Wells Family Theater Construction Thread (another 2.35:1) - Page 2

Nick,

I don't think I have any pictures ready to go the moment. I'll see if I have something. Theater progress has stalled until the first week of July (I hope). We just finished up the wainscoting on the stairs heading down to the basement. When I get some time, I'll snap a few pictures and post.

We were carpet shopping this week and hope to put of the drop ceiling in the non-theater areas during the first week of July.

-T.Wells

Mike,

The step as shown is 32" wide, 6 1/2" high, and 11" deep. I think that 6" deep may be a bit shallow.

My width will shorten by about 9" once the side surround column is in place so the final width will be about 25".

Hope this helps.

-T.Wells

Thanks for checking out the thread "neighbor".

I hope to finish up in time for football season but that may be pushing it a bit. Well, at least I hope that we have the theater done enough to watch games on the weekend and throw up some movies.

-T.Wells

Hello-

Well I am long overdue for an update. The basement progress is still moving forward and lots of gear has arrived. I wanted to share some pictures of the progress and what I have on the way.

- I have a new AVR in the rack Onkyo TX-NR905
- The Sony DVD changer is there as well (CX777ES)
- PJ: Panasonic AX-100 is here as well
- Chairs: Ordered 8 Berkline 45-004 with electric recline and mini-buttkickers and two Buttkicker amps from Roman (forum name: RSH) on the PowerBuy
- Carpet is on order
- CIH Masking System was custom made by HTIQ and it should arrive before the 24th.
- Matrix Switcher: VideoStorm CRM84 is on the way
- MainLobby software is currently being tweaked and a touch panel is mounted and operational

The other areas are coming along well too so I will share some of those pictures too. I need to get the crown molding up in the many areas prior and get a final coat of paint on the molding prior to carpet coming.

Now the pictures ...

-T.Wells

Here are some shots outside the theater

The door in the candy counter area leads to the theater and the touch panel has MainLobby running. The bar is nothing but a tile floor now but you can see where I plan to wall mount a TV.

-T.Wells

Again outside the dedicated theater.

I added a small shelf in the closet with the breaker box for my networking stuff.

Mario,

Thanks for the kind comments and for keeping up with my thread. We started and finished the crown molding in the areas painted 'roasted almond' this weekend.

I plan to make a call to schedule the carpet install during the week of September 10th.

-T.Wells

Hello Curtis,

Yup, there are a number of Philly locals here and there are a number of near-Philly construction threads which is great to see.

I am not aware of any Philadelphia area HT meet and greets. Perhaps when one of us locals finish our project, someone will be generous to offer up a gathering and will show off all their hard work.

Thanks for checking out the thread. I'll be updating more frequently now as I have the push to get the PJ and screen mounted now ...

-T.Wells

Looks Great! Nice job.

Well, we made some progress this weekend:

-Crown molding is installed
-All the moldings and doors are painted and need one final coat
-We added a little bit to the screen wall

I'll add a picture of the in-progress screen wall tomorrow.

-T.Wells

Sorry, I got sidetracked today as I found a local supplier for 1" duct liner for my acoustical treatments and made the trip to buy a 4'x100' roll.

Since the screen wall is starting to shape up, I need to get this stuff mounted to the wall behind the screen before I am working in a 3' crawl space (i.e. screen is installed).

As stated earlier, I plan on using fabric frames on the visible portions of the theater walls.

I do have a question regarding the area behind the screen. I planned on attaching the 1" duct liner (unwrapped) behind the screen (the liner is black ). Anyone have an idea on how to attach it? I was thinking spray glue, staples, or perhaps nails with plastic end caps. I am hesistant to use nails into the drywall and possibly ruin my GG application.

Thanks,
T.Wells

Hello-

I am elated to say that the carpet is currently being installed as I type. They should be down there for the entire day as they have around 185 yards to install throughout the basement.

I did get the duct liner up behind the screen and have been able to resist the urge to mount the PJ and wrap my screen. I hope that I can get the screen wrapped this weekend and the PJ installed next weekend.

I also expect to hear that the Berklines have shipped from the factory any day now.

Things are moving along ...

-T.Wells

Hello-

The carpet is installed and the Berkline 45004's (8 in total) arrived on Monday. Once I get them down into the theater, I will start taking some pictures.

Remaining Items Include:
Frame and Mount Screen
Mount Projector
Install columns with side and rear speakers
Fabric work (fabric frames for walls and on screen wall)

Things are moving along well.

Pictures soon ...

T.Wells

Here are a few pictures just outside the theater. These are of what will be my concession area.

There is no snack bar up as of yet ...

Here are the posters in the concession area

Here are a few shots inside the theater. Sorry but the colors are kind of off. The ceiling is flat back, the walls are chocolate brown and so are the columns. I have not done the fabric frames yet so it looks kinda funny seeing the columns being the same color as the wall.

The Berklines are 45004's, black with mini-buttkickers and power recline (from Roman).

The projector cables still need to be cleaned up but you are looking at the Panasonic AX-100 with Panamorph UH380 and M380 motorized mount.

The screen wall is obviously no completed as I need to add my HTIQ masking system and also the black fabric.

While progress has slowed, I have been enjoying a few football games and a few movie segments in the theater as well.

Hope you like the update,
T.Wells

Oh yeah, one last shot of the rack ...

My rack looks great from the front but the wires behind are a mess. I hope the clean them up one day but I already have visions of upgrades.

I am actively working on a Theater Control scene in MainLobby to control my HT and make the WAF much higher.

I hope to have all the basics on one screen. This way we can enter the room, touch a few buttons and the rest will be done via a MX-850 RF remote (i.e. change channels, control volume, control DVD player).

You will see on the attached image, the bottom navigation bar will control the room.

The first grouping on the bottom left is a lighting control 'on' to turn on all theater lights, 'HDTV' to fire off a macro to set lighting (sconces and riser lights) to watching TV levels, and then the last is a 'Movie' lighting macro.

The middle group on the bottom is to control CIH lens (UH380) via the MH380 mount (IR), CIH masking system (via IR), the yet to be installed HTIQ masking system (IR?), and the projectors aspect ratio (via IR or RS-232). I hope this will be simplified by pressing a single button. You are either watching HDTV or a Movie (1.85:1 or wider).

The last group on the bottom right is to control the entire theater. Either power it up or turn it off.

The main page of the screen is set-up to allow source selection for the projector (on the top). This is done via RS-232 on my VideoStorm CRM84 which is passed to the Onkyo 905 which scales via Reon processing and passes a 720p image to the projector via HDMI.

The middle area of the main page will link to individual component controls and the bottom area I plan to use for key theater controls (i.e. a link to the movie database (DVDLobby) or cable box control).

I don't have anything working as of yet but I wanted to get some additional ideas or thought to what I may be missing on my theater control page. Perhaps a link to the theater lighting page? Anything else?

Thanks,
T.Wells

Thanks for the kind words regarding the theater.

Yes, I do believe that that was the classic line from Dirty Dancing. That is my wife's poster. We originally thought that she would have 1 poster and I would have two.

I think that we need to change it to where we each have 3 posters and we change them up based on who is coming to the house

Thanks again,
T.Wells

We went to work in the theater again this weekend and started the process of making the fabric frames.

During the long weekend, We:
- Got all the lumber ripped.
- We made all the necessary frames to cover the theater (30 something).
- We finished 16 frames in total (wrapped and stuffed with 1" linacoustic).

I hoped that we would get them all done but it takes longer than anticipated.

I'll get some pictures and post before they are hung in the room.

-T.Wells