So for quite a few years now I've been thinking about building a dedicated home theatre in the basement of the house. Last year I'd finally saved enough money to purchase a front projector, I didn't want a large screen TV for three main reasons.

1). Not big enough.

2). Too bulky. (a real floor hog)

3). I wouldn't be able to get it down into the basement...

    After much deliberation & a couple of demo's I finally decided on a Sanyo PLV-Z3 LCD projector. Yes I know DLP is supposed to be better but to my eyes the colour rendition of LCD beats DLP hands down. So now I have the projector but no theatre to install it in, BUT a couple of weeks ago (early Nov 05') I decided to throw caution to the wind & demolished the rec-room in the basement to make way for the theatre & a small craft/guest room.

    Here are a few pics taken during demolition, I'll also be upgrading the electrical panel to a modern circuit breaker type, as you can see the existing one has gone past the sell by date..

    I'm installing Roxul sound proofing in the ceiling & wall cavities along with Z bars (resilient channel) to minimize the rooms ability to leak sound. All signal wiring will be installed in the wall & ceiling cavities including Composite, S video, Component, & HDMI cables. I'm also going to install enough heavy duty speaker cables to be able to run full 7.1 surround, i.e, 2 sets of rear surrounds.

    So here I am in mid December 05' I've had the electrical upgrade done & the wiring is complete. The City engineer has signed off the framing construction so I'm about to start on the walls & ceilings...

     Thanks to Alex's Uncle Brian who is a dab hand at DIY between us we managed to get all the Drywall hung in the Craft Room before Xmas.

    Update! Late January 2006.

With Xmas & a busy schedule at work I've not been able to do too much for the last few weeks but have managed to get some of the Drywall hung on the ceilings & walls in the hallway.

    So here I am at the beginning of March 06', still not finished with the construction, however I've managed to get all the Roxul sound proofing installed the ceiling & wall cavities & also installed the resilient channel on the ceiling joists. On the upside though all wiring is installed along with the projector mounting plate, with a bit of luck I'll be able to get the Gyproc installed on the joists this next weekend.

    Yup, got the ceiling done now, it was a bit tricky making sure that the screws only went into the resilient channels but overall looking good.. To be honest it was really tedious doing the drywall compound & is probably going to be worse when I have to sand it smooth. You can see the recess where the screen will fit, my plan is to wall mount the screen into a 3" deep recess & line it with black felt in order to improve contrast. After a bit of experimenting I settled on a 90" wide screen which with my projector is about 103" diagonal. I'm going to install eight halogen downlights & four wall mounted sconce lights all controlled via remote control dimmers.

    Ok, so here we are in early September 2006 I've finally finished the compound stage & sanding, I've also managed to get everything primed ready for paint. The next stage will be to get the ceilings textured to add a bit of character. I'm hoping to get the ceilings done before the end of September.

    I just beat my target... It's September 30th, & the ceiling is finally done, in fact I had it done today by a friend of a friend (thanks, John) & it looks awesome. I wanted an "Art Deco" type of finish but discovered that this type of texture is out of date & consequently not too popular now. Anyway, John managed to beg & borrow the correct tools for the job & prised the trade secrets out of a work colleague & hey presto!..

    Update! November 06'

    So here we are early November, almost one year after I started this project, the entire Basement is now around 85% complete. The small craft room is complete, the Hallway & stairwell is 95% complete, all I have now is the Theatre to finish. I'm targeting completion by Xmas with the exception of the replacement window (too cold outside..) & the carpets, I can't afford them this close to Xmas..

    Alex & I spent ages deciding on what colours to use, we ended up settling on different shades of purple which sounds a little lurid but will look great on the walls. I'm doing a finish called Frottage, which simulates a leather type texture above the chair rail along with a solid dark purple under the chair rail.

    I also spent ages deciding how to mount the surround speakers, I discounted floor mounting on stands as too messy & was going to use wall brackets. Trouble is I don't really like the look of speakers just hanging on the wall so I elected to make wall mounted platforms out of MDF using my trusty Router & other tools.

Update! December 06'

    After a bit of experimenting I decided against the Frottage finish, in fact I didn't bother using the glaze I bought at all. It left too high a surface sheen for my liking, so I read all I could find on faux finishes & eventually decided to go with rag rolling ("ragging on"). I used two different shades of purple on the upper part of the walls above the chair rail over a silver base. Here is the sequence:

    Paint the wall with the base colour, in my case the lighter shade of purple.

    Rag roll the silver base, I used a standard roller with old rags wrapped around it held in place with elastic bands. It should look very patchy, you don't want a solid colour, I used less than 100ml of silver acrylic paint for the entire room...

    When dry, rag on the next shade of colour, again make it look patchy, it really is not very difficult to do but looks fantastic when dry, see pics below.

    I built the screen using the material I bought from B-A Deals (click here) off the internet for $15!!

    I also used their design for the screen mounting frame along with a couple of my own ideas to add strength.

    The material has a slight stretch but takes a lot of effort to get it stapled onto the frame wrinkle free, however within a couple of hours I got it done. I eventually decided on making the screen 100" diagonal, 16:9 widescreen format. The screen is mounted in a recess 1 1/2" deep so I also made a frame using planed all round Pine & covered it with a black velvet type material, this makes a neat surround & also adds contrast to the picture. Finally I added MDF moldings & corners for a professional look. I didn't take any pics at this stage which is a pity, I'll just have to rely on my memory If I ever "do it again"...

    Here are some pics of the (almost) finished results, I still have to get it carpeted, add drapes, & build the equipment rack (the equipment packaging is doing equipment rack duty right now) but as you can see it is finally taking shape.

        I'll eventually be adding a new Pioneer receiver which will give me a full 7.1 channel system. I was lucky enough to find two more Energy Take 5 series surround speakers to match my existing setup, I have already hooked them up as my existing receiver has the ability to simulate a 7.1 surround mode.

    Update! March 07!

    I still have not gotten the equipment rack built, but have made a start. I decided to use my HiFi equipment rack in a cut down way for the HiFi only, so I modified it by reducing the height.

    Because I'm basically anal, I decided to make sure that the Tannoy Stereo speakers, HiFi equipment rack, & Subwoofer are all isolated from the wooden sub floor. Therefore I cut the necessary holes in the wood sub floor & poured concrete to form solid bases for the equipment to sit on. Naturally this equipment is no longer affected if you bounce around...

    We finally had the carpeting installed a couple of weeks ago, it looks good & compliments the colours well. The Receiver is hooked up to my main DVD player, a Panasonic S-77 up converting model set up to up-convert to 720p high definition image quality via its HDMI output. The projected image at 720p really is spectacular at a viewing distance of around 13 ft. All electrical power is via a Monster Power HTC3500 10 outlet power conditioner which monitors voltage & protects the equipment from surges & spikes, (a common problem around here). Speakers are the Energy Take 5 series but I have upgraded the Subwoofer to a Sinclair Audio 10" model which goes down to around 26Hz.

    I have programmed my Harmony remote control to automatically start everything up & with a single button push it will dim the lights to a pre set level. Finally as the movie starts the lights slowly dim to off. It all adds up the ultimate theatre experience without all the annoying rustle of Chip bags, Popcorn munching & tall people sat in front of you obscuring the view..

    We have watched many films now including "Finding Nemo" & as you can see from the screen shots above I can honestly say that all the effort was well worthwhile, you really cannot experience a movie properly unless you watch it on a large screen with surround sound to match. Trust me, explosions sound real enough to have you ducking for cover, the good news is that I can play the system pretty much flat out & thanks to the sound proofing & resilient channel is actually inaudible upstairs & is barely audible in the family room & kitchen.

    All in all, I'm glad that I spent the time & effort on this project & would do it again, it also provided a good learning experience & kept me busy in my spare time, now I'm ready for the next project which according to Alex is going to be the upstairs Bathroom...(maybe)...

    UPDATE! (6/23/07).

    Well, ok I didn't start on the Bathroom yet & I'll probably not get round to it this year due to other commitments. But as Alex pointed out I have not quite finished in the Theatre yet, there is no equipment rack or drapes.... Sooo I sketched up a rack the other day & decided to build it out of MDF because my intention is to paint it to blend in with the lower wall colour (purple, remember?). There is space for a total of 9 pieces of equipment, which should be plenty, also there are 6 drawers to hold DVD's & miscellaneous junk.

    Oh I nearly forgot, I'm also going to be making up a couple of "light boxes", these are to house/frame the movie posters we bought off Ebay. I managed to buy 3 posters, all signed by members of the cast, they will look really good once installed.

    Here are a few pics of the work in progress, finished, & in position in the Theatre, it is a little wider than I really wanted, but the width was really governed by the stuff I need to put in it...

Update! July 07'

Sometimes you get lucky...But then again maybe you don't.

    So I was in Future Shops the other Sunday afternoon & I spotted on the bargain basement table a Pioneer VSX- 1016TXV-K (phew!) THX 7.1 Receiver for the bargain price of $425, reduced from $799. This was an ex demo model which I also got a 3 yr warranty thrown in for nada, ziltch, a real bargain then, right? Wrong,

    I hooked it up yesterday which with my set up is no mean feat & after tinkering with it for over an hour concluded that the Subwoofer line output does not work, Doh! So I took it back for exchange but they had just sold the last one they had in stock & this model is now discontinued, so I elected to send it out for repair instead of asking for a refund reasoning that the replacement model will be much more expensive. So now I have to wait for xx? weeks until it comes back from being repaired..

    Update! September 07'

    Ok maybe I was right the first time, I took the receiver back to Future Shops last week & they asked me what I wanted to do, I said repair it, they said what about an exchange? I felt a sense of deja vu, but they called the home theatre tech over & he very quickly hooked it up & confirmed the SW output was kaput. Then he said that this particular model receiver was a real bargain & got me another one, which he tested before handing it over.. At last someone at a large electronics store who knows what they are doing!

    So I hooked it up to my system this morning & after much tinkering with the setup got everything working correctly. Somewhat surprisingly the volume level does not seem as loud for a given -Db setting as my older receiver, but it is rated at 110 watts per channel, also the HDMI output is not very good, but it could be the cheapo cable that came "free" with the Panasonic DVD player. I'll get it replaced sometime but for now it is not an issue, I have the HDMI output direct from the DVD player to the Projector...

Watch this space..