This home theater is but one project in a whole house renovation. This further complicates the process. I am using the sub contracters for the home theater construction as well as the rest of the house renovation.
Organization is the name of the gain because each sub is there for his interval of time and thenm the next one comes in. Organize and plan the project up front. Defineitely have a professional set of plans ready and reviewed by all subs as well as the contractor prior to the job start! That will give the workers time for questions, location of materials, etc.
Even though I had a seperate set of HT plans. Some details of the plans needed further explantion. The rough carpenters are talented and extremely detail oriented. If the plans are not true architectual plans, there will be a host of questions. This may only apply to the company we used. Everything had to be spelled out EXACTLY!
Dennis was very helpful with many e-mail responses and phone calls along the way. For example, the plans for soffit construction (which seamed very straightforward to me) were not detailed enough for them. However, after I sat down with them, they figured things out.
Everything has managed to turn out as planned but there was a significant amount of oversight that is required. My contractor felt uncomfortable supervising this part of the project, so I did so myself. This is a must!
For example, they questioned the hassle and cost of screwing and glueing everything. Sand in the proscenium........... you can imagine.
In addition, there was trouble finding the exact manufacturer of lighting, as well as insulation. Here again, "can we use this instead". If I did this over again, I would have sought out the material supply houses first rather than hold things up while they looked around for them.
The fact is there are a multitude of short cuts and though the guys on my job are some of the best in the area, improvising and using materials familiar with them makes them happy. We pretty much stuck to the plans, however.
Regarding craftsmenship, they were very good about making sure everything was square, going so far as to use a laser beam for centering the screen. Everything was on right down to within 0" to 1/8" error.
Dennis was very helpful with many e-mail responses and phone calls. Everything has managed to turn out as planned but there is oversight that is required.
There were a multitude of questions throughout and you gotta be there to answer them.
The electicians were great and had no problems understanding anything. They were very familiar with the grafik Eye and found some cheap rope and step lighting for me. As a matter of fact, they made some nice suggestions (like putting a seperate, dedicated electrical panel in the projection room for convenience and easier expnasion on the future (as needed). They ran conduit to all required destinations and tied it tight to the joists.
The plumbers caused one major problem (there is a portion of the master bath above the theater). They piped around the soffits which in turn required the soffits to be larger than planned (because the pipes had to also be drywalled over). I missed that and the plumbers need to be called back to put the water pipes elsewhere. That cost me $$.
I do not have the time, inclination or abilities to carry out such a task. However, you can't just dump off the plans and then say follow 'em and call me when you are done. My advice is to be pro-active and ever watchful!
Jeff
