Dave's Basement/Theater Construction

After a year of me dropping hints, my wife finally said I could put a "theater" in the basement, but the catch is that I was only given about 6 months to finish it (my wife wants it done before my sister's wedding in April), my wife is an accountant, so she's really busy this time of year so I'll have lots of free time at night and on the weekends for the next few months. I'll try to post pictures as I go along, but sometimes I forget to take pictures even though the camera is right next to me.

Before the pictures, I have a few questions.

Here is the builders suggested floorplan (we are the second owner of the house, but found these blueprints in the basement after we moved in):
http://www.thelawsons.net/basement/floorplan.jpg

The problem I'm having is that the builder put vents where all the doorways are supposed to be! I built soffits out of 2x2s and pushed them as high as I could go, but I'm still not at 82.5" to fit a standard door (I'm around 81.75").



The WAF would go way up if I could fit 2-3" molding around the door as well, so that means that I'd have to drop the door height to around 76" instead of the standard 80", is it possible to buy doors this size? My local HD and Menards only have 80" doors in stock.

Next question...I hired a contractor to run the plumbing, so he pulled that permit, I ran the electrical and got a permit for that, both passed inspection so I asked to have a framing inspection. The building safety dept. said that I had to have a mechanical inspection first, but I didn't have a mechanical permit. So I had to get one. I got the mechanical permit, but I'm clueless on what I need to do. The builder of the house ran hot air vents to all rooms in the basement already, but the house was sold with an unfinished basement, so it was never inspected. Are they just going to double check the builder's work? Or is there more that they'll inspect?

I'm hoping to run low-voltage wiring soon, but I wanted to put as much as possible in conduit, but the ceiling rafters run perpendicular to the direction the wires will go (and I won't have any soffits). So I need something flexible to snake the wires in. I've seen the resi-gard stuff at HD and also the smurf tube, but both only go up to 3/4". How big of a tube will I need to fit an HDMI cable from monoprice and a vga cable? I'm thinking 1.5", but the only thing I could find locally that big was some black tubing used to drain a sump pump. It was really cheap, only $8 for 25', but I wasn't sure if code would allow me to run that through the walls. Does anyone have an HDMI cable and/or a vga cable from monoprice and willing to measure the size of the connector?

Another picture of soffit


Woohoo, new tub is installed!


Future bedroom


Bedroom closet and door


Edit: I hate it as much as the next guy when people have broken links, so I just went back through and updated all my links so pictures should show up now.

My wife is making me keep a spreadsheet with all the expenses for the basement. Although I have not shown it to her yet, because I'm sure if she saw the total she'd have me stop right now .

Yikes, the flexible raceway from smarthome is $85 for 50 ft! Anyone find a cheaper solution?

Unfortunately, with the pvc running perpendicular to the rafters, I don't see how I could make regular pvc work.

Unfortunately, the rafters are engineered joists so code will not allow you to notch them, you have to drill circular holes in them...I appreciate all your suggestions though.

My ceilings are only 7'9" and I don't want them to go any lower, so I'm not going to have any soffits in this room. I'm looking for some flexible tubing that won't cost me an arm and a leg. Would I run into any problems using sump pump tubing in the ceiling?

Wow, I didn't realize you could cut such big holes in the joists! Looks like I just need to do some math when I get home and maybe I'll be able to use regular cheap PVC.

Anyone know anything about doors less than 80" tall? Are they available? Would I have to special order them?

I think the drain pipe is similar to the sump pump hose I mentioned earlier (but I can get the sump pump hose locally for $9 for 25' in 1 1/4" or 1 1/2".

Sump pump hose

That seems tedious, but I think it might be the best/cheapest option. I'm hoping to run the conduit/pvc this weekend and right now this is probably at the top of my list. Did you use PVC cement to keep everything together? It's probably not necessary since no water will be running through it.

I asked at my local home improvement store if they carried central vac tubing and I was told that regular PVC is used and I would have to special order any flexible tubing from the manufacturer.

It's probably about 12' from my equipment closet to the projector, so I'll just use regular 2" PVC for that and then use 1/2" smurf tubing for the speaker wire.

If I'm running cables in PVC or smurf tubing, do they still have to be CL2 rated?

Also, I couldn't find couplers for the 10' smurf tubes locally, anyone know a good place to find them? Or will a 1/2" regular PVC coupler work for those?

I ran the PVC and everything went pretty smoothly. I had to make a few more turns than I would have liked, but I still was able to easily pull a coax cable thru the PVC. When I tried a vga cable, it kept getting snagged on the joints. I even removed all the 90 degree pieces with two 45 degree pieces but that just created most joints to get stuck on.

Anyone have tips on pulling wires through the PVC? I found that attaching a paper towel to the beginning of the wire and used the shop vac to suck helped a lot. But I think if I had some type of funnel on the beginning of the cable it would help prevent snags and help large vga and hdmi cables to pass through.

I also spoke with the door guys at home depot over the weekend and they said it would be an additional $22/door to get custom heights of either 78" or 76", much cheaper that I thought it would cost.

I had my mechanical inspection yesterday. Really wasn't expecting to pass, because I had no clue what they were going to inspect. I think this is typical, because I told the inspector that I tried to look online for anything about a mechanical inspection and he told me that there really isn't a code per say. Just as long as everything works and it's ok with the inspector then you pass.

So my to-do list this week/weekend includes:
-add a second vent to bedroom
-add cold air return in bedroom
-add cold air return in hallway
-add vent to bathroom (optional)
-insulate duct to bathroom fan
-add vent understairs (since it shares the garage wall, it's considered an outside wall and a vent is required to prevent mold)

I've still got to run the speaker wire as well and order the video cables from monoprice.

I'm going to be using an HD70 projector, and it has both HDMI and VGA connections. Would it be possible to connect an HTPC using HDMI? Would HDMI to DVI connectors work? If I wanted to hook up a laptop which only has a vga connector, would I be able to put an HDMI to DVI connector and then a DVI to vga connector? I'm trying to limit the number of long cable runs, so if I can do it with one cable, I'd prefer that.

My dad's suggestion was to try to cut down the doors as well, but unfortunately, I don't have a table saw and I think the extra $100 for custom sized doors will probably be a small price to pay to save a lot of time/headaches.

I went to pick up some duct and connectors at the hardware store last night...boy is steel expensive! $85 for 15' of duct and connectors!

woohoo, passed mechanical inspection. Calling this afternoon to schedule the framing inspection.

Thanks for the offer on the speaker wire, but a co-worker told me the same thing and gave me a spool of monster CL2 speaker wire that he had left over after finishing his basement.

It's been a while since I updated, and I've made a lot of progress. After I passed the mechanical inspection, I convinced my dad to help me bring home 70 sheets of drywall using his trailer.



3800 lbs of drywall. Had to make two trips, my dad's minivan didn't have enough power to bring it all home in one trip. I moved about half of the stack down to the basement by myself and my back was killing me the next day, so my dad volunteered to help me move the rest down.

Then the fun began...hanging the drywall. I'm not sure if builders are lazy or just the one that built my house. But I think they decided to not make any span of studs be 48". I had to use so many 2x4s to double up the studs so that the seams would be on a stud.

In the meantime, I ordered ascend speakers and I found this on my door step one day after work


Front of the theater...getting close to done


I never liked the opening on the side of the theater, but my wife insisted that it would be better to have it open when we entertain people and they'll be able to move between the two rooms.

Back corner of the theater (stairs are behind the left wall)

I always thought this doorway was too big, but my dad said it'd be good to have big doorways in case you're moving big furniture.

The stack of drywall is slowly shrinking (That's me!)


Bedroom drywall completed


Messy hallways...bathroom on the right and "equipment closet" (under the stairs) on the left, storage room straight ahead.


Bathroom drywall completed


Theater drywall completed. I finally convinced my wife that the double doors was a stupid idea and closed wall on the left side of the theater


Back of the theater. I didn't like the size of the door way on the right hand side, so I shrunk it from 6ft to 4ft. Now I can push my 2nd row of seats back 2 ft further and not block the doorway.


Over the weekend we ordered all the doors from Home Depot. And I ordered a Harmony 890 remote to control everything (hopefully my wife no longer has to ask "How do I watch a dvd?")

Yesterday I got in the power buy from Roman and bought 6 berkline 45004 recliners.

Still trying to finish everything by 4/13...it'll be close. I hired a contractor to start mudding and taping everything this afternoon. He should be done on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week at the latest.

Now we just need to pick out the carpet and paint color.

The drywall tapers are finishing up today. But I had a question about the ceiling texture and soffits. Do most people spray the bottom and side of soffits? I was a little surprised when I came home from work and saw how they sprayed the soffits. Part of me likes it because it's less to paint, but part of me think that the vertical parts should be painted and not sprayed.

Here are a few pictures to describe what I'm talking about.

I've made a lot of progress since I've last posted. The drywall guys finished up. Then we painted the entire basement. I've hung all the doors (still need to finish trimming a few of them), and I've tiled the bathroom. I have never tiled a floor before, but I'm pretty happy with the results.

Here are a few more pictures...

Finished tiling the bathroom, but still need to install the doorl

(my wife hasn't figured out the auto focus on the camera so this one is a little blurry)

Hallway doors are all hung and trimmed (still need to paint everything)


Wasn't sure the best way to layout the bathroom door with the linen closet so close, but I think this configuration will work.


Another picture of the hallways (equipment closet on the left, workroom/storage ahead and bathroom on the right)


View of theater room from hallway


We have family coming into town for my sister's wedding in one month from today, and I think we're still on schedule to finish by then. Carpet has been ordered and will be in on the 24th and will hopefully be installed shortly after that. Recliners are shipping on Thursday so they should be here next week.

I also hung the projector to determine the screen size so I could buy the blackout cloth. I was shooting for a 100" screen, but it's going to be 98" instead because I felt safer hanging the projector from a stud rather than using drywall anchors.

This week I'll be finishing the trim around the doors, sealing the grout in the bathroom and starting to put in the baseboards.

Can't wait to finish this room and start watching movies!