[R B]

Screen Size Comparison 135" 16:9

So I am trying to map this out. Right now I am leaning towards a 135" 16:9 screen. The way I framed out the clips and hat channel I will have a soffit that is approximately 2' in width around the perimeter of the room. I am going to build a minimalist false wall with speakers behind the screen, which I did not originally plan on. This will cause me to have a 2' soffit behind the screen that I will mount the AV screen in front of. Based on how I wired before putting the Ceiling OSB on, I will have lighting behind the screen to illuminate the speakers which will be cool.

Now that I used OSB on my first layer I do believe from what I have read that it is not important to screw my ceiling support of the soffit into the hat channel. So I am playing around with a 135" or 150" 16:9 screen size for the purpose of having as large of a 2:35 display as possible. My family watched Spider-Man into the Spider-verse last night on our 85" LED TV upstairs and it looked great minus the black bars on top and bottom. I would like the largest screen possible because I do not care to invest in an anamorphic lens setup and I want to keep riser height as low as possible. I plan to put LCR speakers and subwoofers behind the screens but I am an amateur in understanding speakers, amps, etc. Still more reading to do there.

I used the calculators at http://www.displaywars.com/ & http://www.diymovierooms.com/Content/RiserHeight to help visualize screen size and riser height for reference.

135" Screen

135" 16:9 vs. 138" 2:35:1

Riser Height

 

[R B]

Screen Size Comparison 150" 16:9

In this layout, I get a larger screen but I have a larger height for the rear riser and a taller standing room only drink countertop behind the back row. I can make my 2:35 movies larger and I just shrink my soffit size. In this room, I have two 6" Flex tubes blowing air into the room that I put joist mufflers on. I plan to snake a small section of 6" flex tubes in the soffit so I can get away with shrinking the soffit width a little. I also have an 8" flex return that I did not build a muffler for because it comes into the room a couple of feet away from the main HVAC line of the house. I plan to snake this 8" line into the soffit to keep it near the AV closet as I plan to install a fan in the future to blow hot air towards the return. I am worried that going to the smaller soffit size will not allow me to wrap the 8" tube back towards the AV closet as I am lower on space.

150" Screen

150" 16:9 vs. 138" 2:35:1

Riser Height

 

[R B]

Screen Size Comparison 15" 16:9

In this layout, I get a larger screen but I have a larger height for the rear riser and a taller standing room only drink countertop behind the back row. I can make my 2:35 movies larger and I just shrink my soffit size. In this room, I have two 6" Flex tubes blowing air into the room that I put joist mufflers on. I plan to snake a small section of 6" flex tubes in the soffit so I can get away with shrinking the soffit width a little. I also have an 8" flex return that I did not build a muffler for because it comes into the room a couple of feet away from the main HVAC line of the house. I plan to snake this 8" line into the soffit to keep it near the AV closet as I plan to install a fan in the future to blow hot air towards the return. I am worried that going to the smaller soffit size will not allow me to wrap the 8" tube back towards the AV closet as I am lower on space.

150" Screen

150" 16:9 vs. 138" 2:35:1

Riser Height

 

[R B]

Well, I haven't accomplished much today as I have been running errands and posting on this forum. Maybe I'll get motivated tonight. Marvel at my amazing artwork with real expensive editing software (Google Images and PowerPoint). Here are two side views going with the 135" 16:9 screen. I think I will make the riser larger than the estimated 6" as I have a room with the standing room bar to still view the screen and it will cut it close for the rear row to see over the front row. Especially if the front row is not reclined. The dimensions I am using are for Seatcraft Theater Seating. They are all somewhat close in dimensions plus/minus an inch or two. I also assumed someone like my wife standing in the back around 5 1/2' tall. If your shorter than that I apologize, and I will provide a step stool.

IN CASE NO ONE HAS REALIZED YET, THE DOT'S ARE AT 1' INTERVALS.

6" Riser Upright Seats

6" Riser Seats Reclined

1' Riser with Rear Reclined and Front Upright

1' Riser with both Seats Upright

 

[R B]

Made some good progress today before I am on travel for a few days. Will start planning for drywall for the theater and the remainder of the basement when I get back. I just need to move all the furniture around in the basement.

HVAC return. Stuffed a lot of Roxul and insulation around the return and in between the joists. Plan to snake this in the soffit after drywall.

Views of Screen Wall

View of the back wall. I ran cables for future butt kickers and 12/2 for lights and outlets in the riser. They are looped on the wall

View of Bedroom outside of Theater entrance.

Looking towards bedroom/bathroom and stairs to upstairs. I went ahead and put Roxul in the walls around the stairwell and game room to the left. I CAN BE IN THE THEATER ROOM NOW AND CANNOT HERE THE UPSTAIRS TV OR ANYONE TALKING WITH NO DOORS INSTALLED, WHICH IS A GOOD SIGN

Entrance

 

[R B]

I haven't posted in a while. I have traveled a little every week for the past 6 weeks and am traveling again tomorrow. I had a mad sprint to hang a lot of drywall a couple of weeks ago to get the basement functional for my kid's BDay party. I started hanging in the rest of the basement because the majority of drywall was staged in the theater. Maybe I will get motivated today to hang.


I used 5/8 everywhere, and stretch boards on the walls. The lift is very helpful but picking these up by myself to put onto the lift was a workout.

New temporary kids TV area in future game room.

 

[bpape]

Looking good and good for you taking the time to lay things out and not get in a hurry. Being willing to make changes on the fly gives you a much better finished product.

 

[R B]

Looking good and good for you taking the time to lay things out and not get in a hurry. Being willing to make changes on the fly gives you a much better finished product.

Thanks for the feedback. I definitely changed my mind multiple times on different subjects in the basement after reading through the forums. If I had to do it over again I would have designed the theater into the foundation. Do you have any good feedback from what you have seen so far that I may not have thought of?

 

[SteveCallas]

Don't know how I missed this one, looking great so far. I'm a big fan of OSB initial layer so then you can screw in drywall wherever you want, I should have done that. As I was catching up, I noticed a lot of unanswered questions. I'll offer my input for whatever it might be worth.

Fireplace - I actually have seen a handful of theaters or TV rooms with fireplaces, but they are usually casual theaters more focused on aesthetics. In a true dedicated theater, I would probably avoid it, it would be distracting.

I tried image linking several pictures from a google image search and it didn't like that, so just google image search "home theater fireplace" and you will see a few examples scattered throughout the results.



In regards to the screen, I would go with the 1 foot riser and 2.35:1 screen. Without anything less than the 1 foot riser, the back row view will be partially block, and with a 16:9 screen, the bottom will hang down pretty low, again partially obstructing the back row view. More importantly, how many movies are even in 16:9? I've had my theater for almost two years now and I can still count on less than 2 hands the number of 16:9 movies I have watched. I don't avoid them, I just watch whatever movie I feel like watching, but almost all are 2.35:1 or 2.39:1. A few have had some really weird ratios like Unsane and Jurassic World.

To soundproof the cables coming into the equipment rack, maybe run a large diameter pvc pipe or aluminum duct 6-8" tall up over the cables by the ceiling, mount it in place, drywall around it, then spray expandable foam into the voids around the cables?

 

[R B]

Don't know how I missed this one, looking great so far. I'm a big fan of OSB initial layer so then you can screw in drywall wherever you want, I should have done that. As I was catching up, I noticed a lot of unanswered questions. I'll offer my input for whatever it might be worth.

Fireplace - I actually have seen a handful of theaters or TV rooms with fireplaces, but they are usually casual theaters more focused on aesthetics. In a true dedicated theater, I would probably avoid it, it would be distracting.

I tried image linking several pictures from a google image search and it didn't like that, so just google image search "home theater fireplace" and you will see a few examples scattered throughout the results.



In regards to the screen, I would go with the 1 foot riser and 2.35:1 screen. Without anything less than the 1 foot riser, the back row view will be partially block, and with a 16:9 screen, the bottom will hang down pretty low, again partially obstructing the back row view. More importantly, how many movies are even in 16:9? I've had my theater for almost two years now and I can still count on less than 2 hands the number of 16:9 movies I have watched. I don't avoid them, I just watch whatever movie I feel like watching, but almost all are 2.35:1 or 2.39:1. A few have had some really weird ratios like Unsane and Jurassic World.

To soundproof the cables coming into the equipment rack, maybe run a large diameter pvc pipe or aluminum duct 6-8" tall up over the cables by the ceiling, mount it in place, drywall around it, then spray expandable foam into the voids around the cables?

Thanks for the feedback. I did some searches before and did not really see anything that I wanted to do with a fireplace. Thought about moving it over a few feet away from the stage but it would have just been in a weird spot near the front row of seating. It will be a nice upgrade for someone in the future.

You have now shifted me back to wanting a 2.35:1 screen. I am tempted to just put up a much larger 16:9 screen and build some temporary black spandex panels to hang when shifting from cable to movies. To get the larger 2.35:1 screen I need to shrink my soffit size from 2' wide to about 1' or so, and I believe I can shrink the height some more also to allow the screen to extend under the soffit. I will revisit this once I get the drywall up because I would have to move 3 12/2 wires over about 6" inside the OSB.

I was originally planning on building a floating AV rack (made out of oak plywood) to help with sound isolation but the more I think about it, I built the AV rack to have a double framed wall and I assume that would be good enough for sound isolation? I like your idea of a large diameter pipe because I can extend the flex conduit I ran into this pipe to allow the future running of cables. Drywalling the AV closet would be much easier also. Thanks for your feedback.

 

[R B]

Just a little update. I was able to cram in some work the past few days with all the weather and kids sports getting canceled. I hung some more drywall in other parts of the basement but focused on the theater the past couple of days. I have more travel coming up so hopefully, I can get everything done to get a finisher to come in and mud the basement.

Used Green glue in the 5 gallon jugs in between the 5/8 12' Stretch Boards and the OSB. The gun I purchased worked fine but was a workout to pull the actuator and get the glue into the tube.

Finished pics of the theater room. Only drywall left to hang is on the outside and the AV closet. Will not be doing glue or clips on these walls so I will get it done much faster.

 

[R B]

Its' Been a While

Hope all is well. I have not posted and worked on the basement much for a while. Life and work got in the way and traveled a lot last year where I was not home very much. Anyways we started working on the basement again by finishing some house upgrades upstairs before the drywall was completely finished.

Installed Bathtub in Master Bath for the wife. Took down Ceiling panel to move drain to the center instead of the right of the tub.

Just installed Mudroom Sink and will be installing the faucet and drain tomorrow. Ripped down the drywall panel again to finish plumbing. The plan was to wait and install this for a couple of years but decided just to invest now and install before we finished the basement.

 

[R B]

Just another quick update. I added the Marque a while ago to see if I liked it above the entrance to the theater and had the plan to leave dead space above it for lighting to illuminate the ceiling. It did not make much sense and it was difficult to do any drywall work so I continued it up to the ceiling.

Also finishing hanging the remaining drywall in the basement and plan to start getting it mudded soon.

 

[stormwind13]

Awesome build so far, glad I am seeing this thread now vs the last update. Following for future progress.

 

[brazensol]

Don't know how I missed this from the beginning but looks like you are doing a fine job with the build! Hopefully more people will chime in when you have questions.

 

[R B]

Its been a while since posting as life has gotten in the way. I've been busy with other projects and am starting to work on finishing the entire basement and theater again. My boys have wanted a treehouse for years so I spent time cleaning up debris in the woods and putting in the treehouse the past few months. I will have to go and take a final photo of the treehouse. I was rushing to finish this for my kid's birthday party this summer so we could have a movie night for his party. Here are some pics of the house in its building phase.

 

[R B]

Now some updates on the theater room.

The area is finished being mudded and I built the tray ceiling. Inserted some more conduit to run future cables if needed from the media closet to the projector screen area.

Also, here is an outside view of the theater with finished mudding.

 

[R B]

Been starting to paint and run wires for ceiling lights. Also started building stage area. The Paint we chose is called Chimney Smoke from Valspar although we used the Sherwin Williams Paint for the one coat guarantee (Actually only took one coat. The paint has a blue or dark grey hue depending on the lighting.

I glued down 3/4" rubber mats from Tractor supply then the 1/2" OSB to the mat.

Riser as of last night. Still need to build the small front step.

 

[R B]

Saw some really cool carpet (Starry Flicker) in a showroom. We are debating on whether to use the flannel or metal color. Right now we plan on using it in the theater room to contrast the dark walls. I know that many recommend staying darker but we decided to do this to help light the room. The carpet has some silver flakes in it the glimmer when light hits them. Looks like stars as the name suggests. Starry night is another version of this carpet and has a nice dark blue or black version that flickers in the light.

 

[R B]

Just to give some updates from this past weekend.

Saturday I spent a lot of time cleaning up the basement wiring all of the lighting in the theater room. Put some of the acoustic puddy in some holes with the remaining material and have more on order. Installed 18 old work wall lights in total and also painted the ceiling flush mount LED's and old work trim matte black.