New Home Theater - Finally!

This project actually started 4 years ago.

My wife and I decided to build a new home theater starting from the house up. We owned the land next to our current home and began the project. Due to the size of the home and the small lot that we had to build it on, we couldn't get permitting to allow us to include the finished theater in the plan, so we had to leave the room unfinished and marked on the plan as "unfinished storage space". We got the final CO on the home back in February this year and have been living in it ever since. After 3 years of construction and dealing with all of the subcontractor nonsense, we were all "constructioned out" and decided that we didn't want another subcontractor in our home ever again so the room has sat empty since then. Ironic since we were really building a new theater with house around it It was such a pain in the ass that we even named the house PiaCasa (Pain in the ass house). The house even has it's own website, but since this is my first post, the forum won't let me post the url, but it's PiaCasa com.

So now it's time to start building and I guess it's going to be me doing the build out. At least I know it will be done right and I won't destroy the rest of the house in the process.

The room is 18' 6"W x 25'D x 9' 6"H and is all 2x4 stud construction with Icynene insulation in the 4 walls. It is on the second floor of our home and the wood sub floor has a 3/4" product poured over it called Gypcrete which makes it almost like having a concrete second floor. We are planning on having 2 rows of 4 seats with the second row on a riser of about 8". I've used the riser calculator from one of the posts which helped me confirm what I had already calculated. The riser construction is pretty straight forward, but I was curious what others though about the flooring material on the top of the riser. Should I just use 3/4" plywood? Should it be glued to the top of the joists and are nails acceptable instead of screws? I also am confused about how far over the edge the plywood should hang to allow for rope lighting and a nice rolled edge with the carpet. I will be doing a small stage as well and would think that it would be constructed similar to the riser? I've seen some pictures in other posts of risers, but none that would answer my questions; can anyone help?

I'm sure there will be many more questions to come and hopefully we don't take another 3 years to finish this.

David

Well, the construction started on Dec. 26th 2005 and here are a couple of before and after shots of the room so far. Actually we're further along than this, but the latest images are still in the camera. As of today, the riser and 8 columns are complete and the stage is framed and stuffed.

Empty stud wall room with Icynene insulation between studs.



Building the boxes for the ceiling detail



Installing the first box.



A few more boxes go up



And a few more



My wife needed evidence I was actually doing this myself

Connecting it to the side walls



The first level is framed



The start of the soffit



More soffit



The start of the drywall - This was fun by yourself!



Drywall on the wall behind the screen is done

New doorway cut on the left is for access to the home automation rack and the back of the theater equipment. the doorway on the right will be sized down for the equipment rack.



More drywall complete



Drywalling the ceiling detail - this was easy but tedious. Putting up big sheets makes you feel like you're getting more accomplished.







A space in the soffit for the DPI Mercury HD

Cutout for the equipment rack - the 100 amp panel in the back is on another wall and is for dedicated power to the theater.



Drywall is complete. This image is looking towards the screen and the 2 openings on the right are a doorway that leads back to our home automation rack and will also allow access to the back of the theater rack which will be in the other smaller opening.



Starting on the columns



A couple of them done



More pictures to come as soon as I get them off the camera.

David

I forgot to mention above that each of the 12 boxes in the ceiling gets a 30" hand painted medallion with a 4" can light in the center. I saw a Theo theater that had this and I liked it.

Yes, I work on it about 10 to 12 hours a day, everyday.

The speakers are Axiom's QS8's and although they don't recommend them being installed in columns, I think mine should work fine.

Sandman, thanks for the praise; coming from you that means a lot. Unfortunately I don't think my theater will be anywhere as nice as yours.

Riser construction





First layer of 1/2" plywood



Second layer of 3/4" plywood over 30lb roofing felt and yes, I did use a level and a square



Riser complete



Riser with rear speaker columns installed



Our 3 month old kitten, Skooter - Isn't he cute?

Stage construction







Since this last picture, I have added the sand to the ends of the stage. Whoever came up with this idea probably didn't have to carry their sand up 21 steps. I'm a competitive cyclist and even in the shape I'm in it was quite a workout, especially after my 55 mile ride this morning at an average speed of 21 mph.

I'm also not convinced that adding sand in the stage on an upstairs theater will do much good, but I did it anyways. I think for it to do any good, the box with the sand in it would have to be completely de-coupled from the entire room, floor included. When we designed this house I wanted the theater on the ground floor, but after the architect had to shoe horn it into the small lot we're on we had no choice but to put it upstairs.



In the above picture, the theater is behind the 4 square windows on the upper left, but they are in a hidden hallway or dead space outside of the theater. You can see them in some of the earlier shots inside the theater when looking at where the equipment will go.

Yes it's in Florida - Mount Dora

It is mostly black with 40" panels of a decorative red, black and gold patterned fabric. All moldings will be gold. We haven't decided on what to do with the medallions in the ceiling yet.

If you look closer at the stage pictures and the riser pictures with the columns you'll see the cables; they are all pulled.

Cycling is just my license to eat and I've been doing it for about 30 years. I own a landscape company and a website business.

The right connections? My crews were so busy I thought I was going to have to hire one of my competitors to landscape my yard. I wound up doing most of the landscape and irrigation myself, but I did have sod layers for the sod. We had to de-muck our entire site, so most of the soil was brought in and it is mostly sand. Sand is OK as long as you fertilize on a regular basis and don't over water which just leaches the nutrients to a level where the plants and sod can't get to them. Shouldn't this be in the Landscape thread?

We're making progress! The stage with rope lighting is now complete as well as the framing for the screen wall and proscenium.

Stage complete - testing rope lighting



Linacoustic going up behind screenwall



Building the screeenwall and testing the fit of the DIY screen frame. The frame is 2" x 2" aluminum screen enclosure material which has 2 spline tracks - one for the blackout material (black speaker cloth) and the other for the screen material (Dazian CCC). When complete, the frame will be invisible as I am wrapping the blackout and screen material around to the back side of the frame for a "frameless" look.



A closeup of the front side of the mitred frame - the spline tracks are on the other side. The frame corners are held together with simple inside corner L brackets (not shown in this image).