South Riding Cinema and Draft House Construction - Page 3

It was Black Galaxy Granite. Basically Black with copper flecks in it. I wanted to do slabs but it would have been 3-6k. I subscribe to a magazine called The Family Handyman and it had an article a while back about doing granite tile countertops and some jigs to make it painless. I found the exact granite I wanted on clearance at a local stone yard for $4.99 a sq foot. Got the granite for all 3 countertops and the total was about $300. It was a lot of labor to do it, but I was really happy with the results.

If anyone is interested I have seen the article online somewhere buried on the readers digest web site.

Yep, thats the correct article. Yes the tiles that line the edges are all beveled at 45 degrees and I used 1/16 space between them. I also used epoxy grout over the entire installation. For cutting them I just bought a cheap $80 tile saw from lowes and it cut through the 3/8" thick tiles like butter. The hardest part was leveling them to near perfection so it had as smooth a look as possible. I used a quarter and went over the grout lines as i was laying them down to check the level as i went.

Made some good progress on the stage!

I got the front step near complete. Just need to go back and add some rounded moulding to the front lip. I filled the front step with fiberglass.

For the top I got the first layer cut and its just resting in place. I still need to cut the second layer. The main stage I will be filling with sand. I picked up 20 bags so far. I am estimating that I will need about 54 bags when all is said and done so I have been getting 10 at a time as I happen to pass the hardware store.

The stage should be complete tuesday night if all goes well and I will post some updated pics.

This is just a quick post to rant about sand. What a pain, but should be worth it. Hauled 38 bags down to the theater 16 to go. Should have the stage wrapped up tomorrow night. My back is killing me.

That sounds like a great Idea! If we can round up a couple more folks we could do all 6 star wars movies round robin!

Nice work on yours! Would love to see it in person some time as well. As soon as this room gets done I will definitely send some emails around to get a group going. There sure are enough of us at this point to start one in the neighborhood.

thanks! I appreciate the support. I have been playing catchup on your construction thread as well. There sure are a lot of talented DIY'ers on this board.

I finally got it all down to the theater room. For anyone that was wondering what 54 bags of sand looks like see the attached pic. Now just have to fill the stage and put the top on. Should have completed pics later tonight!

Unfortunately I didn't want to wait for the delivery so i did it myself. To add insult to injury I ended up with 9 extra bags i have to take back even though i did the calculations twice and had someone else double check me on it. I think it was because there is slightly over .5 ft^3 in a bag.

I was origionally thinking of going with the mid atlantic pull out rack, but lately i am thinking of just going with the slim 5 and making a pull out base for it to mount to for half the cost. rockler has some heavy duty sliders that can take hundreds of pounds.

Spend twice as much time planning as your think you should.

also in terms of local ...

if you are going to get most of your supplies from lowes and home depot take a day and just drive around to all the stores that you are willing to drive to and note which ones have the best selection for various departments. I found that some stores had much larger departments for various things than others even in the same chain. I think HVAC and lumber selection where the bigest differences. One of the stores I went to, don't remember which one, basically didn't even have any HVAC ductwork supplies.

Also make sure you register at the home depot and lowes moving web sites. Use variations of your address and name, etc and you should end up with several 10% off coupons in a few weeks.

Wouldn't you know it. I finally get the stage done, run to post a pic and ... attach file isnt working. Oh well I will get them posted tomorrow. I also have some corner detail shots for those that were interested in how the granite tile on the bar was cut.

Ok here are the pics. Only thing left to do is put the front rounded lip on.

The second layer of plywood really gives it a nice sturdy look compared to the single layer. There is also a noticeable difference even between tapping on the sand filled main part of the stage and the fiberglass filled front step. If I had known that I was going to have so much sand left over I would filled the front step also.

If anyone is curious about dimensions its 11.5' wide and the main part of the stage is 4' deep at center. The diagonals on the end cut in 1' and the depth of the step is a little under a foot. Height wise the step is made of 2x4 on edge with 2 layers of 3/4 ply for a total height of 5". The main stage is made from 2x10's ripped to 8.5" + 2 layers of 3/4 ply for a height of 10".

I dont think I every posted an update on what I was doing for the screen wall.

I ended up ordering a bunch of Rubins SMX720 material way back when he had the first run of the stuff. The plan right now is to go 2.35:1 with all the speakers behind a false screen wall on the stage.

Here are some up close pics of the granite bar tile corners for those that asked about them. The last one is of the beer tower I put together and built into the bar top along with the DIY draft handle on the right.

Here is the 100% complete stage. I am really happy with how it came together. There is also a pic of the rounded nosing. I used two pieces of 1/4 round, but they were 11/16 so together they left a 1/8 height difference. I doubt it was necessessary, but I attached the top one with glue and a nail gun and used 1/8" shims while attaching the bottom. I then just pulled the shims and caulked the gap. Total overhang is approx 2 1/4 inches.

Hope everyone out there has a great Thanksgiving! Maybe I should be building a bigger theater we are having about 25 people over and that number is down from last year!

That close up pic came out a little blurry so I made a diagram that shows it a little better. The result is a 45 degree beveled corner between the two adjoining tiles that is approx 3/16" wide. I believe all granite tiles come with that slight microbevel around the edge of the polished surface.

Ok made a ton of progress on the riser yesterday and today. Here are some of the framing and insulation pics. The riser is 8' deep (2 feet of it will just be empty space to keep the back row off the wall). Its a hair over 10' wide leaving a 30"-32" isle down the side of the theater. The top is 10" high with a 5" step which matches the dimensions of the stage. I used the riser calculator and depending on how high I mount the screen I may boost the chairs up an additional 3"-3.5". I almost built the riser higher, but was worried about the head space. As build there will be 6' 8.5" of clearance on the riser.

The second pic is the access panel area. There is a conduit to the equipment rack, prewire for shakers and 2 electrical plugs for rope light and whatever else is needed (power recliners). There are three conduit runs in the riser. One to the front row, one to the top for the back row, and one to the side for the rope light power run. I used two inch conduit for all the runs hoping that would surfice for all future needs including power so i passed on hardwireing power through the riser to save on the floor boxes.

I actually got the top on it tonight as well, but didn't have a chance to take a picture. Once I get the rounded nosing on tomorrow I will post some pics of the complete riser.