I'm just going to ramble for a little bit.

My dad has decided to make taking out the walls the next step. We're putting in a new beam, replacing the wood beam which protrudes lower into the room than the rest of the ceiling, and which requires several support posts. The new beam will be a metal I-beam which won't hang lower (or so much lower so as to interfere with the suspended ceiling, anyway) than the floor joists, and it will span a much greater distance without needing a support post, pretty much making the theater area wide open for seating options. The support post that will remain will be out into the room slightly, but I'm glad we get to remove the other two posts which would be more annoying.

He decided to remove all of the walls to tile the floor across the entire basement the same so if he wants to remove or change the position of the walls in the future, there won't be disparities in the floor to deal with. As for the wall I want to go back up, it will allow for slightly more room in the theater/living area and cut into the bedroom a little more, since I really only use my bedroom for sleeping and would rather have more wiggle room for speaker placement options. The final dimensions of the room will be roughly 28'x18'x6.5'. I'm still not a fan of how low the ceiling will be. It won't scrape my own head or that of any of my friends, but I imagine it won't be so great for acoustics. I'll do what I can with some of the ceiling tiles. I'm still pretty dumb about room treatments. It's something I'll be asking for advice on, I'm sure.

Anyway, that's the latest news on that. I'm open to any brainstorms any of you may have.