Getting ready to paint my Home Theater. My wife is letting me paint the room any color I want. Is flat black the best? On my side walls I had black velvour curtains made to blockout the windows. I want the room to look nice, and afraid an all black room will look a little gloomy???

Thanks,
Brock

Do you have any pics?

I haven't done anything to the room yet. I will paint then put the curtains up. So a picture wouldn't help much.

Thanks,
Brock

In my personal opinion, It really depends on the texture of your wall. If you have the typical drywall, then I would stick to a semi-gloss, or maybe even a flat dark color. I would not recommend a high gloss finish due to reflections. Once again, this is my personal opinion and someone else may have more knowledge in this field; however, I believe any dark color (red, blue, green, etc.) semi-gloss finish would do fine. Or if your walls are coarse, like mine, a high gloss dark color would look great.

If your wife is pushing for a brighter color, stick to a flat finish.

Hope this helps.

Here's a room with the wall painted black to give you an idea of what to expect:



As you can see, it can turn out really nice. If you want more light though, you may be better off going with a medium grey on all the walls. Or, maybe just paint the front wall black (wall with the TV and speakers, etc.) and the rest medium grey.

We're going with Silver Trophy (Behr) for the upper walls (there's a 4' or so ledge around the outside walls, this goes above) and Veil (Behr) for below. Being a basement room with two small windows, outside light is very much contained and it's a balance between aesthetics and function.

Again, I like Behr paint... it's like painting with a milkshake... great coverage and evens out well, and they have a flat enamel sheen available as well, it's not quite as flat as a dead flat, but it's got the cleanability/holds up like eggshell or semi-gloss without the annoying reflections (my car should be candy-apple, my walls shouldn't be!)

Bren R.

If you don't want to go with a flat black - consider going with a red tone. When the lights are off, the red will show as black - but you can avoid the gloom of a black room. Something in a nice brick would be handsome, methinks.

We painted the ceiling flat black (with a sprayer... it looks better than a roller). We then painted the side and back walls two tone, red on top a burgundy color on bottom. The front wall is all burgundy. I dont know if its flat, if its not then its only one step up. I've included a photo of the front wall... where the screen goes. Sorry about picture quality, bad camera. That's my brother by the way. If the picture does not load automaticlly right click the link and select view image.

Link

Linky no worky.

I've been working on my new HT room in my basement now for close to a year. I know, a year what gives, well basically we remodeled about 3/4 of our basement or 1800 Sq Ft., part of that being the home theater.

Anyway I painted the back wall behind the screen Flat Black from Valspar. I tried a Dutch Boy paint from Menards first, called Leather Jacket, but didn't like the way the paint rolled. I basically took the paint chip to Lowes and they matched it to some good paint from Valspar. My screen, which I'm building right now is 54" x 110.7" which is a 2.05:1 aspect ratio screen, happy middle of the road between 16:9(1.78) and 2.35 material. Most DVDs are either 2.35 or 1.85. I will not mask a frame around the screen, since the back wall is black. The screen will appear to be floating in space

For the side walls and ceiling, I found a very Dark Blue from Valspar at Lowes also. It looks so cool, I'm getting so pumped to get this all done. I worked on finishing the DIY projector mount tonight.

All we really have left is to finish staining the trim and hanging a few doors, then onto Carpet. More than likely I'll be enjoying movies in my new theater before the trim and carpet is in, oh well just to anxious.

It is very important to use darker colors: maroons, blues, etc...

Light colored/white walls will really hurt the contrast and overall picture from a digital projector.

I will try to get some pictures posted asap....

good luck,
Randy


Axiom 60's 150 350 4-Qs8's (mansfield beech black)
Denon 2805
Sanyo Z2 Projector
DIY Dazian 2.05:1 126" Diag. Screen
Panasonic HDMI DVD Player
Samsung HD Tuner
Tripplite HTPowerbar10 surge/conditioner

Webpage that needs to be updated

One other thing to keep in mind, I used Flat paint for the Black wall behind the screen. Flat paint is best for no sheen or reflection. However, it will show marks if you have kids rubbing against it, and it does not clean up like Semi Gloss. The back wall will be not as much a big deal in my situation. I would recommend the side walls be done in at least a Satin, not Flat. The Ceiling can be flat, no problem..

By the way Welcome to Axiom...

>>Linky no worky.

Dang, you're right. It did work the first few times I tested it... even flushed cache and reloaded the page. Guess the site doesn't like dispensing naked images and we need a link to the parent page with all the yummy advertising ;(

Here is the picture and a link... sorry for the missing image. If someone could pm me with a good image hosting site (free) I would appreciate it.



http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/3443/p10100046dp.jpg

Try photobucket.com for your image hosting site. A lot of people use it, including me.

ARGH! Tape line by your left shoulder...

I'm a screw pop and tape line nazi... see the discussion on nailing drywall elsewhere in this forum.

Bren R.

lol, yeah I know. Actually, the builder would have to be blamed for that one. If I would have had it my way, he would have been in that room for as long as it took for the walls to be absolutly perfect. It's not noticable though, we have the screen on that wall. And, in time, the front wall will be covered by a curtain, minus the screen area.

Ahh, not blaming you or picking nits - but everyone's got their thing... some people it's pictures hanging straight... for me... it's tape lines, screw dimples and pops.

A horde of marauders could defecate in the middle of my kitchen and I'd walk around it for a week... but a drywall blemish... that'd drive me bats**t.

Bren R.

You could mix a little mud and clay into the stuff on your kitchen floor and you'd have an eco-friendly joint compound to fix those tape lines and screw holes....

don't use semi-gloss, it's too reflective.

flat paint is better but some can be extremely hard to keep clean and mark with a single touch. Keep flat paint in places that won't be touched, like the ceiling and behind the screen.

darker colors are great for picture quality, but you do not need black. remember, what's the first thing you are going to do when you watch a movie....dim the lights. Lots of darker colors look very close to black under dim lighting

take a look at this link here for what we did. Please note, I am not finished in the room. Still waiting for all my trims/mouldings, heck even the frame for the screen.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=576974

Great pictures of your system there!!! I am impressed!!!

Hey, I've seen that thread! Yes nice job!

I agree, semi-gloss may be too reflective as Newf stated. I used satin/flat on the ceiling, and eggshell on the walls.

From the paint lines I've seen, eggshell is a step between: Satin -> Eggshell -> Semi-gloss -> High-gloss. I'm happy with it and if your colors are dark it should be fine.

Our screen wall is the same as our walls and with the lights out I don't see the color at all. Just black. I have some light and dark room pics at my site. http://ravenmanor.com/cinema/

omfg your home is gorgeous. You guys seem to have the same test as I do. the shower, the kitchen....very very nice.

I actually had our existing home sold this summer as I was trying to buy something bigger. Just could never find anything so we are staying here another year. I'm not going crazy with the hometheater until I have something big enough to do so.

The eggshell with the glaze is very durable. You can't mark it at all. Rub it all you want, and it's not reflective.

VEry nice job man.

Thank you for those nice compliments newfmp3! We are very happy with how the basement finish turned out, but I think the room pics you posted look outstanding. The faux finishing on the walls is a terrific look, and I really liked the axioms in gloss black. Makes me wish I ordered mine with that finish.

When you move into your new home and theater I'm sure it will be fanstastic!

I tried to go back and edit this :

You guys seem to have the same test as I do.

to

You guys seem to have the same taste as I do.

But I guess you figured that out. Darn laptop and it's small buttons

thanks for the comments.

For the longest time I couldn't figure out what you meant by "same test as I do". I figured it was canadian or something...

>>I figured it was canadian or something...

I figured it was an East Coast thing

THanks for the clarification; I didn't quite figure it out but I figured you ment something different than you typed. I didn't want to bother you to ask. Again thanks, and I think you're right in our similar tastes. I'd like to see more of your pics.

dllewel: I saw your pics on the Wall of Fame about a week ago. Nice work on the HT man!

newf: Damn I like the colors you used.

Great work guys!

MiniRock,

Thank you. I have seen your site, very cool. Star Wars makes a great theme for a HT room. Makes me want to put an episode on, but which one?

Which one? Well, in 45 days the best episode of the saga will be released on DVD.

Yeah, at one time I considered my HT Star Wars themed, but now that my collection has more than doubled the amount I spent on my HT, I think it's more of an HT themed SW room.

Again, great work on the HT. Makes me think I need to take a break from props and such and focus on the HT part again.