[mcho]

I wanted to share some pics of my home construction under progress. The AV portions include two home theaters in basement, 12 zone whole house audio(2 kustom 6640), home automation & security, pbx system, htdv, dss, tivo, terrabyte server, and a few plasma tvs. I blame everyone in this forum for giving me all these crazy ideas! Now I am way over budget and the house still has ways to go.


Seriously though, I think this forum is great. It is a great place to do research on all aspects of audio & video. I had most of the wiring contracted out but I am trying to do most of the system integration myself. I selected most of the equipment and got design ideas based on the information from this forum.

the home construction pics


I will try to update the pics regularly as the construction progresses.


mcho

 

[Brucer]

mcho-


Nice big house. I highly, highly recommend you spend a bunch of time reading over at the Plasma Forum, if you have not done so, yet.


Regards, Bruce

 

[robertmee]

Nice House...


I have one of the Kustom 6640's, plus whole house video, network, phone, security, home automation, et al.


I've almost finished terminating everything, but some of the HA...Now I've moved onto HT. It never ends


Have Fun!!

 

[Ted White]

Very nice house. Nice to see the photos as well. How much sound isolation do you hope to achieve?


Ted

 

[sbradley02]

Looks very promising! Your house is further along than ours, we'll be dried in this week, and should be sheetrocked by the end of the month. How large is the whole house, how large is the theater, and how many seats are you planning for it? Do you have an equipment list out there?


Seth

 

[mcho]

Thanks for the nice comments.


Brucer,


I've been trying to keep up with the plama forum. I am planning for the pany 42' for my bedroom to start out with. I am not sure what to get for the 50" for the family room. I think I am going to wait a few more months for the next generation. For now, I can just hang a nice picture.


Robetmee,


How do you like the Kustom so far? I was almost commited to the russound because their LCD keypads looked cooler but the paging feature of the kustom convinced to go with it. I am hoping to integrate it with the panasonic hybrid PBX system. One thing I noticed in my testing was that the keypads are not well shielded. When I change any of keypads, all the others react in the same way. This is with any keypad, not just the master. But in real-life, I guess the keypads will be far enough not to interfere with each other.


Ted,


I am using just the standard insulation for sound absorption. R-19 between basement, 1st, and 2nd floors. R-13 on all interior and exterior walls. Bathroom walls have "QuietZone" insulation. I am hoping that is enough.


Seth,


I hope that you are not as stressed out as I am with the construction. The low voltage wiring guy really made a mess. He initially ran all the RG6 and and cat5 over the high-voltage wires. Even in the same holes. Of course, I made him rerun it. For $75 a run, they had better run it right.


My dimensions are as follows:


Whole house - approx 6400 sq ft.

Basement open theater - 12x22x8.

Basement dedicated theater - 12x24x8.


I am planning just five comfortable seats in each theater. Just enough for our family. Unfortunately, there is not much space for more seats.


My equipment list:


Master Bedroom - Pany 42" plasma. Pany 34" Tau HDTV.


Open theater - Epson LT-150 with Dalite 120" hi-power screen, Denon AVR-3600 and five Niles Audio HD-CRT/LRS in-wall speakers.


Dedicated Theater- To be determined. I am not quite sure what I want to use here.


Great Room - 50" plasma (Not sure which model yet). B&W HTM for center, B&W 805 rear. B&W 804 front. Denon AVR-5800 receiver.


Whole house audio - two Kustom 6640 for twelve zones. Niles CM6MP 6 1/2" speakers.


Whole house video - I am working on setting up a terabyte linux server where I will store all my dvd & cd images. 8 x 160 IDE RAID 5 using 3ware hardware raid controller.



Myung

 

[mcho]

How do people handle the cables for the projector that is coming out of the ceiling? What do people do to dress it up? My ceiling will be drywall'd. Is there anything like a round mudring with flexible cover to put the cables though?


Myung

 

[xris2o0o]

Nice house.. Looks like its gonna be awesome.. If I were you, when its all done take some finished pictures and submit it to a Interiors Magazine.. Im sure they'd select it.. Im lookin forward to watchin the progress of this..


Chris


Oh yea were those floor plans and renderings done with Master Landscape.. Im not sure of the name of the home product but It has somehting exactly like that..

 

[mcho]

xris2o0o,


Thanks. I used Punch! Pro. Very nice program. I wish they had more 3d objects for home theater stuff though.


Myung

 

[xris2o0o]

Yea Punch thats it.. I couldnt think of the brand... They definately need more objects.. And I dont know about makin my own in their 3D thing..


Chris

 

[rschneider]

Beautiful House,


I'm jealous at how clean your job site is. When we built, we were knee deep in construction debris. From the looks of your insulation ,you should have a very tight house.


What kind of panel are you using for all of your low voltage wires and cables? It looks very clean (unlike the rat's nest I have) I would like to clean mine up as well.


Also how much of the work are you doing yourself? Are you doing any of the cableing/ install, or are you contracting this work out ?


Looks great,


Cheers


Richard

 

[mcho]

I just got back from my jobsite. The heavy rainstorm somehow got in the house and soaked the new hardwood floor and the insulation in about third of the house. I guess it is going to take a little longer than I thought to finish the house. The builder was pretty cool about it though, he is replacing the damaged hardwood floor and the insulation right away. I wonder if I should have him replace the subfloor as well?


Richard, the panel I am using is the OnQ 48" premium panel. The panel itself if pretty cheap but the cat5e and the coax termination subpanels can get pretty costly. I can tell you where to get them if you'd like.


As for the work, I started out running all the low-voltage stuff my self. But after about two days - I gave up and farmed out the work. Not very easy to run wires up the attic. Especially since they didn't even put floors down in the attic. Not worth breaking my neck. I think I did about 30% of the wiring myself. I am also installing all the speaker mounts and terminating all the wires at the panel.


Myung