The "Don't let the door hit you in the @55" theater build

Theater is yet to be named. My oldest kid is off to med school. Finally, got the green light to claim his bedroom, bathroom and "hang out" room into a formal theater area. This will be my 6th theater. I have a pretty good grip on what works for me, but I do have a few questions (especially lighting) and will document my build.

Here are the details:

Equipment:
Rotel 1068 Processor
2 Acurus A250 (255w x 2) Power Amps
1 Acurus A200 (200w x 3) Power Amp
Boston Acoustics VR16 Center Channel
Boston Acoustics VR975 Main Speakers
Boston Acoustics CR7 Rear Mains
Boston Acoustics CR6 Rear Sides
DVDO Iscan
Dish Network HD Box
Toshiba HD-A2 DVD
Furman Rack Rider Power Unit
Optoma HD70 (Finally went digital)
Screen Wilson Art 106" (16:9)

Room:

21' x 18' 9" x 7'9"


Seating: Berkline I0I00I0I 4 Seat single row

Remote: Harmony/Smarthome IR Repeater

Decoration:

6' x 4.5' x 3" Marble Relief (Three Graces)
4' Tall Marble Urn (Martyr on handle)
2x 16" Tall Horses
4' Zeus Statue

The statues and relief must be in the room. All statues are polished white marble, but all are 100-200 years old so more of a satin finish than a high polish.

Lighting:

This is where I really need help. In the past I have just used regular lighting. This time around it will be all can lights and a Graphik Eye. I have read the GE thread and think I need:

4 Zone GE
NTGRX 1S--Just want one remote wall switch at top of stairs that can turn everything off and on as needed.

Zones:
1. Stair light.
2. General recessed lights (4 foot on center?) Room is going to be really dark.
3. Lights to light the statues/art.
4. Lights under Soffit.

Here are my questions:

1. Do I have the correct remote switch for the GE...Just simply to turn everything off and on?
2. How many can lights aimed at each statue (I am thinking 1 each as they are white in an other wise black/grey room...and how many watts..also what style (spot etc)should I use size etc....
3. When figuring the lights needed for general lighting... Do I start the lights near the edge of the soffit or is there a recommended distante ie 2' away from soffit for the lights closest to them?
4. How many lights (5" recessed) should I use for general lighting. I have read 4' on center...but I wonder with the very dark colors and the beam in the center of the room....

Colors:

Black Bottom
Medium Grey Top
Grey Carpet
Black Ceiling
Gold Trim

I will take some pictures once they come out of the crates, and I am home to do so. I would very much like to orient the theater the other way...but.... I left something off the drawing. At the point in the room where the 18'9" label is... there is a pellet stove. I wish I could move it but it has to stay. It heats the upper level of the house. Above it in the ceiling is a large wrought iron register.

I would move up to a 120-122 inch screen but am not sure if my HD70 will be up to the job. I could go back to my CRT but am kind of tired of messing with it.

I have had 2 projectors running in this room with the pellet stove, with no problems. . The temperatures dont get super hot. Maybe 80 degrees in the area of the projector. I am considering an external air source and projector mounted in the soffit.

I'm also looking for a source for greek style non-load bearing columns.

Thanks,

Ross

Thanks for the link. The gold paint is the color I have been looking for. I'll also look into the columns. The capitals are perfect. Thanks

The wife found me a picture of the relief.

Relief is approx 6' tall, 4.5' wide and 3" thick at the top (not including the sculpture itself.

Thanks for the input. The relief is beautiful. I don't know the history of it other than it came out of a church. My mother is an antiques dealer and I dabble in old art. I found the relief at an auction and knew I had to have it for the room. I am not sure of the weight as I hired a professional to crate and move it. Maybe 600-700 lbs? Some of the other peices are family peices. I'll tell their stories once I post pictures.

Ecrabb--You're very sharp. Excellent info. You are very correct about recognizing the three graces being included in Bottecelli's Primavera. I never realized that they were in that painting. Thank you also for clearing up the period. I was assuming classical...but now knowing it's Neo-Classical, will help in my search for decoration/decorating.

Description of painting from Wikipedia.org:

Venus is standing in the centre of the picture, set slightly back from the other figures. Above her, Cupid is aiming one of his arrows of love at the Charites (Three Graces), who are elegantly dancing a rondel.

Thanks for all the column info. I'll have to check them all out.

Thanks,

Ross

**Update**

Changes-- I decided not to go with columns. I think it might make the room too busy. I also decided that a grafik eye was probably overkill. I will still wire for it but will use regular Lutron slide dimmers for now.

Descisions: Dazian Janus Burgandy and Celtic Black cloth for panels. Waiting for samples to arrive. Gom samples showed up in 3 days. No sign of the Dazian samples for 2 weeks.

Progress:
1. Screen wall is now totally framed. Heat ducting relocated. Audio rack in place. All audio/video wiring is ran. Stage is full of sand. It's too dark down there for me to take a good picture but I will once I get some lights in.

Picture to come

Purchases:

1. Lutron dimmers
2. 21 3" Recessed Lights (still not sure how many I will use.
3. 12 gauge speaker wire throughout


Trim Selection:

I decided to go with red oak trim. 1" thick to match the cloth panels. I am going to run 5" baseboard. Also a 4" band 18" up from the baseboard and the same 18" down from the ceiling joint. Here is a brief summary and some photos.

We choose this tree as it was not healthy. There were signs of ants at the base (about 12" was not useable).The tree also had another issue once we saw inside. Best guess at this point was a very bad wind storm 20-21 years ago. The inner rings of the tree were separated slightly from the outside rings. You can see the ring separation in the 4th picture. We still got enough boards with this issue.

1. Cutting down the tree about a 70' tall red oak. The tree was about 40 years old.


2. We cut the tree into 10', 8', 8' sections and hauled to the mill.


3.Squaring the log on the mill.


4. First good look at the grain and color.


5.Sizing the boards to 1 1/8" x 5" and 4". The boards will loose 1/8" when they visit the planer next summer.



6. Yeild was:

140 board feet 5" x 1 1/8"
240 boat feet of 4" x 1 1/8"
300 board feet of 1" x 1 1/8"


7. A closer look at the finished project.


Speakers:
I've decided to upgrade my surrounds. I am on the fence wether to:

1. Buy 2 pairs of Boston VR2(full size floorstanding) for surrounds
or
2. Buy 2 pairs of Boston dipole (ETC) speakers.

I am a little up in the air. I would like full range surrounds. I also have read that ideally all speakers should be the same size, brand etc. but that sound tracks are engineered for smaller rears. Not sure what to do with the rears. Any ideas welcome.

If you ever thought about it, I highly recommend a mill. The price of lumber is out of control. The smell....well I love it. Wife says it stinks.

A few more goodies showed up today. Wire and speaker grill connectors (300+heavy duty for some of the wall panels)from Parts Express. Very fast shipping and good stuff. . I also got my IR repeater, and banana connectors and a new digital SPL meter.

Here are some pictures of the progress. They are with the flash. More to come when I get some real lighting in.

Audio rack area:


Towards the stairs:


Wide shot:

We finally decided to name the theater. We live in the middle of nowhere. 50 yards from the backdoor of the theater is a large creek. We are constantly over run with bears raiding our bird feeders, loads of wild turkeys that roost in the trees out by the creek and are really over run with deer. The Sanctuary Theater. The name fits.

I got quite a bit of work done over the last couple weeks. I shipped out 2 days ago and won't be home to work on it again until June. Hopefully the moisture content of the oak will be down to 8% by then.

The company that was going to move the relief backed out at the last minute. I ended up moving it with my kids and some of their friends (5 200-250 lb kids), myself and my next door neighbor (in the pictures above running the mill). Basically, we crated the relief in 2x8 lumber. We attached 3 steel loops into the crate edges. 2 on the top, and one down low. We bought down a roll back car trailer. We put the crated relief up on 2 car dollies and pulled it onto the trailer with the winch. As the relief can only be moved on edge (not layed down), we strapped it standing up right in the middle of the trailer. I backed the truck and trailer down to the entrance door and we rolled the relief in. We removed it from the dollies. Uncrated it, then put it back on the dollies. We rolled it directly in front of the cut out and used a heavy car jack to lift and then slide it into the framed wall. When I framed I left a 12" gap in the base so the jack could slide in. I also cleaned the relief with a microfibre towel and soap and water. It did wonders but there is still more cleaning to do. I have been told to use hydrogen peroxide, but will look into this more.



A little closer shot before it was cleaned:



I finally finished all the framing. My younger kids helped by painting all the framing black. I ended up with a WilsonArt Screen, backed by 1/4 plywood. The picture is really good with this screen.

The front wall is covered with 1" fiberglass. The stage and landing are 8 3/4" tall and filled with sand. I couldn't believe that sand was $4 a bag. I ended up using mostly chipped flagstone and then filled with sand. I used 8 bags of playsand total, and about 2 yards of chipped stone.

The original walls are 3/4" wood paneling. Its something like barnboard.



For rear speakers I went with all Boston VR2's. I couldnt make up my mind whether to go with full size rears or with dipoles. I ended up finding the speakers on clearance. The price was the deciding factor. I am very happy that I went with the fullsize rears. The sound difference was amazing.



A shot of the projector and soffit (not totally complete). The picture also shows the relief after cleaning. I based the dimensions of the soffit on the projector. The soffit is only on the rear wall above the relief. It's 9" deep and will contain 2 lights for the relief. I am leaving the entire soffit hollow (lights will be enclosed) and will trim out the front of the projector.



The ceiling was a nightmare. The old ceiling was suspended and all wiring, phone etc was ran under the joists. We moved everything up and got the room ready for drywall ceiling. I ran a 2" plastic conduit front to rear for future wiring.

For the ceiling I went with black paint. My first gallon was behr lamp black. The color and the paint was aweful. It looked bluish. I went to my local lumber yard and got a gallon of True Value black. They mixed it 16y. The paint blows away the behr. It covered in one coat and is very black.

After redoing a room a year in our house, my wife was dreading the drywal dust. I ended up doing a knock down ceiling. Its very easy and fast. No sanding. The ceiling turned out great. Wife happy.

I ended up using a Lutron Grafik Eye after all. It's a 3104. I did however run 3 lights not with the GE. They are on a simple switch so my wife/kids dont need to mess with the GE to have some light. I also mounted it up high so no one messes with it. It will be behind a removable cloth panel.

We also had a new circuit run for the theater. Most of the lighting (except the 3 lights not on the GE, and the audio/video gear are 70amp box. Currently, it has 2 20 amp legs to the theater.

In all I used 3 lights in front of the screen. I left these 10" out from the wall, but they could have been further. Probably 16-18". They leave a little shadow from the screen frame. There will be 2 lights over the relief. I ended up with 8 lights for general lighting. There are also 4 lights over the seats (slightly back). I also have prewired for 4 sconce lights. The wiring connecting the Grafik Eye is temporary for testing, and will be in conduit when its done. The ceiling is filled with R-19.



We still haven't decided on colors. I am still waiting for samples from Dazian and more samples from GOM. I was going to cover the 3 doors in cloth but we have decided that oak will be better. I am going to veneer the 2 inside doors with red oak. The outside door we will cover with 1/8" x 12" oak we milled just before I left. Basically veneer also.

I am also trying to figure out my bass situation. I use a Mirage BPS-400 that has always done well. After the insulation in the ceiling and fiberglass panels on the front wall, my subwoofer had to be turned way up. It sounds much better and tighter but I still would like some more bass. I am considering putting 2 sonosubs in the rear corners.

Final Equipment:

Projector: Optoma HD-70
Screen: WilsonArt DW 56x100
Amps: (2)Acurus A250x2, Acurus A200x3
Processor: Rotel RSP-1068
Video Processor/Scaler: DVDO Iscan HD+
DVD:Toshiba HD-A3
Speakers:
Front: Boston VR975's
Center:Boston VR-14
Rear: Boston VR2
Side: Boston VR2
Sub: Mirage BPS-400
Remote: URC MX-850
Light Controller:Lutron GRX-3104