Yes, very nice. Dean, I'm interested in what you think of the curtains after you have them sorted and have spent some time with them.
I was just rereading and noticed you asked this.
I am very happy with the curtains. After my experience in the apartment I was going to make them happen though the first quote I got of $6,000 did make me reconsider for a minute. Even at the finial price of almost $2,500 I would have been hesitant to get them had I not already seen the benefits of the temp curtains I put up in my apartment. This room isn't deep space black like in my apartment was because the size and brightness of the screen projector combo is like having a lighthouse in the room. However, one advantage of this is not running into the walls as much, only done it a couple of times when I misjudged where the opening to the hallway was. Another side effect is the gray bars with other than 16:9 material is less distracting to the point that I haven't even considered masking since I set everything up. I think this is also in part because virtually no light is being reflected back at the screen.
I've found the following from having the curtains.
PROS:
They do a great job removing any distractions from my field of view making it easier to suspend disbelief.
They nearly eliminate light reflecting back to the screen improving contrast and perceived brightness which is why I can use such a large screen with a mid-low lumen projector at 19'.
In combination with the blinds they eliminate all light from entering the room in my field of view any time of day.
The curtain wall effect simulates an enclosed room perfectly so there was no need to build any false walls yet I have easy access to other rooms.
My IR remote still blasts through the curtains so I didn't have to upgrade to a RF remote.
By leaving the back of the room un-curtained it improves the ambiance of the surround effects and saved me money.
The double rod mounting brackets gave me a neat clean and very simple way of running all my wires through PVC pipe behind the main curtain rods. Only place it’s visible is in the back of the room and then up next to the black ceiling I think it looks fine. Actually you don’t even notice it.
CONS:
Having to lift the curtains to vacuum up to the walls.
The potential fire safety issue. The material is NFPA small scale rated but till it would cause a fire to spread a lot faster.
Worrying about dirt. So far I always open and close them by reaching behind the curtain to grab the material to try to keep them from needing cleaned for as long as possible.
UP IN THE AIR:
Near as I can tell the curtains haven’t deadened the room much, certainly not as much as the chaise lounges. But only when I can fully open them will I be able to do any real comparisons. Anyway something I read a while back actually suggested that curtaining a room can improve the directional cues in multi-channel tracks because they cut down on some reflections. The corollary to that would seem to be that it can also cut down on the ambient sounds. In my apartment that appeared to be the case so I left the back of the room open even though I had curtains there. However, I never could do an honest A/B comparison. From what I can tell the higher and vaulted ceiling in this room more than makes up for any loss the curtains might be causing.
WHAT I WOULD DO DIFFERENT:
I need to come up with a better solution for hanging the curtains and rods. The stock rods I bought at Lowe’s dictated were the mounting brackets needed to be to support the connecting points. I need a double rod (one connecting point) solution so the curtains can be opened all the way to the corners of the room. Right now some areas of the walls can’t be exposed because there are multiple mounting brackets blocking the way. I just couldn’t find anything long enough not even smaller PVC pipe that could make the length of the room just doubled up.
I now feel I made a mistake painting the walls Burgundy. In my apartment I was always having problems with the curtains separating and the white walls showing through. Despite the excellent idea of using Velcro, I thing from Zimm, I chose not to screw around. However, now I just can’t get the room as light as I would like it when not watching something. Plus these are real well made curtains so they hang beautifully and don’t separate at the seams. So at some point I’ll likely be repainting the walls light colour again, probably combined with solving the curtain rod issue.
