"The Bunker Cinema" Nearing Completion

The Bunker Cinema is a 20'x12'x6.5' basement theater. My house was built in the 1950's and they really didn't think of basements as living space back then. The room started as bare brick walls.

I used double wall construction on all walls adjacent to the other rooms in the basement. All walls were insulated and finished with a single layer of drywall. All wires were run in-wall. The paint used on the walls is Lowe's Valspar Academy Gray with Cobalt Cannon on the columns.

I used knotty pine T&G on the ceiling. I was worried about what this might do to the sound, but I haven't noticed any problematic reflections.

It features 110' diagonal 16:9 screen and 7.1 surround sound.

It sounds incredible. I was blown away by the difference in sound from a rather open living room, were I had everything setup before.

Thanks to everyone for the great build threads on this site.

http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x124/schneedoo/

Screen Wall

I'll be adding real flip up theater seats for the back row in the future. The back row will be for short people because with the riser I'll be close to the six-foot height mark. I have the love seat pictured jacked up with a jury-rigged riser now to serve as temporary seating until then. It works for now.

I ordered my backrow seating today. Seatsandchairs.com had a deal I couldn't resist. A row of 4 chairs shipped for $316.00. These should work OK for overflow seating.

I painted and reupholstered the chairs I received for seatsandchairs.com last weekend. We used a microfiber fabric that works well with the walls. I'm also going to cover the pillows on the sofa to pull things together more. I think the chairs turned out great.

I'm now working on the riser.

Last weekend, I finished reupholstering the rear row seats and installed these on the finished riser. I carpeted the riser to match the room.

Thanks. It has been a fun process. I love watching movies and football in the room. I get a kick out of showing the room off to friends and family.

Here are signs I created from a couple of downloads I found on AVS. I can't remember which thread had these, but thanks. I used MS Publisher to add my theater name to the logos.

Here's what I created using photo paper, cheap frames from Big Lots, and silver spray paint.

I had some family over at the end of September. We watched "The 300". Here is a picture of the theater in action. My uncle is on the sofa and one of my cats, who thinks we built the theater for her, is on the ottoman. It was a fun night sharing the theater with family.

This weekend, I built a new screen using blackout cloth. I used poplar wrapped with a faux velvet material for the border. I then stretched the blackout cloth across this frame. It turned out great for $60 and 2.5 hours.

Last week I got the urge to clean up the snake pit that was the back of my equipment rack. I still have more to do but its better than it was.

A few shots of the side wall with the posters and such in place.

Thanks for the compliment.

1) The riser is 48" deep. The upper part is 30"x70" and 12" high, the lower step/walkway is 18"x70" and 4" high.
When I built it I started with a 48"x70" 2x4 base, on top of that I built the upper part 30"x70" out of 2x8's. I then used 3/4" plywood for the sub-floor. I would have to say that 30" for the upper part is the minimum for leg comfort.

2) The seats have worked out great. I just couldn't beat the price. I have sports parties and none of my guests have ever complained about being uncomfortable.

seatsandchairs.com is a great company. Their customer service is some of the best.

The chairs were actually easier to reupholster than I thought they would be. The seat backs slide out of the plastic back piece and I just covered right over the old fabric and stapled it to the back of the wood in the seat back.

For the seat bottom I had my wife help. The seat cushion is held in with clip on the sides. We popped the cushions out and removed the clips holding the old fabric on and removed the old fabric. We then wrapped the cushions in the new fabric and strategically folded the material and clipped it in place. It was almost like wrapping a Christmas gift. No sewing involved. The material has stayed in place really well through multiple uses.

I painted the metal parts with regular black spray paint. For the plastic seat backs I used Valspar plastic paint. It has held up well, but it will scratch off if you get rough with it. Being that my seat backs face the wall I haven't had any issues.

No pics of the process but it was fairly straight forward.

Overall about 24 hours total work time to paint and reupholster 4 seats.

My wife and I started to tackle the rest of the basement over summer 2008. We had a baby on Thanksgiving of 2007, so progress slowed to a halt for several months after she arrived.

We are turning the rest of the basement into a multi-purpose room. My wife has been working from home so one area of the room will be her office. The basement was plumbed for a bathroom when the house was built so we are taking advantage of that.

Here are some progress pictures as things stand now.

Bathroom Framing



Bathroom Entrance



Basement Entrance



Theater Entrance



Future Bar Area (Fingers Crossed)



There is still a lot of work to do but any progress is good progress.

I'm in the process of adding an AT screen wall to my theater so I thought I should update this zombie to show my progress. Its been a busy three years around here. I popped the top on the house and added a second story, because we also added a second child during the same time as well.

When I built the theater I had a short throw projector and I made the mistake of locating it too close to the screen wall. I now have a new projector and in order to move the screen wall out I need to relocate the projector because in its current position the zoom is maxed out. Luckily the opposite side of the basement still has unfinished ceilings so the process is running fairly smooth. I'm dealing with low ceilings so I also had to customize my projector mount to bring the projector closer to the ceiling. Once I finish moving the projector and patching the ceiling, the real fun can begin with the stage and screen wall.

I relocated the projector yesterday and started working on the ceiling patch. The patch boards are just dry fit right now but once they're nailed into everything should look good.

Screen Wall under construction. The new screen will be 107" x 60". The old screen is up for comparison.

Thanks, it's been a great room to have to watch movies in and have Superbowl parties. My 4-yr old just loves the room and I don't mind watching the Disney stuff with her.

My projector is a Sony VPL-AW15, with the new false wall in place the main seating will be 12-feet back. The second row is 17-feet back. After I finish the false wall I'll be redoing the riser to squeeze the fourth theater seat onto it.

Quick and dirty shelf for my center channel.



Part of my crew helping out.

In the DIY Screen Forum some have been having success using Spandex as AT screen material. I thought I'd give it a try and so far its working great. I need to put black material on the frame supports as they are visible when the lights are on. I'll probably put a second layer of black spandex under the silver as this was hiding the supports when I first built the screen. The screen is 116" diagonal.

Stretch Velvet Border

Finishing the screen wall. I'm using a microfiber material that plays well with the color of the walls. I'll be installing hidden media storage to the left of the screen.