[michaelddd]

I have waited a long, long time (10+ years) to be able to post this thread. Moved into our first brand-new home in August and I'm ready to start "construction." I put that in quotes b/c what I'm really doing is modifying an existing, albeit brand new construction, room. Progress on the room will be fairly slow-paced as I work full time. I already own all the equipment, wires, nuts, bolts, etc. Gathered that together over the past year. So that will save a lot of time.

The room is the only one upstairs and it will be a dedicated theater. The room is 3,465 cubic feet in size. (22 x 17.5 x 9). While I did spend some smart money on things to help make the theater better, we had the whole rest of the house to upgrade (tile, counter tops, lights, you know the drill). So something like decoupled walls or room in a room construction was not in the budget.

UPGRADES I DID TO TRY AND HELP WITH SOUND & ELECTRIC:
- Closed in the theater with a door and walls; stock configuration, this room is a loft with an open stairway leading up to it.
- Entire theater including the bathroom and the stairwell leading up to it is sheet rocked with SoundBreak XP drywall: Link to this product
- The theater floor was insulated with the same blown-in insulation as the outer walls. It's better than nothing.
- 2 dedicated 20-amp circuits (room also has a 15 amp circuit for the other outlets)
- 15 amp outlet in floor for power recliners
- Outlet in ceiling for PJ (shared with common outlet in room...not happy about that but too late now)
- 12ga Monoprice speaker wire run in-wall to all seven main speaker locations and 3 subwoofer locations (can add a 4th easily though)
- Conduit run in from PJ location to equipment rack location
- Wired for 6 wall sconces


EQUIPMENT LIST
- AVR: Denon X4000 (using as a pre only)
- BALANCED INTERFACE: 3 X Henry Engineering Twinmatch HD (gives me 12 channels of unbalanced-to-balanced outputs) Link to this product
- AMPLIFICATION: 2 X QSC RMX2450A FOR SUBS, 3 X Crown XLS1500 for L/C/R (bridged mono), 2 x Crown XLS1500 for side and back surrounds (run in stereo)
- MAIN SPEAKERS: DIY Soundgroup 88 Specials for L/C/R and Volt 10LXs for all surrounds (already built)
- SUBS: 4 X Dayton UM18 in LLT's (will be 16-18 cubic feet net...have the drivers, but cabs not built yet)
- SOURCE 1: Windows HTPC running Kodi (all files 100% uncompressed rips BluRay and DVDs ripped by me, not downloaded from somewhere or someone)
- SOURCE 2: Sony BluRay player (forget the model, but it's a newer model)
- PROJECTOR: Benq W1200
- SCREEN: DIY 120" 16:9 with Seymour Center Stage XD with the tilted cut
- HDMI Cable: Redmere active cable
- XLR CABLES: Monoprice
- SPEAKER CABLES: Monoprice 12ga
- SEATING: Initially, 3 x HT Market Southhampton Power Recliners Link to this product
- MORE SEATING: Possibly some nicer flip-up theater-style seats as I'm a little pressed for space for a second row but need one
- ROOM TREATMENTS: Entire front wall covered in 1.5" of Linacoustic, DIY 2" acoustic panels with Rockboard 60 at first reflection points, thick velour curtains across back of room

As this will be a dedicated theater and WAF is not a factor (she got to do what she wanted w/the entire rest of the house, except the garage and my office) this will be a dark theater. Ceiling will be painted Roscoe Velour Black. It's a stage/theater paint and is supposed to be the inkiest blackest of blacks out there. Link to this product
The walls/doors/trim, I'm not sure yet, but probably a dark gray or maybe dark blue for some color.

Carpet will be changed out for something dark and simple. Believe it or not, it was a LOT cheaper to have the builder put the same carpet in the HT as the rest of the house vs. putting a different carpet in there. This was a custom home but unless we wanted to pony up an absurd amount of money for changes, it was smarter to just get the carpet replaced later.

Due to the most evil door ever (more on that in a minute) and me wanting an AT screen, I will have a 36" deep screen wall up front with all equipment behind it. The only thing out in the theater proper will be the surrounds and the chairs. That's it.

SOME PICS OF THE ROOM AS IT STANDS TODAY AT THE BEGINNING OF THIS EFFORT

Front of room with dimensions


Right wall of room with dimensions (note the door)


Left wall


Rear wall


I removed the AC feeds vents and painted them flat black


Same goes for inside the actual vent (it's great to able to spray paint without regard to what mess I make )


The AC return grate is siliconed in place, so I just sprayed the snot out of it.



The whole ceiling is about to be outer-space-flat-blacked, so the mess doesn't matter.

For that professional touch, I bought this cool black EXIT sign/emergency light.


WHAT ABOUT THE DOOR? THAT'S ALL WE WANNA KNOW!

Ah yes, that door. My arch-nemesis.

Behind this lovely door:


Are the two AC units for the house and theater room (theater has it's own dedicated unit)


Moving that door would've cost $12K in redesign fees b/c they would've had to relocate the AC units and all the ducting. Ah, no thanks...the door can stay. So that's why I need a 36" deep screen wall. In reality, I'm really only losing about a foot of floor space compared to my ideal screen wall, but still, a foot's a foot! Same goes for the three windows. The room needed at least one for code and removing two would've cost money. It is what it is.

Oh, here's just some of the equipment currently sitting in the garage, doing nothing but taking up space.


I hope to get the room painted before the New Year. Basically I need to:

Paint entire room
Hang Linacoustic on front wall
Replace carpet
Hang drapes
Build subs cabs (4)
Build screen wall
Build screen
Build acoustic panels and hang them
Install sconces
Replace the hollow-core door to the stairwell w/a solid-core door
Install rack and all equipment and wire it up
REW the snot out of the room

I will probably build a shallow riser for the second row of seating...as soon as I figure out what that is going to be. Those tan couches in the pics are not staying. They are comfy but just too big for what I want in the room.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned!!

 

[michaelddd]

Gotta have an exit strategy...

24 Dec update.


It's the little things that make your HT yours, right? Well, I did a little thing today, that basically took me all day, but I'm very pleased with the result.


Call it silly, but I've always wanted a lit "EXIT" sign in my HT. I think it adds a professional, "real theater" look and on the practical side, it adds a measure of safety.


As there's only one entrance/exit the room, the logical place for it is right above the door (see red circle).



Problem is that I thought of the sign after the house was built; there was no power run to that location. How to get power there? Darn good question. In fact, one that I spent a couple of days trying to answer. What I did not want to do was have to break sheetrock, run the wire and repaint. Trying to go from the nearest outlet to that location would've required 4 or 5 separate holes in various walls to run the wire from an outlet to the sign location. No way, man. I suck at sheetrock work and don't like doing it. The only other choice was to go UP THERE...in the crawlspace under the roof and run the wire. I was not looking forward to that.


So first I had to drill a hole for the wire to come through the wall. Did that and realized "How am I going to reach through this little hole and drag the wire through?" What a dummy. So I cut a proper hole for an "Existing work outlet box."



Don't have a shot of the box installed, sorry. I reached up into the hole thinking the crawlspace was open above it...thought I was home free. Nope. There's a board up there. So now we have to drill a hole through the board in order to fish the wire through and down. Would never find the right location up in the crawlspace to drill DOWN from, so we have to drill UP. But how? Can't fit the drill through that 3x5 hole...so how to do it? Right angle attachment to the rescue!



Well, that didn't work too well. The angle of the bit was too acute and I wound up not going straight up, but diagonally OUT...right into the stairwell. See the red circles? Looks like I'll be doing a little spackling. Oh well. I solved the problem by removing the right-angle attachment and adding a 12" extension to the long spade bit. I was able to drill relatively straight up and into the attic.




So, back to getting power. It just so happens that there's a convenience outlet in the mechanical room. This picture was taken from in the mechanical room, looking out into the HT. Note the red, circled outlet on the left and the red circled location for where the exit sign would go.



I didn't take any pics while dragging the wire through the crawlspace, but I am proud to say I did not put my foot through the ceiling. I did however, inhale about 16 ounces of blown insulation. That stuff SUCKS. I have 10" of insulation in the crawlspace. Trying to find studs to step on required kicking the insulation out of the way while I hung onto the rafter for dear life. CLOUDS of that crap blew up in the air and right into my nose. I should've worn a mask but it took two minutes just to crawl up in the space to begin with...too late, oh well. I dragged the wire through the attic, stuck it down into the hole and done. But not before cutting my skull twice on roof tile nails sticking through the roof. It's not your project until you bleed on it!


Here's the 14ga Romex running into the outlet box.



I tacked it down with proper Romex staples and that was that. See red oval.



I'll have to take the sign down to paint, but I just had to see what it looked like. It's not only a red exit sign, but it has LED emergency lights too, powered off an internal battery.




Simulated power out.




The sign is actually a little too bright, so I'll be adding some window tint film to the inside to darken it up a little. Finally, I did a little bit of work getting ready to put the Linacoustic up and paint the ceiling. I'll be putting the Linacoustic up with drywall screws and fender washers. Can't have shiny washers reflecting through my screen wall, so:


Shiny washers.



And not shiny any more washers.



I taped off the walls so I don't get black paint from the ceiling on them. I will be painting the walls anyway, but figured this was good insurance anyway. Note the blue tape at the top of the walls.




By the way, remember those AC vents I sprayed? Gave them another coat along with the mounting ring for the smoke detector and the outlet cover plates for the PJ. These will be invisible with the lights out.


That's all for today. Will be painting the ceiling this weekend.

 

[michaelddd]

Painting time!

I started the painting or more accurately, the re-painting today. This room was a finished room...with a white ceiling (OMG!) and yellow walls like the rest of the house. 100% totally WRONG for a theater room of any kind.


I painted the ceiling today. What was special about it (to me anyway) was that I used a paint not often mentioned here. I used Roscoe Velour Black/6003. This stuff is expensive as in $80/gallon expensive. I got a headache just buying it, so I had high expectations of it, based on what I've read online.


Keep in mind that pics often don't represent real life. I took the pics in this thread about an hour after I finished painting. It's now about 5 hours later and it actually looks better than the pics suggest.


So here we go. I'll give my honest thoughts on this paint.


It's biggest selling point is that it's "an artist pigment black" as in, inky, deep black. That I can absolutely attest to. This stuff when dry, is like...flat velvet in appearance. Black, bottomless and not shiny at all. I do not see any chalky spots. Unfortunately, I have textured walls and ceilings in the house. I think if my ceiling was a flat surface it would look even better...and would've taken less paint to cover it. Keep reading.


The second biggest selling point is that it's super-concentrated and must be diluted with water. How much water is up to you. This stuff is like cold molasses syrup right out of the can. I literally had to scoop the paint out of the can to mix it at room temperature. Roscoe suggests a 1:1 mix but I read a few different threads on both HT and Stage forums that 1:1 results in a runny mess. I can attest to this as I tried it with my first batch. 8oz paint and 8oz water. I got soup. Black as hell soup but not usable, especially trying to put the stuff on the ceiling! Barely would stay on the roller. I found a 3:1 mix was the best ratio at least for ceiling applications. You have to mix really well. I mean stir until your arm seized up. It does not mix readily with water, but DOES mix nicely...eventually.


I also found out that a textured ceiling sucks up paint almost as bad as bare sheetrock or MDF. I'd soak the 9" roller and wind up with about a 4 foot long strip before the roller got dry. My 374sf (17x22) ceiling went through about 95% of the gallon of paint even in diluted form with just one coat.


As you can see in the pics, there are a lot of "pinpoint" holes in the paint and you can see the white paint underneath. Obviously, white shows through dark colors easily and draws your eye to it. If not for these spots, I would not retouch it at all. I am fairly sure that that I can dilute the 3/4" of paint I have left in the can a little more and take care of all the white spots. I originally planned on Mouse Ears for the ceiling and have a gallon of it already...which now I have no idea what to do with it. I COULD put a second coat on the ceiling, albeit with the Mouse Ears, but what if it's chalky or shiny? I seriously don't think you can get a better black ceiling than this unless you can do two full coats of Roscoe, which I'm not inclined to do. Cost, time, etc. We will see how it looks after touchup tomorrow. If I can cover the pinholes, the ceiling is done.


Here's some pics. Don't worry about all the missed spots near the front wall. I will be extending the Linacoustic up on ceiling at least 24"into the room. My screen wall will be 36" deep, so why not use the Linacoustic I already have? (100 feet of it). Keep in mind the paint has dried a lot since the pics and actually looks better. Sorry for the dust particles...I didn't see'em when shooting pics.
BTW: the tops of the walls are taped off with blue tape. If it looks like I have paint on the walls near the top of the walls, I don't. The paint is on the tape. There ARE a few drips on the walls though. This stuff does NOT wipe off at all. You drip on something, that thing now has black spots forever. Luckily I'm painting the walls and replacing the carpet.











And finally, a pic of something my wife got me for Christmas. It will go above the entry door to the theater.



1 JANUARY 2016 UPDATE

Happy New Year to all! I've been finishing up the ceiling and some related tasks these past few days.

Did you know that pinholes have "viewing angles?" I sure didn't. I discovered that with my textured ceiling, from one angle it could LOOK LIKE I have no more missed spots where the white paint shows through the black, but from another angle, there's all kinds of missed spots. A second coat of Roscoe Velour Black 6003 with a 3/4" nap roller made the ceiling look even more like outer space, but did little to fill in those pinholes. /facepalm

I literally had to get up on the ladder with a 4" roller in one hand, paint can in the other, headlamp on my head, and go square foot by square foot. I must've went up and down the ladder 30 times to cover the entire room. So the ceiling is done.

I also put the AC vents up and they look great. There was one thing left though. The smoke alarm.

As you may know, you're "not supposed to paint them." They even print it right on the thing.


That's b/c of the electronics inside. Getting paint on them would probably render the thing useless. But what if...you took it apart and covered all the electronics first and taped stuff off and ensured you didn't block any holes/vents? That would effectively be the same thing as not painting it, right? So that's what I did.

Taped off around the fiddly bits.


Turned it upside down and taped off the electrical connection.


And sprayed away. Finished product put back together.


And mounted on the ceiling.



In this pic, purposely taken in the dark, you can just see the green LED on the circuit board that shows you that AC power is connected.


I test it and it works just like it did before.

Some other pics.

Painted the Evil Door to the mechanical room with the Roscoe. This stuff DOES show fingerprints, so IMO it's not suitable for putting on the walls. This door will be behind the screen wall so I painted it just to ensure it was invisible.


Ran the HDMI cable and a CAT5e cable through the conduit. You can see the spaghetti of speaker wires back there too.





Black AC vent.


Light back up.


It's coming along, folks. Thanks for looking.

 

[michaelddd]

Things are looking a little different since the last update (a few weeks ago.) It's been an interesting sequence of events so far. That's a nice way to say "I thought I planned every detail out months ago, but when I did Task X, I found that I wanted to change Thing 1 and Thing 2, but in order to change those Things, I had to create Task Y, Z, ZA, ZB, etc." You know how it goes!!!


What I've done since the last update. In no particular order, but obviously some are more labor-intensive than others:


1. Put 3 coats of paint on the walls. My walls and ceiling are textured and it's a royal pain in the arfing ass to get paint into all the nooks and crannies...hence, 3 f'(@#(!! coats. Taping off the ceiling was a PITA and left me with an 1/8" gap to paint where the wall and ceiling meet. There might be a better way to do this but it's unknown to me. My original goal of not having a bunch of wall-paint on the ceiling to touch up/cover over was met, but now I have a razor-thin, 1/16" - 1/8" wide strip of bright white, in a corner, to paint and somehow not make it all look like @ss. Something so small will be SO noticeable...pisses me off.


2. Addressed the issue of 3 large windows at the rear of the theater (sound leakage in and out, mostly.) The plan is in place, materials bought, not executed yet.


3. Finished changing or painting any object in the line of sight that wasn't dark-colored. This includes the thermostat and the electric outlets. Small details matter; any shiny object that catches your eye detracts from the movie experience. Therefore in my HT, anything you see is either flat black or a dark color. Very effective.


4. Almost figured out what I'm doing with the sconces on the walls. At least I determined that one sconce location is not viable for the sconces I purchased about 9 months ago....so I made that location go away.


5. Decided that having all 4 subs behind the screen wall wasn't best, acoustically. Bought Speakon wall plates for "rear subs" locations. Painted those wall plates flat black.


6. Bought 16 sheets of 3/4" MDF for the subs. The plan was for 1" MDF. But on the day that the buddy helping me was available, my wood supplier was OOS on 1" MDF. Just f'ing figures!!!! Next possible date was 3 weeks out and I said "Oh well...guess I'll go with this and use more bracing" and that was that. On the plus side, the guy remembered me emailing him about availability "We always have 1" MDF!!" so he felt bad and gave me a really good break on the price for the 3/4". I paid about $4 less per sheet than you can buy it at Home Depot for. $4x16=$64+tax. Not an insignificant amount of money. A fair deal IMO, and the MDF is pristine. Not a dented corner on any sheet.


7. Took delivery of a solid-core door to replace the flimsy, 6-pound hollow core door that separates the theater from the rest of the house. Except for height/length, the door is an exact match for the existing pre-hung door. Also bought weather stripping to help seal the door to the frame. This door is a lot heavier than the one it replaces, so I'm worried about the stock, 3-screw hinges. I may or may not try to hang this door myself.

So here are some pics.


First, my work table in the HT. A 6-foot plastic folding table with a drop cloth thrown on it. It gets the job done. The contents displayed on the table change daily and I'm getting tired of carrying stuff up and down from the garage. I may just move my entire tool collection up here and be done with it.



Various pictures of the room. Obviously, the yellow wall up front is where the screen wall will be...and you can see where that will go exactly...just look for where the gray wall paint stops. Anything yellow will be covered with 1.5" Linacoustic.







Details matter, right?

Honeywell thermostat in black. They don't make them in black? So DIY!



Wired the binding post plates for the 4 surround locations. Here is where I found out what a shi1tty job the sheetrock guys did. I have large gaps to fill/paint. I will do paintable silicone and paint Note that the plates are black. I bought these as white, disassembled them, painted them, reassembled them. Labor-intensive, but this is what was required.





Outlets in black (details matter!)



So then we have these three windows. Blackout curtains would've taken care of the light, but what about the sound (in and OUT?) That question was posed to me and it made me realize I'd not covered all the bases. I didn't want the windows to begin with, but taking them out of the plans would've resulted in a $3K penalty from the builder (don't get me started...)....plus 1 window had to stay anyway to meet code. Whatever. The solution isn't built yet but what I will be doing is: Removable panels, held in with barrel bolts, with R19 insulation b/t the panel (5/8" OSB) and the window, and some 2" OC703 for internal acoustic panel usage on the inside. Thick black out curtains will cover it all. I will have strip insulation sealing the panel to the window on all 4 sides. Panels will be removable in a few seconds if needed.


Those windows.



Fixes.






That's all for now. I have about another 12 hours of work on the theater "shell" itself and then it's time to start install equipment! Oh wait...I need to build 4 subs and a screen wall...and a screen...OK I"m not that close...but getting a lot closer!!!!


ps
The closeup pics give you a good idea of the color on the walls. I picked out some fancy-sounding Glidden color at HD, but the can says "Slate Blue". I'd be happy to post a pic of the label, which shows the exact mixture if anyone is interested. It took me about 30 mins to pick this color....that is 4,592 hours in woman-color-picking-years!!!! So I have some blood, sweat and tears invested in this!

 

[BIGmouthinDC]

looks like a good project. How loud are those AC units in the theater with that door closed? are you going to need to work on that door?

 

[michaelddd]

Good question, BIG. The door to the mechanical area is a solid-core door with decent weatherstripping on all 4 edges. The only machinery in the "AC units" in the mech room are the fans and coils. The compressors are outside on the other side of the house. You do hear the fans, but really, it's not that bad. You hear the air rushing through the feed/return vents more pronounced than you hear the machinery in the next room. In all honesty, here in south Texas where attic spaces reach 140F during our 6 month long summer, no one will complain about "air noise" in a 2nd floor HT, as long as the room is cold.

What will have to get worked on is the door to the stairs that lead up to the HT. It's a hollow-core door and even that terminology is generous. It feels like I could poke my finger through it. The HT is by no means decoupled from the rest of the house, but the small things I've done for noise reduction will certainly add up. But with a hollow-core door separating the HT from the rest of the house, the other NR efforts are sort of negated. The door is supposedly a standard 32" door. I measured 31.25" from the inside of the frame to the inside of the frame. I'd like to just buy a solid-core door that will swap hinges with the stock door. Don't care if it matches the other doors or not...they're all getting painted the same color as the walls will be. This is my theater and practicality rules the day. Hoping for a trip to HD for a door and "swap the thing in an hour type job."

With the exception of the things I've pointed out already, the room is what it is. Power is there. Wiring is there. I just need to build the internals out. I'm not going for soffits or columns or built-in anything. All the equipment and the front stage is going behind a screen wall and AT screen. The rest I'll integrate as nicely as possible.

 

[Tedd]

You actually don't need all the AT space to be 3' deep....

You could do fabric wing panels at an angle, and simply make sure the mechanical door swing
is accommodated.

 

[michaelddd]

Good point, Tedd. I also thought about swapping the door for a pocket door. But the expense, hassle and possible air/sound leakage to/from the attic space next to the theater makes it a non-viable solution.


Yesterday I ordered a solid core "slab" door from Lowes to replace the hollow-core door that separates the HT from the stairwell that leads downstairs. The door won't be here until 6 Jan, but that's OK. The new slab door is 80x32x1 3/8. The existing pre-hung door is 79 3/4 x 31 1/2 x 13/8. I've never trimmed a door before, but I do have a table saw and all the equipment to do it...should be an interesting install. Particularly cutting all the holes for the door knob mechanism and getting the hinges lined up properly. I'm planning on buying a door lock installation kit from Lowes/HD. Something like this: http://www.lowes.com/pd_132990-70-D180004___?productId=1013925&pl=1&Ntt=door+lock+installation+kit I may a router template kit for the hinge mortises too, but that would be money spent for a one-time need. I'm not too good with chisels...we'll have to see how it all plays out.


A side note related to the screen wall: Being that I "have to" have a 3' deep screen wall, that opened up the ability to have a full-height equipment rack for all the gear vs. the DIY shelves I had originally planned on. Rack's already purchased, along with shelves for the non-rackable equipment to sit on.

 

[Tedd]

I gather that equipment rack will sit up front, in the opposite corner to the mechanical door?


Will you be hiding it behind a panel (like Jeff did)?

 

[michaelddd]

I gather that equipment rack will sit up front, in the opposite corner to the mechanical door?


Will you be hiding it behind a panel (like Jeff did)?

Yup, exactly where you stated. The equipment rack will go on front wall, left corner. In the first pic in this thread, you can see all the coverplates where the speaker wire runs terminate, left corner, front wall. I will make a hinged panel in the screen wall that swings open to access the rack, and another one to access the mechanical room. I store the AC filters for the whole house in that room, and there's a filter for the fresh-air-intake that has to be changed too, so I need to be able to get in there. Of course, the main reason to be able to get in there is b/c the HVAC systems for the whole house are in there...hence the removable panels for the screen wall.


Still undecided if I will make just a small, hinged access door to be able to get to the AVR and BluRay player, or if I'll make a hinged, full-height door that would give me access to the entire front of the rack. Probably the former. I plan on making all the other panels removable somehow...Velcro, most probably.


Between four coffin-sized subs, three 88 Specials and the equipment rack there won't be much room back there for moving around once it's all in. Having all the equipment in the rack should help keep things manageable though. I like racks. All kinds.


I'll be posting a few new pics later tonight. I had my first "oops"...drilled through the stairwell wall while trying to drill a hole up into the attic to run a 110v line for the EXIT sign. /facepalm

 

[michaelddd]

Added an update. See post #2 .

 

[BIGmouthinDC]

That is way too many fender washers for the scene wall, I can't imagine using more than 50%.

 

[michaelddd]

That is way too many fender washers for the scene wall, I can't imagine using more than 50%.

You really think so? I'm putting up 153 square feet of 1.5" Linacoustic. I'm not using any adhesive; just the drywall screws and washers. Is there a general rule of "attachment points" for putting up Linacoustic? Thank you for your input; I want to do this correctly the first time.

 

[BIGmouthinDC]

It won't hurt to put too many, I use about one for every 4 square feet, So that would be 38

 

[michaelddd]

LOL! Then I guess all of the 120 I spray painted already won't get used. Oh well...I never throw hardware away. I even keep the extra screws and oddball hardware that comes with DIY furniture, TV stands, etc. Which would explain why I have 3 parts organizers with the little drawers overflowing with stuff I haven't touched in 15 years. But hey, I WILL need it all someday!


Thanks, BIG.

 

[michaelddd]

Got the ceiling painted. See post #3 for updates.

 

[RTROSE]

Interesting build. I like watching/lurking builds where you do you best with what you got. I hope you turned off your HVAC when you did all that spray painting, little black flakes to share all over. I have a new system that runs all the time circulating air even when not heating or cooling.

Good luck, chin up and you have one of (if not the) most knowledgeable HT guys chiming in on your build so you are in good hands.

Like the "Man Cave" sign at least the wife is on board, that helps a lot!

What is your overall thoughts on your paint/color scheme?

Regards,

RTROSE

 

[michaelddd]

@RTROSE: The HT has it's own dedicated AC unit. I am lucky in that regard. It's completely independent of the rest of the house. I had it off when I was spraying the vents and the intake. What a mess that could've been though. LOL!


This dedicated HT is something that has been on the bargaining table/been discussed literally for years with the Mrs. We were renting a much smaller house b/c I wasn't sure if my job would keep us here. Couldn't do this in that house b/c it wasn't mine...and there was no space anyway. When I found out we were stable, we started looking for a house. Looking turned into building. As I stated in the first post, having a room in a room or fancy theater built wasn't in the budget, nor was it something I really wanted. If this was a huge room and the funds were there, sure. But neither of those conditions apply. I had a few key upgrades done to this room (see first post) and I would do the rest. The agreement was that my home office and the HT were mine to do with as I please and everything else was hers. I think that's a fair deal.


The wife's on board for a couple of different reasons. She likes movies too, though she's not as nuts about them as I am. Also, this room is the only one upstairs, it is separate from the rest of the house and unless you're looking for the stairs behind the kitchen you don't really know it's there. The décor in the HT will look nothing like the rest of the house, which she is painstakingly crafting one trip to Pier One and Bed, Bath & Beyond at a time. We'll see how onboard she still is when I'm up there watching movies and she's downstairs in the living room. :evilgrin: At least I won't have the police banging on my door like they used to back when I was in apartments.


As for the overall paint scheme; I'm not really an interior designer and didn't stay at a Holiday Inn last night either. This is a dedicated HT, not a multipurpose room. As such, the ceiling is flat black. The walls, doors and trim will most probably be one solid color. Dark gray/blue/brown...haven't decided yet. The acoustic panels will be nice, solid colors for a splash of color and there will be sconces on the walls. I think that pretty much covers it. Utilitarian and boring in appearance, meant to keep you focused on the screen. Boring...until I fire up the system that is.

 

[michaelddd]

Now that I have some daylight coming through the windows, I was able to take a critical look at the ceiling. It needs another coat of paint. There's just too many thin spots where I can see white peeking through. You cannot see this with the lights off but it's pretty obvious with the lights on. It's something that someone like me would spot in your theater if I was there, and that bugs the daylights out of me.

So now I have a choice. I either use the gallon of Mouse Ears that I already have, or spend another $100 on another can of Roscoe. I am leaning towards the former. I already spent the money on it and if the ceiling comes out chalky or I don't like it, then I'll just paint over it. All I lose is a few hours of my time.

Did I mention trying to paint a white, textured ceiling is a PITA?

 

[Tedd]

Are you using a split foam roller on the ceiling?


I'd add another coat or two, to the ceiling, as the projector will also highlight any light spots on the ceiling.


As for your dedicated (performance hard core) room comment, have you considered making some sort of window
plugs, or panels to negate the windows? Curtained, they might leak light, while they also over-absorb high frequencies.
And, they will raise the noise floor of the room, while also introducing audible issues while they act as low pass filters.


The mouse ears could be used to paint out the front AT wall framing and acoustical panel frames. It needn't go to waste,
if you buy another can of Roscoe.