in need of repair so we'll have to take care of that as well..

The area under the stairs will be where my AV gear will be housed. Will finish that out as part of the process.

Was able to since get in pot lights on two dimmers, wired almost everything up (have a few more cables to run for future expansion type things. I've also since decided to build a rack into the wall and have a clean built-in type look. I went ahead and framed in the window on the screen wall and am highly considering doing the same to the window on the side wall as it seems silly to have one tiny window with a shade. Not sure yet though. Ran out of Roxul Comfort Bat for the exterior walls, so I need to go get a bit more to finish that up, then I'll start putting the safe & sound in the ceiling cavity.

Yes, it seems everyone is beating the dead horse. I guess to clarify things, the "flooding" was caused primarily by a broken downspout on the side of the house, which has been repaired. I didnt use only drylock, I've used water stop cement on the cracks themselves. My house is atop a large hill and all the water flows down away from the house. Since fixing the downspout and the walls we've had a good 10-15 severe rain storms, one of the few benefits of living in MO. There have been no further signs of water penetration since I've made the repairs. As far as the bottom plate and Dricore is concerned, not sure I agree that the water has to flow over the bottom plate. That didnt happen in the original issue. It either flowed through the bottom plate, or underneath it in some small gaps due to floor imperfections. A sump pump would have done no good during what I experienced, and being above the water table is a bit of a waste of money.

I know everyone here is trying to help, but I'm not getting a lot of positive feedback. I've corrected the issues as best as I can afford. I don't have the unlimited funds of Mike Holmes, but I do have my father to help me and his 40+ years as a well respected builder. If he tells me its sufficient, I trust him.

On to some more positive things. I corrected a lot of the electrical violations that were sold to me unknowingly with the home. The county inspector came today and signed off on everything in the panel and all the work in the basement thus far. So thats a thumbs up there. I also had a drywall pro come in and bid some work in the basement (and a bunch of issues in my master suite FAR beyond the zero skill I have). Depending on pricing, I may just hiring out the mud & tape phase as I've never done it and would prefer it get done correctly since my dad can't be here every weekend to help out.

And last but not least, MY PROJECTOR ARRIVED TODAY! This is my first projector ever, and sadly my first TV over 32". I have it thrown on the living room wall right now just to check my HDMI cables before I run them in the ceiling. Looks great. All I have is a crappy iphone camera, so not the best representation.

Was able to get some more work done this weekend. Got the drywall hung, but not without a new challenges. The joists in the old house required a bit of shimming and even so the ceiling does have a few waves. Hopefully with finishing and some trim it wont be terribly noticeable. I had the finisher in this morning to tape all the seams. He'll be back over the next few days to continue mudding and sanding.

I haven't decided on a color scheme yet, so I had better get on that since I'll be ready to prime very soon. As far as flooring, I'm going with carpet at a 10lb pad, but I haven't picked the design yet. Seating for now is going to be a couch. Eventually I'll probably put in a sectional, but I don't think the room size is very conducive to theater seating if I want to fit 4-6 people in there comfortably. I may do a bar or something behind the seating. Once I get the ceiling painted an projector hung I'll have a better idea of where I can put the seating any everything.

The finisher came back for day 2 and another coat. He will do one more coat tomorrow and then sand everything on Thursday. Should be ready to prime after that though i probably can't get to that step for a few weeks.

I've done a little work in the last few weeks. Was able to get the walls and ceiling primed, ceiling painted and the projector hung. I'm stuck on picking colors for the walls though. All opinions are welcome. I'll probably just end up going grey or red but I'm not sure. The wife seems to hate every color scheme I pick.