The new Home Theatre Room (Reno Complete)

Our new home theatre room is finally complete, as is the entire basement reno (new office, games room and wine cellar).

I have put a set of photos up online which can be viewed here.

This link may change in the next week as i need to fix the broken 'home' button but my ftp access is down at the moment.
These shots were taken with the little Canon point and shoot digicam so the quality is less than stellar. The low lighting does not help any. I shouldl have some higher resolution shots available once i get the Nikon shots developed.

The reno took about 4-5 months.
Specifics features in the HT room include:

Near Golden Ratio room dimensions.
Double insulated walls (sound controlled, not soundproofed).
Flat dark grey paints for walls and ceiling with heavy charcoal grey carpeting.
Media doors have hook clasps to pull them tight and weather stripping all around, plus bottom sweeps.
Lighting dimmers.
In-wall wiring for surrounds (14ga, double stranded). A full 7.1 setup in 2 directions is possible.
Access tubes down the centre and across the 'front' (in the pics this is actually the far wall). The tubes can be used for running new lines in the future hookup of a FP, all accesible through a utility room on the backside of the angled wall.
Ceiling access panel for tube and electrical for future FP.
Two configurable positions for viewing and lounge placement. Three if you can squeeze a smaller tv into the angled wall side.

The last things left to do includes:

New storage furniture for dvds and cds.
Heavy curtain for French doors.
Heavy tapestry for front wall (unless the furniture takes up the space).

Future features (likely within 2 years) includes:

Front projection setup, mechanized screen.
Better universal remote.

Very nice setup Chess...your room looks very nice. Congrats!

Looks very good, Chess! I really like the stonework and the wood door to the wine cellar. I'm jealous.

Nice room, looks like you planned things well. It should look great with the FP and new furniture, although the chairs in there now look mighty comfortable.

Lookin' good, chess!

Anxious to see the final shots of the HT room, as well as the final bottle in the Wine Cellar!!

What a place to relax!!

Rich.

The final bottle in the cellar will take some time. The capacity is over 700. I haven't yet taken an exact count.
When the cellar was completed, i had 52 bottles to store. Now i'm down to about 43. The one thing about the cellar is that as good as it is to hold the wine, it also needs to be re-stocked now and again.

The HT room has excellent sound. I'm still tweaking the speaker toe in, but the distances are working pretty well.
The surround locations are utterly fantastic!!

Nice Chess.

What flooring did you go with? Looks realistic.

Where’d you get the wine racks?

Very nice! I plan to do my basement HT later this year. Its always good to see what other people are doing.

The flooring in the games room is Tarkett laminate. Alot of people have commented on how real it looks and feels.
The cellar flooring is a ceramic tile. The colour looks amazingly like granite stone.
The racking was built by a place called Genuine Cellars here in town.
They are expensive, but do good work.

In reply to:
I plan to do my basement HT later this year. Its always good to see what other people are doing.

Yes it is a good thing to see. I looked around many sites before deciding on the features we absolutely wanted in this room and how to go about it. Other people's postings of pictures and thoughts were extremely helpful.

There were more ideas on the block, but space was still a limitation. Perhaps somewhere in the future at another home we will build the basement with our exact dimensions to suit all the ideas at once.
We had no desire for one of those 'theme' type rooms so i think the decor and paint choices were alot easier to make.

You bucking fastard. That's awesome.

The link has been updated.
The page is now found here.

Sorry Peter.
I would have called you over for some help, but i heard you were moving out east to a new house in the Hamptons.
How do these rumours get started?

Gawgeous, chess!

A VERY nice job, Chess. I wish you many years of pleasure from your new basement.

Yes, i hope so too. Years of pleasure would be great.
Right now i search for even an hour of pleasure down there. Perhaps once i get the office moved downstairs i will see it a bit more often.
At the present time it feels like some fortress of solitude. No dogs, no cat, no kids go down into the basement. Our daughter is usually in bed by the time we head down there to relax. With a door at the top of the stairs, all the pets are kept at bay.
It really does feel like a getaway place in the home.

The beer fridge is conveniently located in the utility room.

Nice job!

Great work!

That sure is a small room for m60's and an EP350.

In reply to:
At the present time it feels like some fortress of solitude.

LOL! I didn't think of that particular term, but, conceptually, I was on the same page. A refuge! Wonderful!

And here i was hoping to eek out 2 more feet. If it were not for those pesky poles...

Well planned use of your space!

Was this an unfinished basement that you had started from? The wife and I are just starting ours (totally blank canvas from when we moved in Sept 2004). Framing and insulating of the exterior walls are almost done (had disclosed foundation problems which set us back a year). Our baby is just over four months old now so my work time with certain power tools and hammering is limited.

Did you plan the layout and do most of the renos yourself? Any special floor treatment (like Delta-FL) put down prior to final floor coverings? I noticed you used Roxul (Safe N Sound) in the walls. Excellent choice.

My wife reeeally wants a french door on the entrance to the Media Room but I am hesitant. Did you perform any SPL measurements inside and outside the room?

In reply to:
Well planned use of your space!

And that really is the key before starting. Have an idea, plan it as far as possible and try to stick to it. More than once we almost varied with different ideas and decided no, stick with the plan. There are enough unforeseen changes that will occur throughout the project as it is.
Saves the contractor alot of headaches too.

In reply to:
Was this an unfinished basement that you had started from?

Completely.
Nothing but some 2x3 standard studs on the outside walls. We used some of them, not all, but otherwise it was a blank slate. Even the stairs were without backplates such that if you slipped on the step, your leg would go right through jamming the wood against your shin with horrible agony.

In reply to:
Did you plan the layout and do most of the renos yourself?

Layout, colours, furniture and some finish work, yes, but most of the rough material and a chunk of the finishing (wall painting, door installs) were done by our contractors.

In reply to:
Any special floor treatment (like Delta-FL) put down prior to final floor coverings?

There is a good quality pad under all the carpet. There is a membrane and blue pad under the laminate floor and the ceramic tile is sitting on a sub-floor off the concrete.
The sub-floor underboard, plus cellar walls and ceiling (floor joists) were all sprayed with urethane foam for insulation.

In reply to:
I noticed you used Roxul (Safe N Sound) in the walls. Excellent choice.

Yes. No formaldehyde formulaic insulation. The sound control has been excellent. Good dense insulation. We did the floor joists in the ceiling, plus all surrounding walls, then drywalled. The floor joists received a double thickness as did some of the wall sections.

In reply to:
My wife reeeally wants a french door on the entrance to the Media Room but I am hesitant.

Don't be.
Ours doesn't make a sound, not a peep.
We used a little boat storage latch to pull the dummy door tight to weatherstripping. It doesn't move. We also weather stripped the primary door such that when it closes, you have to push it tight. With the floor sweeps on the bottom, neither door rattles.
We are still planning on putting a heavy curtain over the door to keep out the light from the games room in case people are in there. Otherwise when the room is dark you can at least see someone coming to the media room before the door opens.

In reply to:
Did you perform any SPL measurements inside and outside the room?

Oddly enough, no, i haven't done that yet.
It was on my list of things to do and i just haven't got around to it. I have to re-calibrate the convergence on my Toshiba so perhaps i will do the SPL measures on the weekend and report back.

Be sure to post some pics of your work in progress.

Pffff, typical bourgeois excess! Clearly the tax load is insufficient!

Just kidding, I'm incredibly impressed - and envious. And inspired.

Great work, chess.

Tax load?
Actually you can thank the crazy fools who drove up the real estate market starting 5 years ago. We bought in as interest rates were low and going lower and just as the real estate market was getting hot.
Our old house was way oversold last year IMO.
Crazy fools.

Ah well, now we have this wine cellar... conveniently located next to my media room...

Thank your parents for getting it on in a timely fashion for you to be take advantage of the market as you did.

In reply to:
Even the stairs were without backplates such that if you slipped on the step, your leg would go right through jamming the wood against your shin with horrible agony.

Chess, am i to assume this happened to you on at least one occassion?

At any rate, the renos look great. I know what you mean about the housing market, same thing has happened here too, i think i read average S'toon housing prices are up 16% from last year. There's going to be a whole pile of variable-rate mortgagees who are already over-leveraged that are going to start feeling the pinch with interest rates on the rise. My immediate boss was just transferred from here back to Wpg and has had an "interesting" time finding a home. It's a good thing that he's got some money/flexibility and can move quick. Newly listed houses don't seem to last a day there.

In reply to:
Be sure to post some pics of your work in progress.

Yikes. My basement is FULL of "stuff" while I am working in it. Some of it has to wait for a spring yard sale, some has to be positioned in the new Media room, some items have to be organized in the future salon (wife is a hair stylist), some stuff will go upstairs when we get a proper china hutch. In the mean time it is obstacle-city. Drives my wife crazy but she is puttin gup with it. I am taking pictures along the way and will try to post when I am a little further along.

Well it has taken awhile but i finally remembered to check out the SPLs in and out of the HT room.
With the Spirt of the West playing, i had in room peaks around 95dB at the 10-12 foot mark. The Onkyo 797 was set at 75% on the volume knob (0-100 absolute scale).

Outside of the room, with the doors closed, SPL fell to 69dB about 8 feet from the doors.
On the opposite side of the HT wall in the utility room, SPL measured 67dB.
Still quiet enough for an easy conversation.

One floor up in the living room (directly above the HT room), SPL measured 62dB but at this point, it was really only bass sounds that were setting it off. The music was not clear and with any amount of sound (e.g. the family room tv playing) the music in the basement was almost negligible.

Upstairs on the second floor, only a vague bass thump could be heard inconsistently.

The bottom line, media rooms do not need thousands of dollars of high tech gadgetry for sound control. Reasonably good wall design, sound insulation and in-room furniture for sound energy absorption goes a long way.
A decrease of over 30dB one floor up puts the sound into a range of easy conversations while the media room is blasting away. This is VERY acceptable IMO. Bass will always be the hardest sound to control and contain.

Chess - great looking basement!

I am closing in on finishing mine as well (tomorrow we install the drop ceiling). Just a few things left to do (hang doors, molding, connect electric, install carpet).

Cant't wait.

Ray

Wow, Chess...not only does your basement look beautiful, it looks like a blast as well! How fun it would be to drink some wine, play pool, then chill out to a movie. Problem is...those chairs look *too* comfortable which may cause much drowsiness during movies!

Fantastic room, where's your review of your first screening?

There's alot that i could say about our new basement. Games, wine, theatre and music with elegance. We couldn't be more pleased.
The sound in the media room is just stellar. No rattles, no obvious bass humps, minimal bright reflections (some curtains yet to be added to the door).
In the near future we are setting up for a front projector with a drop down motorized screen. As for the chairs, well, yes, my wife can attest to the sleep comfort factor built into those things. They are chair and a half in width so a couple of reasonable proportions could sit and snuggle comfortably. That's not a fat joke, just a fact.