Sandmans Home Theater Construction Begins!

The Completed Theater, updated after the theater was completed:










First off,

I want to thank all the people who posted incredible tips and techniques in avs that inspired me to get our home theater started. I studied avs and many other resources for over a year and learned a great deal of info. That, plus my building background lead me to get started on our theater.

I will use this thread as my journal and update it on a daily basis when possible.
I will post progress pictures, material usage, cost and time. If anyone cares to add any comments, tips or dont forgets for me along the way, please feel free to chime in.

The space i am using to construct our theater is our 2 car garage which we only used for the past few years to store junk. The garage is constructed with cement walls on 2 sides, the garage door is metal, the back wall and ceiling is drywall and wood studs. The floor is cement.

The idea is to build a room inside a room. Outside noise is not really an issue due to the quiet neighborhood we are in and the house is a quiet home for my wife and i (no kids). Keeping noise from travelling out the theater is more of a concern, but the garage as is right now seems to keep noise within it especially well when I run power tools at 2 - 3am, but bass will be another story .

The finished inside room dimensions will be 20' x 16' x 8.5" ceiling

Construction will be stagger studded walls all around with 5/8" and 1/2" sheet rock doubled layered on each side of the walls. There will also be insulation iside the walls.

The ceiling will be rsic-1 clips and channel hats with 5/8" and 1/2" sheetrock.
The ceiling will finish as a fiber optic starfield cieling with 4 random shooting stars.

The screen will be 140" wide 2.40:1 SmX ProMask-Curv masking screen with the acoustically transparent CineWeave screen surface. First row of seating will be 135" from the screen.

There will also be a sand filled stage for the front of the theater. There will be a 10" high platform for the rear seating. The seating will be berkline 090's with wedges.

There will also be soffits containing lighting, vac and conduit to run future wire additions or upgrades all around the theater.

There will be columns containing side fills and rear surround speakers.

All lighting will be low voltage.

Here is a layout of what the theater layout will look like.




Here is a Picture of the Actual Garage.



Here is the Lumber to frame out The room which consists of
110 2" x 4" x 8'
20 2" x 6" x 8'
40 2" x 6" x 16'

Cost of framing Lumber was about $560.00



The First Stagger Studded Wall Constructed for our theater. This is the heaviest single wall I ever built at 16' x 8'-3" the rest of the walls will be 8' x 8' walls tied together.



Here are some close up shots of the Stagger Studded walls for those who ask what a stagger studded wall is.







Here are the rest of the 8' x 8' walls constructed and The final smaller adjoining walls to complete the 20' walls will be completed tonight. After That, its just waiting on Delivery of The Drywall, Sand and Insulation before walls get tied together.



Stay Tuned, All Comments Welcomed

Thanks For all the Replies.


Thanks for Chiming in Dennis, What do you recommend as far as the seating from rear walls with the Space I am Working with?

The Seating is not Set in Stone Yet. The drawing is to size but scaled down. My First Mission is to accomplish a Sound Room. Then when it's time to Build the Platforms I will make any adjustments Necessary for seating. That Drawing is just for Show here.


The Columns in that drawing are not lined up, but they are suppose to be. I just did that drawing real quick to Show the layout for those that wanted to see it. I will be seeking more advice on column placement once the framing is constructed and tied together.

The Box in the top back is the equipment Rack. It will be A/C as well as the room. My plan was to run a/c through the soffits unless someone recommends otherwise.


Suprisingly the wood was pretty good. I just did a build that almost every piece of lumber was twisted to a 45 - 90 degree twist which was bought from Home Depot. Had To use Pliers on almost every peice due to the customer not wanting to return it.

Actually my home is pitched pretty high from the Street level and my street is pitched downhill pretty well. With all the rain we been getting, there has been no chance of any flooding here on my street (Thank God). Even with all the past hurricane seasons and rain there was no issues. But That is one excellent point.

Well today I ordered the rest of the supplies to complete the Walls, Platform & Stage excluding electrical which will be delivered on Wednesday.

What I ordered was
60 - 5/8"s 4' x 8' Sheetrock for Double Layered Sheetrock.
16 - 5/8"s 4' x 8' Plywood For Stage and Platform
1,000 lb.s of Pavers Sand to fill Stage
1,000 SQF of R-19 Insulation for Walls, Ceiling, and Platform
24 Tubes of Silicone to seal the room
1 Roll of Roofing Felt to use between Layers of Plywood on Stage and Platform
and a few other misc. things

Total on all this $1,943.75

Also picked up other random Supplies Like Framing Nails for my Gun and Red Head Anchor Bolts to Bolt walls into the Floor and concrete walls.

Total on That $100.00

Also ordered the Fiber Optic Cables and Light Boxes and Various electronics needed to do the Starfield Ceiling and random Shooting Stars. Total Coverage area for starfield was 12' x 15' or 180 sqare feet.

Total Cost for fiber optic Starfield ceiling was $1,250.00

Next, I am waiting on a call back from Ted White to get my Green Glue Order on. Based on 100% coverage and my Total Square Footage I will need about 5 Cases and I am hoping to get a quantity discount.

Based on the List Pricing on their Site, It would be $887.40 for 5 Cases of Green Glue.

Lets See what happens. I will keep you updated.

Total Spent on Supplies to Date $3,853.75

No Problemo, I wanna try to help people like everyone has helped me. I am learning something new everyday as well.

The best place I found for the Fiber optic stuff was http://www.fiberopticproducts.com/Ceiling.htm
they seemed to have the best Prices and were very helpful over the phone. I should receive all my fiber optic stuff by this Friday. They don't sell kits like some places do, they sell you all the materials needed to DIY and it saves you allot of money.

Today, I decided to go all out and do RSIC-1 Clips and Channel Hats on the Walls and Ceilings after reading some recent posts in here. My feelings in the beginning were mixed on wether I should do it with RSIC and Green Glue or Stagger Studded Walls with Green Glue.

Now since all the walls are constructed with Stagger Studs, I will add the clips and then Green glue between the 2 5/8"s drywall. Even though a standard studded 2" x 4" wall is fine with RSIC-1 Clips, I would hope this would give me just as good, if not a better room due to the extra cavity space within the wall.

Now to Order those RSIC-1 Clips.

Yes that was the out Line on the wall.
16:9 Micro Perf Screen is what we are Doing here.

Green Glue eliminates the need of using 1/2" with 5/8"s. Therefor it is better to have more Mass. The Green Glue Dampens the Wall so Resonace isn't a problem.

We have not used our garage for over 3 years besides storing Junk. The Garage was the Best place for us to do a theater without interfering with the rest of the home. We are in FL and there are no basements in FL like most other states.

If I sell the Home (which I have no intentions to within the next 10 years), the Buyer has the Option of keeping the Theater and losing the garage or Losing the Theater and getting the garage back (which we will Demolition it for them).

The Theather is Built as a room within a room Design, meaning, It can be demolitioned without effecting the Garage Walls, Ceiling and Floor besides a few 1/2" holes drilled into the Walls and Floor which can be filled and painted. The Garage door will remain in place and the Top tracks and Motorized Garage door opener will be removed.

Yeah, about $6,000.00 in building Materials will be trashed if it gets torn down, but the price of having our own dedictated theater...Priceless.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions...

I WAS going to add RSIC-1 Clips to the Walls and Ceiling but after talking to a Few Good people, they think adding RSIC-1 Clips to a Stagger Studded wall is way over kill.

So I just ordered My 5 cases of Green Glue from Ted White and called It a Day.

By the way, Ted White is a Great Guy to talk to, he Suggests if anyone has any questions about Home Theater Construction to call him.

Also, he offers a discount on the Green Glue to AVS forum Members.

I ended up Saving $87.40 on the Green Glue. So the 5 Cases of Green Glue cost me $800.00 plus shipping.

Total Spent on Supplies to Date $4,688.75

Thanks for all the great suggestions!

Yes, the sand is Bagged and will be stored indoors once it arrives tomorrow. If I need more, Home Depot & Lowes is only 2 blocks away from my house (Lucky me)

We are using #30 Roofing Felt/Tar on all the Base Plates and all the Plates that connect to Cement walls and Probably in between the connecting framed walls.. I know quite a few people used this with great results. But I am interested in what you have mentioned. Can you post a link on exactly what your talking about?

We were going to line the Stage with a 3 - 4 mill plastic to hold the Sand. I have not gotten that far into the project yet so I was going to cross that bridge when I get to it.

Thanks
Ruben

According to Ted White, he Said that this was an unproven myth from back many years ago. He highly recommended 2 5/8"s with Green Glue in between and that is what I guess I will stick to.

I also asked Brian Ravnaas about using 1/2" and 5/8"s and his responce was...

"5/8" + 5/8" is preferable

This theory that 1/2" + 5/8" is better because the different thicknesses "stop different frequencies" is like 40 years old and never worked to begin with, really.

so, 5/8" + 5/8", but the other way won't hurt things much at all."

I actually Hand picked all the Lumber and made sure it was straight. I ended up only having 2 slightly bent pieces. Even the 16 Footers were pretty damn straight.