I finally took some pictures of my HT. I was going to wait until it was fully finished but it’s probably going to be a while before I can get back into my shop. My son is overhauling his car in the garage and has taken over my shop for his dirt bike etc. I still need to build doors for the bar and put on some window coverings (just blankets for now) so there’s not much left to do.

The project was started back in March 2007 and took me until just before Christmas 2007 to get this far. Working mainly weekends and nights. All the work was done by me except for installing the carpet. I’ve never installed carpet before and left that to the pros. My wife helped with the dry wall which was a really big help. I really didn’t intend to finish the basement. The kids were using it for a skate park. My wife wanted an extra room for guests to stay, so she was the one to suggest finishing the basement. I said, “If you let me build a theater the way I want to, I’ll build you a guest room”. She said, “OK”. Maybe she didn’t know what she agreed to. But when you get the “go ahead”, never give up the chance!

The lighted bar, fireplace, lighted columns, and wainscoting are all made of MDF with some parts of the bar and fireplace made of poplar. Those parts of the room took the longest to make. The raised floor is 12 inches high. The room is about 27 ft. x 17 ft. I used ceiling tiles and the Ceiling Max grid system (to maximize headroom) on the ceiling. The ceilings are about 7ft. 6in. high.

The projection equipment is a Panasonic PT-AE1000U with a 106” Carada screen. I was a bit disappointed when Panasonic had already released the PT-AE2000U even before I had my 1000U mounted. But I like my 1000U and if the 2000U is better, what’s not to like about that. Something to upgrade to! (as if we had to worry about that).

The speakers are M80 mains, 2-VP150s (one above and one below the screen which I think is a must when having 2 rows of seating), 8-QS8s (double surrounds and double rears), and 2-EP500 subs (can you say earthquake!). I was looking at some Paradigms before deciding on the Axioms because I got my whole Axiom system for the price of the Paradigm mains I was looking at. I have Paradigm Reference 40s, center, Paradigm Servo 15 sub, and Boston Acoustics Pros in the ceiling for surrounds and backs in my upstairs TV room/living room. I have that system powered by a B&K AVR307. I liked the sound of that system and since people were commenting on how the Axioms and Paradigms sounded similar, I decided to go with the Axioms without even listening to them. I am very happy with my Axioms. They rock when powered by B&K (as with any other good pre/pro/amp combo I’m sure). Not “bright” at all when the pre/pro is set properly. As I’m writing this, my little boy is currently watching “Cars” and “Life Is A Highway” is currently playing. Sweet!

The new HT is powered by a B&K Ref 50v2, Ref 200.7, and Ref 200.5 (for extra center, surrounds, and backs). I was happy with my B&K upstairs so I decided to stick with it. A good price from a local dealer. And since I plan on upgrading to the Ref 70 (not even released yet) in a couple of years (HDMI, etc.), a good local dealer may give me a decent price. I hope.

This is the extra sleeping room.


The theater entrance:




View looking forward:





View looking back. Power recline theater seats by Palliser (another great Canadian product!):



Ceiling stars:



Matching lighted electric fireplace:


Lighted, glass top bar. Bar cabinet doors still needed:


Kids pool table. Wife wouldn’t let me paint it white.:


B&K equipment. I just had to buy something good from USA too!:


Wire (non)management? Access from the back a must:

Geez, I can't even see these pics. How do you get them bigger?

Resize them for message boards before uploading them onto imageshack.

Looks great, just need bigger pics!

Is that a Yamaha in there?

Sorry. New at this need more help than that.

OK. Another try.

This is the extra sleeping room:

[img]http://img218.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1005501hf0.jpg[/img]

That's better.

Very nice room. Must be hard to keep the neigbors away!

It's harder to keep my oldest boy's friends away. He had all the chairs filled the other day with 4 of them playing Halo 3.
Tomorrow the theater is mine for the Daytona 500. "Crank It Up"!

Looks nice, enjoy.

That is pretty stunning. I think I just got the OK from my wife to rearrange our 1st floor living areas to create a theater room. You wanna come visit Texas?

Beautiful work.

Rich

Personally i think the Halo line of components would have added a nice ambience to the colour lighting already in the room.
http://www.parasound.com/halo/

Great pics! I've got a few measurement questions for you if you don't mind.

How high is the bottom edge of your screen from the floor? Also, how far are your first & second rows of seating from the screen, and how tall is your riser for the 2nd row?

I'm in the process of my own build and some comparative advice is always good.

Thanks.

Jason

Samandnoah - Texas sounds really good to me! Still pretty cold up here for the next 2 months or more. Darn.

Chesseroo - That Halo stuff really looks cool. Those blue lights really would fit in pretty good too! I'll bet it sounds as good as it looks too. No local dealer here though. What gets displayed on that small screen when you watch movies?

Myrison - Good luck on your build! I ordered plenty of things from internet companies and it was like Christmas every day waiting for the stuff to arrive. Here's some of the measurements you requested:

There was a typo in my first post. The room measurement should have said 37 feet by 17 feet.

The bottom edge of the screen is 22.5 inches from the floor.

The riser is 12 inches high. I wouldn't go any less than that if your screen will be as low as mine or the front seats will/may obstruct your view. I haven't had any complaints from the back seats yet! Maybe because it's closer to the bar??? I actually prefer to sit in the back seats up high for a better surround sound experience.

The front edge of the riser is 10.5 feet from the screen. The first row of chairs are as close to the riser as they can get and still be able to recline.

The riser is 6.5 feet deep and 11 ft. 4 in. wide. This does not include the part of the riser that the bar sits on.

Have fun!

Wow - that bar is very cool indeed! What did you use for the bar top? Love the whole thing!

Thanks Amie.

The bar top has a 6 ft fluorescent light beneath a ¼ inch sheet of glass. The ¼ inch sheet of glass is covered by plastic light diffusers (normally used in suspended ceiling installations beneath lights). On top of the light diffusers are sliced/polished blue agates, blue “beach” (tumbled) glass, various shades of blue glass flat marbles (normally used in artificial flower vases, etc.), some clear glass flat marbles, and some clear jagged edge gem like things. The top of the bar is ½ inch tempered glass. That's all there is to it.

That room is pretty the tits. Well done.

How big is the screen and what kind of PJ did you go with?

Best idea of all was placing the bar behind the row of seating. I'm sure its a really great place to have a bunch of folks over to watch football, etc.

Thanks Capn.

I have the Panasonic PT-AE1000U with a 106" Carada screen. Yes, the bar area works well for the overflow crowd. A can of Bud Light sitting of he bar gets camouflaged so you have to be careful not to knock it over when trying to find it again.

Wow, extremely nice place Gene ... you did great. I too really like the bar area, we've been trying to figure out what to with the area behind our couch and your bar area is darn near identical to what we've been thinking about.

Beautiful work! I can't believe you were able to do it all in 8-9 months. I love the wood panels along the walls, but they bring me to ask the question: how does the room sound? It looks like there's a lot of solid surfaces for the sound to bounce around. I'm currently in the planning stage for a basement HT and I've been overwhelmed a bit by all of the "room acoustics" information. Did you give any thought about that when you built your theater? It sure looks great.

Thanks korkster. I guess I concentrated mostly on what I wanted the room to look like before considering room acoustics. The room in not square or even a rectangle (is that better?). And there's a notch where the fireplace sits (don't know if that helps or hurts room acoustics). The carpet is pretty thick and 2 rows of seats probably help to absorb some of the bouncing sounds. The room sounds pretty good to me. Maybe I got lucky or maybe I just don't know what to listen for when it comes to bad acoustics. Either way it sounds good to me.

That it sounds good to you is most important. your room looks like a great place to spend time in.

Nice place. I have a natural attraction to the color blue and anything sparkley. Sparkely and Blue!!! I'd be hypnotized!


Hmm, my spell checker seems to insist that I use the word Sparkling instead of Sparkly. OK, it may not be a real word but it sounds more fun to me.

I really need some sleep........

I had pictures once. The some A hole broke in to the house and stole my stuff. Still have my hometheater, but no movies. Nice place!

Great HT! I am new to the board & we are framing in our HT now that will be very similar to yours.
Would you mind giving some detail on how you made the lighted columns, bar & star ceiling tiles? I am particularly interested in the bar as we will have a nice L shaped bar. Your solution , I would think, should cost less than granite & is way cooler!

Thanks Archer. Welcome to the board. Real good people here. I gave some of the bar top details in a previous post. If you need more information than that just ask. As far as the lighted columns go, they are made of MDF (primed and painted). I have a 6ft fluorescent lights mounted inside the columns. The lighted panels are basically rail and stile glass cabinet door construction (router table and door making bits a must for this). MDF cuts really easy with the router. You must leave one side of the lighted panels removable to allow for changing of the light bulbs. On my removable panels, I countersunk some of those rare earth magnets (very strong) on both the panel and the column to hold the removable panel in place. Be careful to get the magnets lined up properly and the magnet’s poles the proper way before gluing them into the panels. To keep the magnetic poles straight, I put all the magnets together and then marked each magnet on one of the sides. For the glass, I just used stained glass. It’s pretty expensive. The glass I used cost me about $600. Some stained glass you can see through too easily so in this case you must use some light diffusers (like those used in suspended ceilings under the lights) so you can’t see the lights inside the columns. I went to a local stained glass dealer to choose the glass because it’s really the only way to see what you are getting. Pictures of stained glass on the internet don’t show you what you really get. Tip!!! If you are going to use some kind of stained glass, choose the glass first and then try to match the paint to it later. I ended up painting the entire room over again when I found the glass I liked.

For the lighted stars, I used a product from StargateCinema.com (I think). It’s an array of fiber optic strands powered by an LED “light engine”. The one I used cost $299. You can Google “Ceiling stars” to see some various products used for this. I used a smoother ceiling tile than I used in the rest of the ceiling and just painted it a midnight blue (almost black). You need to drill small holes in the ceiling panel and then glue the fiber optic strands in the panel. Tip!!! Mount the “light engine” first and then string the appropriate strands to EACH of the ceiling panel areas that you will be lighting BEFORE starting to glue up the strands. I started gluing up the first and second panel and when I got to about the third panel I had a tangled mess of fiber optic strands. If I had strung them properly to begin with, it would have been easier. Live and learn I guess. To turn the stars on and off, I used a remote control appliance module (Insteon from Smarthome.com) that I plug into the same outlet as my projector.

Let me know if you need any more information. The only plans I had to go from I sketched on paper and I don't have them any more. No one else would be able to decipher my chicken scratches anyway, so I can't send you any plans.

Measure twice, cut once! I can't even begin to tell you how many pieces I had to build twice because of mistakes!

Have fun on your build!