Blazing Ridge Cinema construction has begun!

Well, after about 6 months, countless hours of reading and 300+ posts, I'm finally getting around to starting my construction thread!

First, I wanted to thank all the folks that have responded to my questions and posts. I really appreciate all the advice here. I'm amazed at the depth of knowledge (and patience) that I've found on this forum. You guys have been extremely helpful and I couldn't have done it without your advice. Thanks again!

Second, I wanted to thank my father-in-law for flying down from Connecticut to spend 6 solid days doing electrical work. Thanks Jack! I also wanted to thank my Dad for helping me with the framing. Thanks Pop!

The HT room will be in the basement. As I'm sure I mentioned before, I'm finishing off the whole basement at one time. At least I've started this way, anyway. I have almost 1400 square feet to work with, but am finishing around 1200, including the HT room, concession area, full bathroom, a good sized bar and a game/pool room. I would love to have it all done by the end of the year, but it depends on time and money (doesn't everything?).

The HT room is roughly 19x11.5x9. I'll have an equipment closet just outside the HT room, with a MA Slim5. I plan on a 7.1 system. The concession area is big enough to put in some cabinets, microwave and maybe a counter popcorn machine. On the other side of the equipment closet I'll have enough room for DVD storage.

The equipment decisions are still being researched. I was planning on going the Panasonic AE700, but am concerned about lamp life. I've also considered the InFocus SP5700. Jury is still out on the projector. I'd like to go with the Yamaha RXV2500. I'll have to get a new DVD player to boot, but have not had time to figure out what yet. As far as speakers as concerned, I'm thinking of going with the Ascends for the front and getting in-walls for the surrounds. I'm thinking Jamos based on a friends recommendation, but have not heard them yet. I feel the room is not big enough for columns and I'd like the speakers completely hidden.

I'm going to go with about a 100 inch screen. I plan on two rows of seating (lounger types), the second on a riser. The number of seats will depend on size of the seats. The first row will be around 11 feet from the screen. The second row will be close to the back wall, unfortunately. I purchased my Aura shakers already and an old Kenwood to power them.

As far as room construction and isolation is concerned, I'll be insulating the walls and ceiling and using solid core doors. I don't have any bedrooms on the first floor, so noise containment is not a huge issue. I do plan on using linacoustic, batting and GOM.

At this point, I finished all the framing of walls, closets, bar and soffits. All the plumbing, HVAC and electrical rough-in work is completed. I have run all the HT speaker wire, RG6 and CAT6 (except for the IR CAT6). I still have some speaker wire to run to the bar/game room for audio there. I've just ordered some cables today to run to the projector. I have conduit installed already. I'll be doing all the drywall, mud and trim myself.

I've got some pictures in the link in my signature. I've done quite a bit since then, but need to put new pictures out there. I'll have that done shortly. Things will slow down next week, I'll be on vacation, but will start up again hot and heavy shortly after that.

BTW, the name of our theater came from the name of our road... Blazing Ridge Way in case you were wondering...

Thanks again!

Bud




Over the next few weeks I plan on building an index of this thread since it's grown beyond belief. I'll try and hit where specifically I did things of interest and links to products I used. Might take a while. Hopefully it'll help folks find things more easily.

LAST INDEX EDIT on 03/01/08

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INDEX

Installation, techniques and tips:

1. Middle Atlantic thermal management info
2. Drywall Lift from ebay
2a. IR Repeater plan - Buffalo IR
3. Rack construction
4. Speaker selection - Ascend 340SE and Sonance S622TRs. Speaker Layout
5. Drywall corners
6. Carlon Adjustable boxes and More Carlon uninstalled boxes
6a. Outdoor movie screen
7. Drywall tools
8. Initial bar design
9. Slanted soffits and light trey
10. Covering the HT windows
11. Linacoustic
12. Riser started and Bullnose wood lip for riser and profile of bullnose trim
13. Riser step light
14. Stage construction
15. 1st projector hang and Chief mount replacement
16. Carada screen
17. Ascend Acoustic 340SEs
18. Stage design and lip for stage
19. Screen wall framing, furring and linacoustic installed
20. Solid Pine doors installed
21. Trim in the gameroom
22. Scrim installed
23. More Furring and GOM prep
24. Beginnings of the Projector box
25. Panels for screen wall
26. Screen wall panel meets wall
27. Color combos
28. Acoustic cotton T pins
29. Soffit and Screen wall - GOM Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part IV cont
30. GOM Side and rear wall, and more, and more, and still more
31. GOM beveled edges
32. GOM detailed instructions and GOM Lessons Learned
33. Harmony 880 integration
34. Screenwall panel details and more
35. Home Theater stained crown
36. Unfinshed projector box on slides
37. Buds light automation with the X10 - Poor mans Lutron GE
38. Berkline seat options - Ended up with option A - 090s in this config and more options, includes 088s layout and finally curved row options
39. Carpet selection
40. Projector box is GOMed and front cover almost complete.
41. Stained casing for HT doors, base molding and riser lip and stained crown in HT room and concession area
42. Staining tips, Stained door for equipment closet, entrance door and remaining doors
43. Jamb saw rental from HD
44. Dupont laminate flooring in gameroom
45. Begin carpet install and problems with Home Depot
46. Paint in the gameroom
47. Almost finished Dupont laminate floor installed in gameroom and more flooring
48. Bar floor
49. Finished out rack
50. Carpet finished finally
51. Berkline 090s arrived and installed
52. Updated rack and back of rack and what equipment is in the rack
53. Poly or no Poly?
54. Left and right screen panels and Center Panel/Sub panels
55. Final panels done and screen wall shots
56. Approximate estimated and actual costs - at the time
57. Gameroom and bar lighting
58. Ticket window plan and starting window construction. Stained window and ticket window lettering. Plexiglass and speaker hole cover installed. Finished ticket window!
59. First game room decor
60. Under counter bar fridge
61. Bar cabinets arrive and installed cabinets
62. Front of the bar design, wall frame calculator by VorlonFog , Front of bar begins, building with a Kreg jig, unfinished panels done and corbels arrive
63. New Hsu sub arrives
64. Granite being installed and completed
65. Stained bar and corbels installed. A few finished shots of the bar
66. Studor vent for bar
67. Projector box finally complete
68. Poster light box design and construction concept. Beginning of inner box construction, finished inner boxes.
69. Attaching outer box to poster frame. Hung inner poster boxes and posters installed, but no lights yet. Rope lights installed in poster boxes and how to install the rope light.
70. White plexiglass for diffuser arrived and installed. Finished light boxes. Estimate to build boxes.
71. LG LCD installed behind the bar
72. Now Showing DVD case stand
73. Concession sign from eBay and my Photoshop sign
74. Candy rack
75. Sign printed by Kinko
76. Finished frame, finished concession sign.
77. Marquee Sign done in Photoshop and color variations
78. Building the Mylar light box and finished outer mylar box
79. Panoramic shots of theater and concession area using Autostitch
80. Bar stools
81. Bar lighting using rope light
82. Nutone inline fan for projector box
83. Concession area fridge, finished mylar box, light floor rack, and new shiny trash can. Lighting for mylar box
84. Shed framing
85. Gameroom movie posters (not quite level either)
86. Wireless Wii Sensor bar for screen placement
87. Chad's theater room build (The CG Family Theater) that Jason and I helped design and build out.

Products used and where I got stuff:

1. Blazing Ridge Cinema theater intro
2. Porter Cable 3-1/2" Clipped-Head Framing Nailer
3. Drywall lift from ebay - replace the asterisks in the invalid URL with ebay .com
4. Drywall panel carrier from Amazon
5. 150 ft spool of frosted white rope light from Novelty Lights
6. Buffalo Electronics IR Repeater components from Automated Outlet
7. Step lights from Pro Lighting
8. Speaker wire from PE: 12 AWG 2C Carol Architectural Speaker Cable 500 ft. CL3R, RG6: RG-6/U Coaxial Cable 500 ft.
9. Sonance speakers and Sonance Symphony (622s no longer on the site)
10. Excel movie ticket generator
11. Inner and outer drywall corners from Home Depot
12. Carlon single and double gang adjustable electrical boxes from Home Depot
12.a For the single gang boxes in the riser with carpet, I used ReceptXtender electrical box extenders (they care a variety of depths in single and double gang)
13. Hsu Research VTF-MK2 sub
14. Since the Yamaha link no longer works, here is the replacement model, the RX-V2700.
15. Ascend 340SEs (Left and Right channels) and the Ascend 340SE Center channel
16. Doors for HT room and the rest of basement
17. Panasonic DVD-S97 - Audioholics review, purchased directly through Panasonic with a company discount
18. Stain grade case, base and crown molding in the North Atlanta area. Other moldings from Home Depot and a builder neighbor.
19. Linacoustic purchased from a local NB Handy
20. Middle Atlantic Racks and Shelves from Worthington
21. Middle Atlantic Slim 5-43 from BSWUSA.com
22. Carada 104 Inch Diagonal Criterion 1.78 to 1 in Classic Cinema White
23. Panasonic PT-AE900U from Visual Apex
24. First mount was a Peerless PRS-UNV-B: Universal Ceiling Mount- Black and the second mount was a Chief RPA-225 from Bright and Sleek.
25. Magnetic speaker grill guides from Parts Express
26. Middle Atlantic LBP-1A L Shaped Lacing Bars 10 Pcs.
27. Smarthome: 50ft Emitter and IR Sensor Extension Cable
28. Acoustic cotton, scrim from Bryan Pape (bpape) at Sensible Sound Solutions
29. Temperature switch for equipment closet fan and projector box fan from Home Depot, Internet/Catalog# 100098472, Store SKU# 144967
30. Home Depot 5/4" Corner Board SKU - used this for furring/GOM
31. Guilford of Maine (GOM) FR701 2100 in 408 (black) for screen wall and soffits, Style Code:2858 Style:Lido - 2858 (Formerly 2838) Color Name: Pine Valley for the other walls
32. 1" fabricmate track from Fabricmate.com
33. Rosewood wood based stain on doors and trim in HT room - used Pre-conditioner on pine
34. 27 x 40 inch poster frames from FrameUSA.com in 2" corporate wide style
35. 27 x 40 inch movie posters from movieposter.com
36. Professional plastics white plexiglass - (SACR.1252447E) .125 THICK WHT #2447 EXTRUDED ACRYLIC - 40.125 x 27.125 @+/- 0.062
37. Hollywood Post Frames for 11x17 Classic Horror movies
38. Monoprice tilted LCD/Plasma mount
39. Changed out the mount to a Peerless Flat Wall Mount - Model PF660P purchased from Best Price Mounts.
40. Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player from Amazon
41. Concession sign "made by Bud" in Photoshop - printed at a local FedEx Kinkos
42. Barstools from Garden Ridge
43. Sony Cybershot DSC-W55 from Amazon
44. Magic Chef under counter fridge (times two) from Home Depot
45. Nutone 4" inline fan for projector box from Unitron
46. Emerson .9 cu. ft. Microwave - Stainless Steel/ Red
47. Wirelss Wii sensor bar from Amazon.
48. Nextronics AC powered Wii Sensor Bar for home theaters
49. Ticket window speaker thingie - Stainless Steel Louvered vent from Boaters World

Bud

Chirpie,

Thanks for the reply. Sounds like we have a race going on. I have a copy of the basement floor plan, I'll have to post that for comparison reasons.

I figured the money I'm saving doing a lot of the work myself gives me the opportunity to put some extra money into the extras. I like that idea. People think I'm nuts for doing drywall myself, but with a friend and a lift, its not hard. I'd spend the case and upgrade equipment or something else.

I got most of my lumber from HD. I have a neighbor who is a builder, I got about 100 2x4s delivered through him, but it wasn't as clean. Free delivery, but no cheaper.

Ah, the floor. Man, I had a lot of junk from the move still (it'll be two years in August), but we managed to have a few tag/garage sales and donated a bunch of stuff. I really try and keep the floor clear. I end up sweeping up after working every time so I'm not tripping on things. To my amazement, the builder painted the basement floor before we moved in. It keeps the dust down and gives it a nice clean look as well.

Good luck on your theater!

Bud

Thanks guys. I'll be posting more pictures tomorrow actually. I'll be taking plenty. I took about 500+ when the house was being built. Its already paid off, before I put in one of those in wall iron board closet things for my wife in the laundry room, we were able to look at the pictures to make sure there was nothing in the walls to worry about. I recommend doing this for everyone building a house. It'll pay off later.

Bud

OK, took a few pictures tonight and posted them in the album. Here are a few highlights.

Here's a shot of the top of my equipment closet. I had a few sheets of drywall, so I started there.


Here's a shot of the ceiling with the main cans, the 4 inch stage lights in the soffit and the cove we built for the rope lighting.


Shot of the X10 dimmers to control scenes. These will work with a remote (using an IR543) and a controller mounted by the theater entrance.


View of the bar from the back entrance.


Bar/game room lighting:


Thats it for now. There's a bunch more in the album.

Bud

Heartsurgeon,

Thanks for the heads up and the info. I don't plan to put a glass door on the front of the rack and will include both venting panels on the front of the rack and will probably go with a vented door. I'm hoping that will allow enough air flow over the components. Cinemascope posted a great Middle Atlanta document in another ventilation thread. The document is here:

MIddle Atlantic thermal management info

I need to go through it a little more thoroughly, but there are some great points here.

Here's the other thread. I originally planned on tieing the ductwork from the closet to the bathroom duct that leads out of the side of the house, but decided to change that after a few interesting posts!

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=546843

Bud

Hmmm. The pictures I had here before somehow disappeared. They were a little larger (high resolution), did a break some rule or something? Looks like the links were still correct, just no pictures. I put back the original smaller ones. Anyone know?

Bud

Dave,

I'm no Clarence, but will do my best! Thanks!

Bud

This came in the mail a few minutes ago. Another eBay find. A little premature to hang up since I'm a few months out, but it still looks cool nonetheless!

heartsurgeon,

I hope I have the heat issue licked. We'll see. I agree, I think I'll be bored stiff once the work is done!

Dave,

Congrats on your daughter. We've got a 4 year old daughter and soon to be a six year old son. Both are waiting patiently for the basement to be complete.

Yes, I angled it. I think it'll look cool when its done. I was going to do just crown molding, but always liked the look of cove lighting, so I decided to take the best of both worlds. My father-in-law and I had fun cutting the corner angles! Basically we used 2x4s to frame it out, with those cripples cut at 60 degrees. We then added 3/4 plywood to finish the other side. I thought about doing a 45 angle, but after one cut, thought it was two steep, so we went to a 60 degree angle. I plan on putting linacoustic under the soffit and covering it with black GOM. The GOM will get pulled up over the angled plywood and stapled inside the cove. I'm not sure if I should cover the plywood with linacoustic or just drywall before GOM, but that's a little ways out. Anyone have any recommendations? I may take the plywood down and round over the corners just so the GOM doesn't snag on the wood.

Here are a couple of closeups. The second is tough because you're looking up from the bottom (and its sort of blurry).



Bud

Clarence, thanks.

With the bigger pictures, the font size was ok. You're right, the red needs to go though. There were no red Xs even. The pictures looked as expected last night, but when I check this am, no picture, no X, no links. When I edited the reply this am, the image links were there still.

Here's what I uploaded. Hopefully it'll stay this time.




Bud

EDIT: Clarence, I use Firefox most of the time, which is why I did not see red Xs. I just checked IE and sure enough they're there. The pictures I reference ("Here's what I uploaded....") are not being displayed at the moment in this reply, but they are in the other reply now. No clue whats up with these pictures!

Yeah, I just noticed that. they were there a second ago!

Steve,

Hey, what can I say, I'm a little anal!

The conduit is actually routed to the back wall. The front of the back soffit is about 13 feet, the back obviously at 19. I may still end up hanging the projector at around 15 feet to support the minimum length of both of these projectors, instead of the back wall for that very reason. Both the AE700 and the SP700 support 100 inch diagonal at 15 feet (although the AE700 is much more flexible and projects 100 inches from as little as 10 feet, whereas 15 feet is minimum for the SP5700).

If I end up switching projectors later, I may end up limiting myself at 19 or even 15 feet. I just need to make a decision and run with it. I'd like it in the back since I don't want people banging their heads walking across the riser. The bottom of the soffit is 8 feet, add a riser and ceiling mount under the soffit and that space goes away quickly.

Attached is the drawing I did before on this subject (I started a thread somewhere on the ideal location) and the throw info for the two projectors.

Bud

Well, just back from Orlando on vacation and there were a few deliveries waiting for me, mostly wiring (extra cat 6, speaker wire, RG6 and some cables from pccables.com). Heading down to the basement this afternoon to do some more work. Looking forward to getting back into it....

Bud

My father was here yesterday, he handed me a coupon for Home Depot for 10% purchases over 299 or something like that, so I'm heading out to buy some drywall and insulation this afternoon. I figure the savings will be enough to cover 60 sheets of drywall delivered and I can start at least the gameroom/bar area until I finalize a few things in the HT room. The coupon expires tomorrow, so at least I'll have it when I really fire up the drywall work soon.

Bud

Bondsan,

Thanks. I started the basement in November of last year really. I had to get everything in order before I could start the "good stuff". I needed to first get my workshop in order since I had tools everywhere. Second, I had to get everything off the floor (hence the clean construction area!). I had a storage room that we did the electric and drywall in, then I was able to move everything into there in preparation for construction. Once I got all the dependencies completed on the critical path (rough in work basically), I was able to start making some good progress. I figure it'll take me a good 4-6 weeks to do the drywall part time, although as I mentioned, I need to finalize the projector and speaker placement of my surrounds. once thats done, things should go pretty smoothly from there.

Good luck on your adventure!

Bud

Clarence,

I was able to modify my settings on my account to show bigger pictures. I also updated the few tough to read photos with red text to yellow. I think I should be good, assuming Fotki stays up...

Bud