Hello to all of my Axiom buds... sorry I've been absent for awhile. Withdrawal has finally set in and I'm back (at least until baby arrives in a couple of weeks).
One final project I'm trying to get done before then is to purchase chairs and build a riser in our theater room. For the few of you who have been here or read through my old posts while planning the theater, you'll remember that I have a sloped ceiling on one end of the room and as a result a fairly low screen height. I've settled on the chairs I'll be putting in. I found a great deal on the Berkline 45004 model if anyone is interested. Getting them for about 60% of what my dealer wanted to sell them for locally.
Picture:
To overcome the low screen height, I need to build a decent-sized riser in the back of my room that will look over the chairs in the front row.
I've used the
riser theater calculator to determine the height I need and am now moving on to try to construct the riser. (a scary thought, as I am about a 4 out of 10 on construction skills)
I've put together a model for the construction in Google Sketchup, which if you never have used it is a terribly useful tool for projects like this.
The first picture is a basic model of my theater room showing where the front/rear row of seats will be. (probably less useful than the second drawing, but included just in case)
The second model shows the actual blueprint for the riser. The simple design comes from a lot of reading over at AVS forum and a few other sites. The dimensions are 6' deep by ~93" wide x 20" tall with one step about half-way up. I realize this is a bit tall for a single step, but there's limited real estate to put in a second step and also the design gets more complicated than I can easily manage with multiple steps.
It is essentially two large boxes made of 2x10 boards stacked on top of one another and framed across with more 2x10 boards on joist hangars to provide the flooring surface. The riser will be stuffed with insulation to dampen the sound and then topped with two layers of 3/4" plywood (separated by 30lb roofing felt to minimize vibrations). I've also read that you can drill holes in the front and back of the riser to allow for better sound transmission (apparently to increase bass frequency response in the room?), though I haven't figured out if I'll do that yet as I don't totally understand the reasons for it. (I have very good bass response now and am not sure if messing with that is the right way to go, though I realize that adding a 100 square foot hollow box is likely to change the profile a little!). With all that said, the blueprint:
Once constructed, I'll be putting a pad and carpet over it to match the rest of my room.
With that incredibly long lead in, is there any advice the theater / construction gurus in the audience would offer? I'll probably start putting my required parts & tools list together tomorrow and plan on building Sunday. I figured before I start nailing boards together I'd better at least run this by someone to make sure I haven't overlooked something terribly obvious. I appreciate any advice from anyone who has gone through this before (or even if you haven't).
Thanks,
Jason
