Average Joe's Theater et al - Page 2

The lumber for the sauna and the hickory steps came on Friday.

Here is the cedar we will be lining the sauna with. It is not a wet sauna. It is heated with far radiant heaters. So it is dry and I guess these kind of rooms are called infrared Therapy Rooms. My wife has fibromyalgia (sp) so I am hoping this will help her a lot.



Her is a pic of one of the 5 heaters we will install. They are 375 watts each and provide a real good amount of the far infrared heat.



We got the kick panels installed on the old stairs. (They used to be carpeted.)



Here are the hickory treads for the stairs. The hickory will match the hickory floor we had installed at the top of the stairs that goes into our kitchen (also recently remodeled).



Joe

One thing that I have not mentioned yet is the equipment that I am going to start out with. I am using a combination of some new equipment and some that I already have. I think like most of us, we want to get the room right and spend the dollars to do that and upgrade the equipment over time. At least that is my strategy.

I did splurge a little on the projector though. I bought a Optoma HD81 1080p projector with the outboard Gennum processor. The thing is absolutely awesome!!



I am using SmX Acoustically Transparent screen material. I currently have it just held up on a big piece of PVC pipe in my living room. I think that Fred Flinstone would be proud of this installation.





My wife thought I was nuts but I drilled a hole in our living room floor just above the equipment closet in the basement. I pulled quite a few of the cables through it and began connecting up and installing the equipment.

Here is a pic (top to bottom) of 4 channel rf modulator, Xantech MRC44 4 room audio/video controller, 400 disk Sony DVD changer, and the htPC that I built. The htPC is a dual 4800+ athlon. I also have 2 digital HD cable boxes, satellite, and a Denon 3805 that I am going to use as the beginning receiver.



Here is the cable mess behind all of the equipment. I did not pay any attention to neatness because it all gets redone in the basement anyway.



Here is one of the 7 speakers sitting temporarily on a stool in the living room (I have a veeeerrrrrryyy understanding wife.) The speakers are all matching speakers from a company called Ascend Acoustics. A company that I found through my reading on AVS Forums.



Joe

How about a few miscellaneous pics that were in my camera.

Once I had the basement gutted I installed in floor heating for the level above it. We have hot water heat in the house and used to have just baseboards running all over the place. You can't imagine the added space we feel we now have since the baseboards have been removed. I did a lot of research and ended up installing a 96% efficient boiler called Munchkin. So far it is working flawlessly.



Here is a closeup of some of the zone pumps that I installed. I had to have a contractor install the boiler itself to not void the warranty but I installed all of the rest of it myself.



I also put in a heat transfer hot water heater. So the 96% efficient boiler now makes my hot water heater 96% efficient too.



We put the first coat of base over the old bricks on the fireplace. next step is to install the natural stone we picked out. I think we will get to that this week.



Well that is it for the progress this week. I will do another post next weekend. Have a good week all.

Joe

Thanks Ruben,

Do any of the parts of the theater look familiar?

There are hardly words to express what we see with the hd81. The colors and contrast are amazing. No rainbows and no screendoor. It looks absolutely amazing on your SmX screen!! It really looks 3d.

We currently have it set up in the living room which has absolutely no light control and we are able to watch it during the day. It is really bright.

Joe

LOL, that is really funny!

Right now I am doing 8 feet wide. The theater image will be 11 feet wide.

Joe

Ed,

The trays are 6" wide and 5" high. I had a local cabinet shop make them.

Joe

Hey Craig,

Those look like Radiantec manifolds. Did you get them from Radiantec?

Joe

Tim,

Thanks.

You are always welcome!!!

Just let me know when yoru situation allows you to stop over.

Joe

I don't think so. What is it?

Joe

We got a few things done over the last few days. Nothing extremely exciting but not every day do you do stuff that is really visible.

All of the doorknobs arrived. Oooh, so thrilling



We got all of the stair treads stained and sealed. We should begin putting them in in a couple of days.







We got some stones installed on the fireplace. We should be able to finish this up tomorrow.









We also got around to insulating the sauna.

Thanks Craig. I will check it out.

Joe

Thanks

Thanks

Yes, it will have stone under it just like above. We should be done with that today.

We are remodeling most of the house. We put those cherry doors all over

Joe

Thanks. It has been a lot of fun.

As soon as I have time I plan on talking about all of the automation work that I have been doing too.

I am quite a bit along on getting everything in the whole house coordinated and automated and working together.

Joe

LOL, If it locks me in the basement what would I have separation anxiety from? I've got the wet bar (most important), fireplace, theater, pool table, sauna, bathroom, and even a laundry room if I decide I need to wash my clothes.

Actually, I already have audio, video, and infrared run and controlled throughout the house. Everything in the whole house will be controlled by the equipment stack in the basement.

I am using a combination of Cinemar, Xantech, JP1 remotes, x10, rf modulators, and a fast htpc. I will be replacing the x10 equipment with Insteon in the near future.

Joe

Thanks. I've got a few more pics to post. Hopefully later today or tomorrow.

Joe

We've been spending quite a bit of time on the rest of the house but here are a couple of update pictures.

The fireplace is finished with the exception of the final sealing. Lots of dust!!! One of the weird things about this house is that this fireplace was built off center. But we think once we put something on the right side it will look ok.

All of the splotches you see on the walls are primer where we nicked them after they were painted. These will obviously get covered with the same paint as the rest of the walls.



We began work on the cedar seating and flor in the sauna.



I guess that is it for now.

Joe