[xCHRISx]

Hello folks,


I've lurked around here quite a bit in the past, but being a renter all my life could only look at everyone elses setups.


Well, my wife and I purchased a home this spring and are starting to get settled into it. The last month has been spent renovating the kitchen (everything but the floors and cupboards has been changed out), but now that it's finally done I get to move on to more fun projects!


To put it out there right off the bat, my setup is going to be quite humble, especially compared to some of the spectacular rooms some of you guys have. This is our first home and we are a young couple so money is definitely the limiting factor here. I already have a projector, 100" electric screen, receiver and 5.1 speaker setup purchased. These are all fairly budget conscious purchases that I hope to upgrade over the years as I can but should provide me with a nice setup to get started.


For equipment I have:


Accuscreens 100" 16:9 electric screen

Optoma HD200x 1080p DLP projector

Pioneer HSX-819 HDMI 5.1 receiver

Energy Take Classic 5.1 surround package


The speakers will be the first thing to be upgraded down the road but these little guys have a decent bang for their buck for now.


This will be a basement theater in a detached home. The basement houses a laundry room, utility room, bathroom, den (to become the theater), bedroom and an unfinished room that will eventually become a small recording studio.


The theater will be a semi-dedicated theater in the end, I believe. For now that will be the rooms only purpose, but with kids coming in the next couple years I can see it needing to double as a playroom during the day, unfortunately.


I do not have any floorplans drawn up yet, but I did take some photos to show you the general look of the room and get some ideas on how to proceed, as the room definitely has some oddities and challenges to work around! The rough dimensions of the room are 10.5' by 20'.


Ok, first off here is the view coming down the stairs. To the left is the laundry room and utility room. To the right is the entrance to the den, which doesn't currently have a door.

These next two shots are taken from the entrance of the den towards the back of the room where the bedroom and bath/unfinished rooms are. As you can see, challenge #1 is the woodstove. This cannot be moved, unfortunately. We are not a fan of the white brick at all, but it would be a very big job to re-brick for appearance only. We're considering simply painting over them, but are not sure yet. The biggest challenge will be seating, as this limits how far back we can place our seating and pretty much eliminates the possibility of a riser.

Next up is the view directly across from the entrance of the room when you come down the stairs. You can see the walkout door and the large picture window. I'll be coming up with some way to darken these, obviously. To the left you can see where the screen is. You also get a sneak peek at my next challenge.

Here is the view from the middle-back of the room. You can now clearly see the gaping hole in the wall. The previous owners had a 60" CRT television that filled up that hole. The shelf that is on the floor inside the hole was above the television for their A/V equipment. On the right is a door to get to the media closet.


The closet door is what made me get an electric screen instead of a fixed screen. To get the screen size I wanted, I would not have been able to center it in the wall, due to the door being there. My plan now is to build a built-in entertainment center that can be used in the future for when the kids want to watch television, or if the wife doesn't want to be bothered with the big screen. I'm thinking I can use the bottom of the entertainment center to hold my A/V equipment and center channel speaker, as long as there is enough clearance when the screen is down. I believe there should be.

Here is a quick view inside the media closet. It's about 3.5' deep and 10' wide, so it's a pretty good size. I will probably hide my video game accessories in here and build some shelves or a drawer setup for my DVDs and BDs.

This is a view of the back-right corner of the den. The door on the left is to the basement bedroom (unoccupied for now) and the right is the entryway to the bathroom and unfinished room with the HVAC system in it.

Here is challenge #3. You can see where one of the pipes running from the upstairs bathroom goes. The way it is right now is an eyesore, especially since it only runs a portion of the way along the wall. You can also see the black speaker-outlet that the original owners had installed for the rear surrounds; they end up in the media closet.

So my biggest problems are the gaping hole, the woodstove and that drainage pipe. I also have an issue with running cables. I need to get my HDMI and 12v trigger from the front of the room to the projector. The ceiling is already finished and I can't use the existing speaker wires as a guide (tried). The floor joists run perpendicular to the length of the room.


What I'm thinking of doing to solve my cabling issue and get rid of that drainage pipe eyesore is to build a soffit that runs around the entire room. I could put a conduit for cables/wires in one side and have it cover over the existing pipe that's there to kill two birds with one stone. Would it be practical to have a cutout in it at the front to hide the screen when it is raised, or would that cause issues?


Also, any thoughts on what to do with 'the hole' or any other general questions, concerns or ideas would be greatly appreciated!


Thanks fellas, looking forward to hearing some opinions,


-Chris

 

[BIGmouthinDC]

Can you provide a little more insight into the wood stove. Are you required or economically motivated to keep it? Or is that the only source of heat?


The brick wall looks fairly straight forward. It looks to be constructed as an after thought standing in front of the drywall as a fireproofing surround and as a heat reservoir. You could knock it down and replace with a cut stone Decorative wall in a weekend (or two) if the cut stone is up to your local code.

 

[xCHRISx]



Quote:
Originally Posted by BIGmouthinDC /forum/post/16957975


Can you provide a little more insight into the wood stove. Are you required or economically motivated to keep it? Or is that the only source of heat?


The brick wall looks fairly straight forward. It looks to be constructed as an after thought standing in front of the drywall as a fireproofing surround and as a heat reservoir. You could knock it down and replace with a cut stone Decorative wall in a weekend (or two) if the cut stone is up to your local code.

Sure thing. Econonomically motivated, for sure. I'm up in eastern Canada and it gets pretty chilly up here in the winter months. We also have one of the worst electricity rates in the country here and our house is all electric baseboard heating. Burning $500 worth of firewood over a winter as supplemental heat will save probably double or triple that in electricity costs. That said, we are looking into geothermal heating and if we go that route the stove would be gone; I have a feeling it will be too cost prohibitive to retrofit our house though.


The brick is freestanding, with some insulation stuffed between it and the wall. It is to provide fireproofing as you suggested to get the stove insurable and up to code. We are tempted to do something with it as we just don't like the look of the white brick.


If we end up doing the soffit around the entire room, do you feel it would look ok to have the stone cover the wall right up to the soffit, or should we leave a small gap between them? Assuming this would meet code (which I will have to look into before we remove the old wall).


Thanks for the replies, it's nice to have a pro like yourself weigh in on my room..

Now if I can only convince the wife to let me paint the ceiling black!