My New Theater - Version 2.0! - Page 2

From the bottom of the stairs, the theater entrance is on the left (I swear..floor plan coming soon). The wall you see in the below picture is the left hand wall when seated and facing the screen. Two columns have been framed out on this wall. The rear column contains the water meter and water main shutoff, as well as the housing the transformer (see blue conduit) to power the LED lights in the soffit. I framed out a matching column up front so that this doesn't stand out.

The city wouldn't let me move the water meter, and we are still required to read it manually, so it will need to be accessible. I'm considering covering that area with a fabric panel on both columns so that it can be hidden.

You can also see the sconce mounts at the top of each column.

Finally, the blue tape on the floor indicates where the riser will go. Yes, I realize that step looks small. I've since moved the front edge of the riser forward 6 inches to allow for a longer step. One of the step lights from above will be mounted in this step. Riser will be 12" tall with a 6" step.

Here is the rear wall of the theater. The box hanging down from the soffit is the power to where the projector will eventually be. I'm planning on building a box below the soffit to hold the projector, so I haven't decided if I need to frame it out now and mount the power inside, or if I should put it up once the drywall is up. Any ideas?

I went with 2 3" cans above the rear seating. I'll install black eyeball trim so lighting will be availble in the back row if we're gaming or just need some light. A dimmer switch will be installed on the wall to the left to control rear seat lighting.

Moving towards the front of the room, this is the wall to the right of the screen. The door on the right of the image is the entry to the theater.

My initial plan was to have cabinetry along the rear wall of the theater, but this would have pushed seating too far forward. As a compromise, I decided to move the cabinets to this wall. They will be recessed flush with the wall, with a countertop on the opposite side. The wall above will be finished on the left, but open for the equipment rack on the right. I have a seperate 20 amp service going to the cabinet. Sub outlets on the front wall, projector outlet on the back, and a popcorn machine in the hall are included on this circuit as well.

Two 6" cans are installed in the soffit above the cabinet area. These should provide enough light when picking out a movie. Switch to be installed to the left.

View from the backside of the equipment closet, accesible via the laundry/storage room.

I'm interested in knowing more about the Mid-Atlantic racks. I downloaded the Racktools software. It seems pretty slick, but I have no idea which base unit I should be starting with. I don't need sliding or rotating shelves, so if anyone has an idea on a model I could look at, please let me know. As you can see in this picture and the previous one, the rack will not be a full one. I'd like to install the rack, a dew shelves, and the custom faceplates for each piece of equipment.

The box mounted to the left wall of the rack will house the Lutron Spacer system:

Zone 1 - Wall Sconces
Zone 2- Poster Lights
Zone 3- LED Ceiling Lights
Zone 4- Stage Lights

Here's the carpet we decided to go with. "Miami" by Couristan. The store was having a sale, so we decided to bite early. Assumming we stay on schedule, I'm targeting an install between May 1st and May 15th.



I included the below shot to give everyone an idea of how it looks in a room. Repeat information if provided here as well in case anyone is interested.

Unfortunately, I thought about that after that fact. Otherwise, I would have framed another 2X4 on top of the base plate. No worries though. I'm planning on taking a can of spray paint and striking a line on the Dricore where each of the studs are. That way I'll have visible marks to work off of when I hit the baseboard stage.

I can tell I'm going to love UPS and FedEx over the next few months. My four sconces arrived today:

So, DataPro has this "Design Your Own Faceplate" thing. I want to install a wall plate near the seating area that would allow for external devices to be incorporated into the theater (ipod, joysticks, legacy systems, future systems, etc). Here is a custom plate I came up with:



USB and composite audio/video are definates. CAT5 seems like a no brainer as well. Are the others really necessary or am I stepping into "overkill" territory? Just in case you miss them, I've added component video, HDMI, VGA, and toslink.

I measured from the box to the inside of the equipment closet. If I mount a USB hub a the top of the closet, I'm looking at just a tad over 14 feet, so I can come in under the 15 foot USB requirement. I'll probably go with 20 foot cables everywere else.

Thoughts?

Man. I'm getting very little response to my questions. No love in this thread

Here's a new one - I'm considering using in-wall speakers for my rears and surrounds. If I do that, I'd like to have an enclosure in the wall to keep the sound from escaping. Rather than buy an in-wall with a built in enclosure, I've heard that I can purchase prefab enclosures and then slide the speaker into that.

Does anyone have any recommendations or links to places that might offer this?

Dave,

I sure am and thanks!

Well.. I'll keep drudging along with the posts. Hopefully people are at least reading the thread.

I never got any responses for my cabling question, so I went ahead and placed a Monoprice order.

My Monoprice order arrived today. Man, these cables have some weight to them. I need to order a few more to go with my patch plate i'm installing near the riser, but these will keep me busy over the weekend.




Also, I received a call back from one of the drywall guys. I believe I mentioned him above. He was willing to drop his price down to $3K for the material and labor, which saves me about $367 over the initial bid. Score 1 for negotiating

The drywall will be delivered next Friday. I'm touching base with the installer on Wednesday to determine if I'll be ready bu then. It all depends on how much the wife and I get done between now and then. I still need to install low voltage wiring and insulation.

Ok, I've finally managed to get a floor plan together. Here's the first, showing the overall room dimensions.



The below image shows the ceiling plan, as well as where the cabinets will be located.

Thanks. I'd love to bounce some color ideas off of you.

For what I needed lighting control of, the Grafik Eye ended up being about $100 more to install, so I decided to go with the spacer system and save a little money.

Fuzzy,

Thanks for the link. I actually wasn't sure of the best route to take here, as I have on previous experience with pre-fab racks. I ended up framing out my equipment opening to be 24"X 50". I figured that would allow me plenty of room if I just did a custom bookcase with some shelves.

This one seems to fill the space the best:

http://www.buyrackgear.com/detail.aspx?ID=4406

My question is this - since the racks are only 19" wide and I have a 24" wide opening, what's the best way to finish this off? I was planning on carrying the double drywall into the cabinet (2 x 1/2") so I'll pick up an inch on each side, but that still leaves a 1 1/2" opening all the way around. Is it normal to shim a rack much like a door frame?

Thanks. I just posted over on that thread, so I'll see what everyone says.

Well. No replies to my post in the other thread yet, so I'm hoping I get some good info back there. I'm going to take another look at the area today and post some pics. Hopefully that will get me some good feedback. I just don't think I'm comfortable dropping a 19" wide rack into a 22-23" finished opening yet. That would require some pretty thick casing .

David,

I read over that thread a few months ago, but must have missed it. I'm searching it right now. Thanks for the tip.

Jason

Chris,

How did you determine what size to build your boxes? Are you happy with the outcome?

Peapod,

Thanks. I went ahead and posted the pic over in the carpet thread.

No, I'm not familiar with the Futronix stuff.

No pics yet, but I managed to get most of my low voltage wiring installed. We also brought home 10 rolls of R-13 last night from Lowes. I was hoping to be ready for drywall by Friday, but it's looking like we'll need to bump that a week.

My other open issues right now are determing if I'm doing on-wall or in-wall for my surrounds. If if go in-wall, I need to determine sizing for my wall enclosures. Also, I need to determine if I'm going to adjust my framing in the equipment closet for a Mid-Atlantic rack.

So, I need to take some updated pictures today.

Friday was supposed to be drywall delivery day, but it never happened. I called the contractor and he forgot. Gotta love these subs. I think I could open a customer service school just for contractors and get rich off of it. From my experience, that seems to be one field where people just don't get it.

My parents were in town this weekend, so my dad and I got started on the insulation. We were able to take care of most of the exterior walls, so I have a little more to do (and the ceiling) this week. We're slated to get drywall hung on Friday, so I've got a few days. I also realized I ordered the wrong VGA cable, so I'm waiting on another one to get here, as well as some subwoofer cables (mine weren't long enough).

That's all for now