ELmO's Bachelor Pad Construction - Page 7

My basement was also finished, before I ripped it apart! A finished basement is difficult to work with, you can probably see yourself putting up at least one or two walls to enclose the theater. I just recently changed ideas of how my basement is laid out, I walled off the theater, ripped out all carpet outside of it and put down insulation/OSB board for a laminate floor. I just changed to thinking the walled off room will be the game room, and the first room you see is the theater! That area is much larger and I can give it an interesting look rather than a square (which is bad for audio anyway) - I can go acoustially transparent easily by creating a false wall - AND the enclosed room has access to the unfinished side so I can put those PCs behind there! It needs an ethernet wall plate on the other side (which is doable), but it needs HDMI through the wall to the monitors? I think the keyboard, mouse, and headset could be bluetooth somehow and not interfere with each other?

If you see how that guy's budget broke down, I think 6K was right for the amount of equipment. Each PC was a $400 Dell. If you know, the monitor costs something afterwards - keyboard/mouse/headsets, etc. I don't know i fI want to go the Dell route, although their cheaper PCs are affordable bang for the buck, I feel like I can squeeze another $50-100 of better pats if I do it myself - and that matters if you're building a 4-8 player LAN!

The patio was $15 per sq. ft, that's unilock. I think stamped was $1 cheaper. I like the weathered stone look.

yes, they are on the other side with the trampoline as their only landscaping and more daisies than grass. they also let their kids EAT in my lawn (wtf) and drop metal forks when running away when they see me pull in. I mean really? I could mow or step on that.

I also have 2 xbox 360s, but only once did a local 8 player LAN! I had both on xbox live for a while. I have 2 PS3s also, and I'll end up buying a dedicated bluray for the basement. I'm pleased with the kinect and move although I haven't plalyed them much since re arranging so many rooms.

I am into all games, but I'm not good at console FPS (it's the controller). I've read a lot of fun things about MLB and Virtua Tennis on PS3 (3D), so I'm really wanting to work my living room and finish it off to allow me to play kinect/virtua tennis there (here's a pic of that room, 19x17). Will be hard to do a projector, the samsung 64" plasmas are around 2.5K - I might reluctantly have to do that instead of a cheaper 3D projector that can get a larger image:

Great advice! I'll make sure the one I game on has the same case and exterior but a severely pumped up interior to even the odds

Yes I remember your awesome simulation, but it was WAY out of my price range! I mean if that was 5K, I'd consider it.

Thanks! I actually want to go ahead and put some tall black-out drapes to block all the windows?

The TV above plasma won't happen, the seating will block the open view of the room - and the TV will give people a neck ache (I think!), although recliners generally have your head angled up.

The PJs are only 1500 nowadays and the picture won't be as good as the plasma, it will trump it in size. If the black diamond (screen innovations) can produce a watchable image...

OK, after a hiatus, I am back.

I am putting together a room for my Optoma HD33 projector (3D). The walls are staggered studded.

This is not my main theater room, I'm using this as a "play" room to figure out how to do the main room. I've taken so long to build my main theater that the projector (Sim2 HT380) is now discontinued from Sim2, HAHA! The main theater room is double studded (with the inner frame still open).

I used 1000lbs of playsand in it's stage construction.





I used SunTouch 240V electric radiating heat mats and I'm laying laminate now. If I never have to cut another piece with a circular saw again, I'll be happy. I'm seeing laminate in my sleep.

-ELmO
Edited by elmalloc - 11/13/12 at 1:37pm

Here are some reasons why I haven't worked on the basement this year until now!

Walkway


Backyard project:



















Edited by elmalloc - 12/30/12 at 5:26am

Hi,

The putting green was about $19 a square foot installed. Similar to paver patio installation charges ($16-19 in the area). It is a lot more than 3K unfortunately, but you could do it yourself for 6-7K. This is over 700 square feet! Typically their installs are 500 sq ft, but many just have a straight up/down hill putt with no undulations and it's only 150-200sq ft (more affordable).

I bit the bullet and had Southwest Putting Greens (by Jack Nicklaus) do it for me. 5 guys for 5 days:
http://www.southwestgreensohio.com/twg177/index.php?osCsid=90a435dddea9ca23b172492714a94711

I'm SO close to finishing the laminate in that first theater room, but trying to finish up real work first. =(

ELmO

Alright everyone, to save money - I might try and dual purpose this room as both my scope setup and 3D projector.

It will require a 14ft wide scope AT screen and an electric pulldown 1.78 screen for the 3D projector. Does anyone have experience or opinion/advice on doing a dual projector room?

Thanks!
ELmO

DavPolitics,

Thanks a lot for reading! A lot has changed since the first page, I'm still in my house, but I've moved my theater several times. This page is the most accurate as it stands.

Yes, XPS rigid underlay (blue stuff if I recall correctly) with 3/4" OSB. There is an IMMEDIATE difference.

The reason I'm using underfloor heating mats though, is laminate is just damn cold. It doesn't seem to matter much what you put underneath it. The laminate is cold if you put it directly on top of the OSB (with padding). But the OSB itself is WARM (which means the laminate is picking up the cooler air above it). We lose heat in our extremities, you need a warm floor in the basement (with XPS/OSB and carpet) if you walk barefoot or socks like I do.

Try it out, you will feel an immediate difference just walking on the OSB. If I had to do it again, I would look into CORK flooring (on top of the XPS and OSB). Cork is really warm feeling. It will hold heat in winter and release heat in summer. Just walking on XPS/OSB with barefoot is a massive improvement over the concrete. It does work, and it's worth the price (which is not much). The CORK floor would not need underfloor heating IMO. If you're doing the whole basement, carpet is going to be way better than laminate. I just like the laminate look for a game-room feel, but it comes at a price as you can see.

I only heated the sections of the room I'm walking (or have seating). Radiant heating is useless in areas of the room nobody ever walks. This CAN save you money.

For the XPS and OSB:
All you need is a simple circular saw, tape, drill and concrete screws (to get through the OSB into the floor). It will take a weekend to haul the XPS/OSB into your basement, cut it, and install it. Easier with 2 people. The cuts go fast because the sheets are 4x8.

This is the poor man's method of dricore, but from my research - our R rating is better than dri-core. Dricore is a tongue and groove installation (tiles basically) that you can buy at Menard's and other places. IMO easier to haul into your basement, but much longer to install.

Let me know if you have other questions. The thinner OSB will work as well IMO.

ELmO

I may use cork in my main theater room, just to give it a different feeling. Everyone else uses carpet, and you expect to see dark carpet in there. We'll see...glad I could help!

My DSLR camera lens is busted so I can't take pictures now (my iphone is also almost busted, it's pictures all look like instagram). I carpeted the stage and moved the epik Conquest into the room. Tested that bad boy out to hear for rattles, and the expected items are rattling (canned light fixtures, new 240V breaker box). If anyone is reading, what type of rubber material can I purchase at HD to stop this vibration?

Thanks,
ELmO

I dropped the Nikon DSLR once from 1ft and the lens broke immediately.

I can't find one locally so I'm relegated to taking broken iPhone pictures (seems like everything I take on my iPHone is instagram now). I dropped it too many times, too, but at least it's survived more than one drop.

Theater stage carpeted, moved epik conquest into room and ran through 0-20hz sine wave test to hear rattles.

I have to take care of the canned lights and eletrical box, otherwise, my jeans and shirt were rippling. FTW!

Here's a BMI calculator I wrote for the Cleveland Clinic. I interfaced with the Microsoft Kinect. Just walk into view...

I guess one reason why my basement has stalled again. xD

Took me a couple hours and 250 staples for the first frame. This is going to take a long time to finish.

I'm going to staple velcro to the studs and staple velcro to the back of the frame to attach it. This should also help with vibration reduction from the subwoofer - and I might need to remove some of the panels sometimes (circuit breaker behind one of the panels).

As previously stated my Nikon lens is busted, and my iPhone camera is also apparently busted (look at the terrible image quality). At least it still takes some sort of picture....

Made a different frame using only one horizontal furring strip this time, but flat corner brackets. Seems to be stable.

Basement door changed today:


Here's a shot of the work in progress for finishing the other parts of the basement:


This frame was not fun to make. Hopefluly this helps someone else who decides to do fabric frames someday:


This is taking way longer than painting, ugh. Hopefully it improves acoustics like everyone says.

Edited by elmalloc - 12/9/12 at 8:22am

Where are you putting the panels, ceiling? Your walls are already done.

I'm not doing anything for my ceiling, or I'd just stretch the fabric and staple it (no frames). I MAY do that in case the reflection on the ceiling is too much. I already know the wood floor is going to be reflecting a decent amount of light, not much I can do at this point unless I makeshift an extension to the stage.

It's taking me 2-3 hours per frame (measure and build the frame using brackets, stretch/staple fabric to it, attach frame to wall). It's fun to see progress, but I can only do 1 a night maximum (and I'm very tired after that). The first frame I used miter joints and nails, and it's difficult to do that with a 1x2 on it's side. So I use corner brackets now, but those have to be pilot-holed, so it takes a while without using 2 drills (one to pilot hole and one to screw).

Bought these 5 palliser powered recline "lemans" seats from Roman earlier in the year, forgot to show them. Not necessarily a living room seating setup, but they won't fit in either of my theater rooms in the basement now (unless I pulled a chair out, in which I don't think the curved configuration would work) - so they'll probably live here now:

Thanks! Yeah it's been so long, and the thread is just a mess and not on-topic for most of it - lol.

We're still not working with the real theater room either, I'm working on the 3D room right now just to give me ideas. One, I probably won't do fabric frames again with the amount of time and energy it's taking me. Depending on how the final result looks/acts, I may change my mind.