[Adidas4275]

Okay guys my wife and I recently bought our first home and being the [H]ard member that I am I needed to build my own home theater. Our home is a 1900 sqf 4 bed, 2 full bath with a 2 car garage. The living room, dining room and kitchen are all one open space, which is very applealing but really difficult for light control for a projector.

I did my "homework" for about 3 months and came up with my list of equipment, most of it had to be purchase since we came from a 600 sqf 1 bedroom appartment.

Equipment List:

Projector: Epson Home Cinema 720 from Visual Apex (free extra lamp from rebate)
Projector Mount: Visual Apex Universal Projector Mount AV-818U
Speakers: 5.1 (MIA is the sub, still needs to be purchased) All from "The Speaker Company" they had good reviews over at AVSfourm for the price.
Front L R and C are IW-D5 LCR pack $159
Rear 2 are IC-5 - Pair 5.25" $39.99 pair
AVR: Onkyo 605 bought for $200 off of AVS fourm

HTPC:
CPU: AMD X2 BE-2400 45w 2.3GHZ (Friday will be replaced with an X2 245)
Motherboard: Foxconn A7GM-S
RAM: 2GB DDR2 667 2 Sticks
HDD: WD Black 640gb
ODD: LG Blu-Ray reader
PSU: Antec Smartpower
GPU: ATI 4830 Silent (motherboard doesnt do 5.1/7.1 over HDMI)


WHS:
Case: Norco 4020
CPU: Intel Celeron E1400
Motherboard: Biostar G31-M7 TE (CPU and Motherboard were bought for $50 at a Frys)
HDD: 6 750gb WD7500AAKS on Highpoint RR 2300 Raid 5 with 1 as hotspare
2 750gb WD7500AAKS on motherboard as OS and storage pool drive
Drives run at 47*C with ambient at 30*C
4TB of Useable Space with RAID5 and a hotspare
PSU: Antec 650w Earthwatt
STB: Motorola STB HD comcast box (soon to be tapped into for recording via either FireSTB, ATI Cable Card (with hack) or PVR-HD)
All speaker wiring is CL2 in-wall rated 12ga wiring from monoprice, it took 200ft for my install.
HDMI cables are also monoprice: 2 6 ft and 1 25ft

All components are in the closet of the next bedroom, I will either build my own rack or buy a MA rack, depending on the $$ flow soon.....

And I have a logitech 890 RF remote that will be here on friday ( i was looking at the 900, but $400 vs $150 for basically the same function)

Here are some Pics:

 

[xCHRISx]

Nice job, very similar to what I'm going to try and accomplish in my basement. I have a giant hole in the wall from the previous owners 60" CRT HDTV so I'm going to put in a built-in shelving unit with an electric screen exactly like you guys did.


Looks good!

 

[oman321]

Looks like a proffesional install, very nice job. Awesome HTPC and WHS solution that has been the trend around here lately. At first I thoght that space looked small but you can see the size a little better with the ladder and you folks in front of it. Enjoy.

 

[CDLehner]

Dood...you don't plan to keep your Norco on the CARPET like that, do you?


CD

 

[Vcook]

Great job for the time frame, and I love how dual purpose the room still seems. However your reciever is going to cook your STB.

 

[TheCableMan]

What kind off wood did you use?

 

[Adidas4275]

The Built in is 118"x80"


screen is a 100" Vmax2 Elite screen

Quote:
Originally Posted by CDLehner /forum/post/16986681


Dood...you don't plan to keep your Norco on the CARPET like that, do you?


CD

No i do not, I am hoping that I am able to build a temp wood rack for my stuff this weekend and then eventually buy a nice MA rack....


my closet is too small to mount the rack perpindicular to the space

so I will be making some sort of custom rack.... I was dreaming of having a slide out rotating MA rack.... but that might just be dreaming...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vcook /forum/post/16988813


Great job for the time frame, and I love how dual purpose the room still seems. However your reciever is going to cook your STB.

Yeah my STB is hot! with that Onkyo 605, it is hotter than my WHS and my HTPC put together.... it will be taken care of by a temp wood rack with lots of fans

i bought stain grade 20" deep birch from Lowes.... it is glulam.


Then I primed all the wood, prior to building, and then painted with a semi-gloss white...... it's the paint we have on our baseboards in our home. We will be framing in all the windows in the house with the same trime that the media cabinet was trimed in and also installed crown molding over winter break.

 

[Adidas4275]

resized pics

 

[spivonious]

That looks really great! I like how the screen is completely hidden when raised.


What's behind the wall? Was the recessed space already there?

 

[pocoloco]

Very nice work! Are you planning to eventually put a flat screen where the picture is? It's perfect made for that.

 

[Johnsteph10]

That is incredibly sharp and what a cool idea for a multi-use space.


During the day -- looks like built-in shelves with display pieces....at night...the dark side comes out and the screen comes down.

 

[Smitty2k1]

Looks fantastic! Innovative and sharp!

 

[Adidas4275]



Quote:
Originally Posted by spivonious /forum/post/17033250


That looks really great! I like how the screen is completely hidden when raised.


What's behind the wall? Was the recessed space already there?

yeah the recess was there and the cabinet company that did the rest of the house wanted close to $6,000 to build something that was 10'x6' to fit in there. it cost us about $500 for the cabinet. (so far)

Quote:
Originally Posted by pocoloco /forum/post/17033340


Very nice work! Are you planning to eventually put a flat screen where the picture is? It's perfect made for that.

Yeah, when i designed it I used a 52" pioneer plasma as a reference. So it will fit a wall mounted 52" TV in there. There is already cat6, HDMI, RG6 and power to the area. right now its all behind plywood, but if we ever wanted to add a TV we could.


Right now we dont watch enough TV to justify it. The Epson 720 and Screen was only $1300 for both, so it was a "in stead of" purchase at this point.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnsteph10 /forum/post/17033357


That is incredibly sharp and what a cool idea for a multi-use space.


During the day -- looks like built-in shelves with display pieces....at night...the dark side comes out and the screen comes down.

Thank, it took me a while to draw out all the plans to make sure everything fit and looked how I wanted it to. Then it was just up to me actually build it.




honestly the WAF was so high on this project it was great. My wife loves that the TV is not the center of attention when people come over.... well until we want it to be.... then it is not just the center of attention but everone stops what they were doing to watch.


the first 5 mins of Fast and the Furrious 3 is great to watch in 5.1 on a 100" HD screen

 

[rboster]

Job well done. Really clean well incorporated build as a livingroom HT.

 

[kezug]

Very nice job! I love the clean look and it has the appearance of being done professionally. To bad, you could not hide the projector somehow for a totally clean install.


Question: why did you bother painting that cubby hole in the first place...

? I have to laugh, because I completely mudded and tapped my front wall when I was going to put up a permanent screen on it anyway...still scratching my head why I bothered to do that.

 

[Adidas4275]



Quote:
Originally Posted by rboster /forum/post/17036551


Job well done. Really clean well incorporated build as a livingroom HT.

Thanks, comming from a mod that it cool

Quote:
Originally Posted by kezug /forum/post/17037078


Very nice job! I love the clean look and it has the appearance of being done professionally.


Question: why did you bother painting that cubby hole in the first place...

? I have to laugh, because I completely mudded and tapped my front wall when I was going to put up a permanent screen on it anyway...still scratching my head why I bothered to do that.

Thanks... as for the paint... my little sister needed something to do and we were not sure if we wanted a wood backing or the wall to show through. So we painted it, knowing that if we stuck with the wood backing your wouldnt see it anyways. Also we knew we wanted to paint the bullnose so there is clean paint line between the trim molding and the wall.


yeah it was extra paint but that is okay

 

[landshark1]

really professional like job!! and great design too!!


it would be even better with a flat screen on the shelf!! really, the cool factor is well worth it!!

 

[Adidas4275]



Quote:
Originally Posted by landshark1 /forum/post/17050976


really professional like job!! and great design too!!


it would be even better with a flat screen on the shelf!! really, the cool factor is well worth it!!

it is setup for a LCD, LED or plasma 52" on the shelf. So if day time viewing isnt up to par with it being a living room and not really light controlled then i will buy a TV

we just got blinds today so will will post some new pics tomorrow with a real camera of the image with the blind open and closed.

 

[Bin.cue]

Congratulations on a well executed project. This is exactly the setup I'm looking to implement and it's nice to get some great ideas from your work. Good job!

 

[Adidas4275]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Bin.cue /forum/post/17052468


Congratulations on a well executed project. This is exactly the setup I'm looking to implement and it's nice to get some great ideas from your work. Good job!

thanks, thats why i posted.... be sure to post pics of your build... i got a lot of my ideas from othre posts on here and hardforum