[CubFan78]

My family built a new house in July 2009 but decided not to pay for the basement to be finished. Which basically started a long time dream of mine to build a theater.


Details:


Room Size: 18’4” deep by 13’10” wide


Paint - Walls: Behr Chocolate Brown

- Ceiling: Behr Mickey Mouse Ears.


Carpet - Shaw Morning Light Coffee Color


Screen - DIY currently thinking about 10’ wide (2:35 x 1)


Receiver - Onkyo TXSR706


Blu Ray Player – Panasonic 65k



Speakers:

Fronts - AV123 ELT525T

Center - AV123 ELT525T

Rear and Side Surrounds - TBD

Subwoofer - TBD


Projector: Panasonic AE4000 (arriving soon)


Room Layout

More coming soon....

 

[CubFan78]

The first thing we did was wall off the rooms we decided to create in the basement. We went with a theater, family room, small bathroom and 2 bedrooms.


Here is a pic of the theater wall.

We decided to go with a 2x6 wall with staggered studs on the recommendation from someone in the business of building houses. (forget his name)

Here is the screen wall from inside the theater. (complete with a bunch of kids toys)

 

[adammb]

A few recommendations for you since your so early in the build


First, the more info you put on here and the more questions the more help you will get. If you posts are open ended and just an info post people will usually not reply. Not all answers will be answered. The more you post the more people will watch your build.


Second, since you so early on are you taking into account for sound isolation. The stagger walls will help but have you done the research? If not you may want to check out soundproofingcompany.com. Even if you dont buy anything from them their info is amazing and easy to read and understand.


Third, I would recommend a second step on the other side of you front row. Where is your equipment going to be? If you give more specifics on the equipment alot of times people will give you some recommendations. Price you want to spend and if they are hidden and the room you have to mount them in.


Other than that good luck on your build. I may check in from time to time to see the progress. I'm sure you'll love your end product no matter what.

 

[CubFan78]

Thanks for your reply. I am actually to the carpeting/building my fake wall stage so I am catching up all the pictures when I get a chance.

 

[CubFan78]

As we started wiring the basement for electrical around Sept 09 I found this fun spot in the family room area (luckily not the theater)

It took 4 days of solid rain for it actually to leak and even still didnt even leave a puddle on the floor.


The builder came out and had it fixed about a week later. Ironically in around Jan 10 we had some rain happen one day while and I had a small puddle about 3 feet away from this original crack. So currently carpet in the family room is TBD but everything else in that room is done.

 

[CubFan78]

Here's a shot of the theater with electrical outlets in after we stapled the vapor barrier back in. The HVAC folks suggested 2 air supplies and 1 return in the room so I went with that.

Next came my least favorite part. Insulation..... Luckily my retired father came and did most of that while I was at work

We put R-11 on each side of the staggered wall. Im not too worried about sound proofing since the theater is on the opposite side of the house from all the bedrooms but I tried to do what I could. One suggestion I took on insulation was to put a layer of Styrofoam board up in the ceiling along with the R-25 insulation to help with sound traveling up into the dining room area.

I decided to run a 3" PVC in the ceiling for my projector since all I had a straight line to my component room. (Located just behind the screen wall in the storage room)


I also put R-11 and drywalled both the back wall of the theater and the opposite wall in the component room/storage area.

 

[CubFan78]

As of late October I had passed the framing inspection and was ready for drywall. 3 weeks and $3600 later it was ready. I opted to have professionals do all the drywall and tape, seam and texture. I did the drywall in my previous house on about 400 square feet and killed 3 months worth of weekends. This was just a bit faster

Here is the initial drywall.

And finished with texture.

I was happy with the results and ready to paint after running my dehumidifier downstairs for about a week solid of course.

 

[CubFan78]

For color scheme we decided to go Behr "Chocolate Brown" walls with Behr "Mickey Mouse Ears" ceiling for paint in flat latex. Carpeting will be brown as well with Black seats.


Here's a sample near the ceiling.

The flash messes the color up a bit but its much easier to see in the next photo.


The paint looked like a childs diaper accident while going on but dried nicely and looked just like the sample. Here is the back wall of the theater.

 

[CubFan78]

Enough of the boring stuff lets build a riser and stage.


After spending the next 2 months working on the rest of the basement. I finished my office downstairs and got all the doors and baseboard in I decided to get working on my theater. Luckily I have got some great advice from guamguam a fellow avsforum lurker like me. He is a good friend a coworker who lives about a mile away. He finished his theater about a year ago and my theater is pretty much a smaller version of his with a different color scheme.


Check his thread out too he did an awesome job.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1017444


He came over several nights after work and we got the riser and stage done. We build 2 pieces of riser and then joined them together in the middle. The riser is 6 foot deep and 13'10" wide. We used 2x12 for the frame and then nailed some green treated deck boards to the bottom of the frame.

I opted to do the insulating myself to give my dads lungs a break. I used a layer of R-25 and a layer of R-11 to fill the box.

I have planned for seating for 7 with 8 as a possibility so I opted to go with 1 stair to save room for 4 Berklines in the front (someday) For now my plan is to do 4 Berkline seats in the back with a black leather couch in the front (from my previous mini theater in the old house)


Here is the stair assembly with lights

And once I found light bulbs here are the stair lit up.

I still need to paint the registers and the louvers (sp?)

 

[CubFan78]

Well that gets me pretty much up today...


I will upload some pics of the stage here soon.


Currently I am working on picking out carpet since my dad finished the trim in the theater this week. Hope you guys enjoy. Now that Im caught up with the thread I will probably have alot of questions.

 

[mlkmgr]

everything is looking good so far! any idea on the audio side yet? are you planning on an acoustically transparent screen? if not, be weary of the door swinging in. I have a room layout very similar to yours and with the door swinging in, i had to worry about speaker placement with my stands. otherwise, keep it up!

 

[kjlewie]

The AT screen is a good suggestion. At least a couple of feet behind for speakers will leave about 16' for two rows of seating. A little tight but doable for a 10' wide scope screen. What are your initial thoughts on seating distances?


Looking good so far

 

[CubFan78]

I am going with an AT screen. I have set the frame of my fake wall to leave 2 foot behind it for speakers. I will measure the seating distances tonight I dont recall what they are currently.

 

[CubFan78]

Met the carpet installer this morning to measure everything up. Looks like I could have that installed here in the next 2 weeks.

 

[Mr. Goodcat]

You are moving at lightspeed on this build. Looks great.

 

[CubFan78]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Goodcat /forum/post/18314896


You are moving at lightspeed on this build. Looks great.

Started around 10/09... just put the thread together in the last couple days

 

[CubFan78]

Progress made in the last few days



- Passed my final electrical inspection on the whole basement

- Had carpet company come measure theater room for quote



I checked my seating distances now that my screen wall frame is set, looks like front row is a little over 9 feet viewing distance and back row is 15 feet.


A little close for the front row but I'll never be sitting up there.

 

[hanesian]



Quote:
Originally Posted by CubFan78 /forum/post/18305737


As we started wiring the basement for electrical around Sept 09 I found this fun spot in the family room area (luckily not the theater)

It took 4 days of solid rain for it actually to leak and even still didnt even leave a puddle on the floor.


The builder came out and had it fixed about a week later. Ironically in around Jan 10 we had some rain happen one day while and I had a small puddle about 3 feet away from this original crack. So currently carpet in the family room is TBD but everything else in that room is done.

Nice progress!


Can you elaborate on the water leakage issue? I don't want to unnecessarily raise alarm bells, but even a small leak can lead to much more serious problems. Are you saying that you had more leakage even after the repairs by the builder?


And that insulation on the wall that had leaks - the stuff behind the vapor barrier - did it have that dark coloring when new? Did you remove all that insulation to inspect/repair the walls, or just the areas where you saw water on the floor?

 

[BIGmouthinDC]

Is that PT lumber on the bottom plate where it is wet?

 

[CubFan78]



Quote:
Originally Posted by hanesian /forum/post/18326854


Nice progress!


Can you elaborate on the water leakage issue? I don't want to unnecessarily raise alarm bells, but even a small leak can lead to much more serious problems. Are you saying that you had more leakage even after the repairs by the builder?


And that insulation on the wall that had leaks - the stuff behind the vapor barrier - did it have that dark coloring when new? Did you remove all that insulation to inspect/repair the walls, or just the areas where you saw water on the floor?

The original crack was professionally repaired shortly after it was found. I have seen no leaking from it since it was repaired. The insulation is colored like that normally.


I did have another small leak about 3-5 feet to the west of the original leak but we have yet to determine what is causing it. We are going to take some of the siding off the back wall of the house to see what we can find. We are thinking that the latest leak may have come from water gathering around a window ledge and running in. At this point I cant see tearing the drywall out to try and find it until it gets worse. For now Im just kind of in a holding pattern in that room since we dont really need it finished right now.