709Ers Ht Room Alterations

[709er]

Not anywhere near as awesome as most of the projects in this thread, but thought that some may be interested.

We have had a combined lounge/dining setup in our 34 year old house since moving in 20 years ago. The house is very small, though we are on a large property.

Our teenage kids are in need of a dedicated study/computer area, so we have decided to reduce the size of our lounge (currently 7.5m by 5m) to 5.5m by 5m, with a separating stud wall.

This will mean - yeh - a dedicated HT room with greater light control, privacy and better symmetry as the original room had none!

We have opted for a 1200mm wide double cavity slider into the new HT area. We're doing everything ourselves (not heaps of cash available for us), so progress will be relatively slow.

First step was to frame up a window, as we have way too many and had no other way to form a straight wall. The new wall will T intersect with this.

http://www.dtvforum....t...ost&id=9094

Next, a simple timber stud wall and cavity sliding door

http://www.dtvforum....t...ost&id=9097

Looking into HT room - current layout

http://www.dtvforum....t...ost&id=9098

Looking out from current HT room

http://www.dtvforum....t...ost&id=9095

New wall abbutting the framed up and plastered end window.

Our piano is going into storage and the keyboard will replace it (temporarily).

Further alterations will include painting, installation of a larger screen (currently 92 inch), effects lighting around walls to hang some of our poster collection, altered speaker supports (everything is wall/ceiling mounted) and new floor to ceiling window coverings. I may even paint a mural on the doors - HT side! May even render/bag the brickwork as it maintains the heavy 70's feel of the house.

This will all take a long time, but I will try to post update pics as we move on.

Just a slice of BUDGET alterations for those whose pockets are not overflowing!!

Edit: Placing heaps of extra noggings/studs for speaker wall attachment. It will be so nice to have a symmetrical 7:1 setup. At the moment our rears and surround rears are 3m behind the seating area and all at the same distance.

Edited January 28, 2014 by 709er

[MACCA350]

Sounds exciting, look forward to watching it all progress

..........and you'll have the pride and satisfaction of doing it yourself

cheers

[709er]

Great stuff mate, could I please just note a bit of grain and noise in some of the photos, if you could clean them up with the next batch......

Sounds exciting, look forward to watching it all progress

..........and you'll have the pride and satisfaction of doing it yourself

cheers

Thanks guys. Yes, we are really excited Tried to reduce the pixel size, but yorac - i know you are just joshing

[709er]

Some more pics following a smaller amount of work last weekend.

The next move is to fix the plaster sheets on the HT side only and locate the surrounds and rear surround's brackets. Because our rears are so large, we will be mounting them horizontally on Vogel's TV brackets which will give us a degree of flexibility with direction and tilt.

My "better half" will most likely weld up something for the rear surrounds as they need a 30 - 40 degree tilt.

Edited January 28, 2014 by 709er

[MACCA350]

Nice doors

cheers

[709er]

Nice doors

cheers

Thanks Macca,

Made them myself using cheapo cavity doors (2 by 620) and glued western red cedar slats on ( from old venetian blinds) to match in with "that side" of the house. All the exterior windows and visible internal doors are western red cedar, so trying to maintain a "timber theme".

[709er]

First sheets of plaster hung. We are going to leave the other side's plaster off until we have tweeked the positions for the 4 rear/surround speakers. That way, we can include extra noggings and pinpoint where the cables come through. Also going to be hanging some heavy, glass framed movie posters so will be able to run/locate the necessary noggings for them.

These vogel's TV brackets (for the rears) are rather industrial looking, but we love the tough look and they are working a treat

Edited January 28, 2014 by 709er

[yamapro]

Room's looking great 709er - making very good progress for DIY too

I have to say i too really love your cedar slatted doors, nice creative outlet too!

[dham]

I was bit confused with what you were trying to do but now I get the picture

You are doing a great job! Sliding door looks great

Cheers

Dham

[709er]

I was bit confused with what you were trying to do but now I get the picture

You are doing a great job! Sliding door looks great

Thanks Dham. It is a very unconventional job. Not many pepole try to make their lounge/HT rooms smaller. We are already enjoying the smaller more intimate space we have created and the sound is so much better.

Here is a snap of all rears trial mounted. We have used pivotelli "sapphire" brackets for the Polk rear surrounds.

Not at all the sleek/slimline/minimalist look, but we love the sound of our vintage speakers and since the ceiling and walls will be painted in dark colours, they (hopefully) will blend into the background.

Next job: stopping up the plaster, adding cornice and positioning downlights.

Edited January 28, 2014 by 709er

[dham]

Here is a snap of all rears trial mounted. We have used pivotelli "sapphire" brackets for the Polk rear surrounds.

Not at all the sleek/slimline/minimalist look, but we love the sound of our vintage speakers and since the ceiling and walls will be painted in dark colours, they (hopefully) will blend into the background.

That is a pretty neat job you have done with the speaker mounting ... a dark coat of paint will change the whole look dramatically...

Have you got 7.1/7.2? and both surround and surround back are placed in one row? That's very interesting to know sound awesome with that layout.

[709er]

That is a pretty neat job you have done with the speaker mounting ... a dark coat of paint will change the whole look dramatically...

Have you got 7.1/7.2? and both surround and surround back are placed in one row? That's very interesting to know sound awesome with that layout.

7:1.

We thought about placing the rears further towards the seating line, but with the smaller room (now only 5.5m deep) and having them angled towards the seating position, we find that the sound is well distributed. The rears have a big, full sound, whereas the smaller Polks give off more treble and detail. Considering we only have around a dozen 7:1 films, we are confident the layout will work well overall.

If we ever change speakers, I guess there is also room for change with their position

[709er]

Have been making a "temporary screen" to find out what we like for our viewing size. Can't work out how to place named attachments in the PJ thread so will post here.

Made a frame of 90 by 35mm pine using butt joins (using recessed 100mm wood screws) and a single centre strut of 70 by 28mm ($18). Outside frame size is 1365 by 2429mm. Purchased 2.6m of 3 pass BO fabric ($36) from Spotlight and asked them to keep it rolled not folded so no ironing necessary.

We will play with different sizes, though have opted for wider black bars (around 50mm wider) at the sides than at the top and bottom. The black surround will be added later when we are happy with our viewing size. We have purchased 3m of black "faux suede" fabric ($15) for this and will attach using double sided tape. The remaining fabric will be used to cover the hole in our ceiling where our original screen was flush mounted. Intend to have a "foil" infront of the immediate light bounce on the ceiling (does this make sense?).

Used thumbtacks to roughly stretch out the BO starting from the centrepoints of both axis, then the diagonals. This gave an opportunity to tweek the tension before committing with the staple gun. Like ajm mentioned previously, the trick is not to over-stretch the fabric.

Used staple spacings of around 75mm - extras on the corners.

Kept all corner folds on the vertical edges

Used good quality masking tape over the raw edge to stabilize the whole length. Put some pencil marks on to check for movement (slippage). None so far.

Ready to mount and trial before applying edge fabric. I have purchased 3m of black "faux suede" for this. The reverse side is super matt and will (I am sure), work well.

We are really happy with the results so far. Tension is excellent and using the more substantial framing timber was the way to go! Will (hopefully) be installing the screen this weekend.

Edited January 28, 2014 by 709er

[50mxe20]

Lot of work for a "temporary screen".

[50mxe20]

Hit return twice.

Sorry

[709er]

Hit return twice.

Sorry

I just love the smell of a project in the morning!! ......................and always working to a budget

[Nevyn72]

.....................and always working to a budget

Budget?

I used to have one of those, but I accidentally listend to some really good speakers and ummmm.......

[50mxe20]

I just love the smell of a project in the morning!! ......................and always working to a budget

Yes but if temporary , and not right, do you build it all again? and again? and ?

Obviously you enjoy it though.

[709er]

We have trial mounted our temporary screen. This involved moving both centre speakers back and outwards and the L/R speakers outwards only.

I know it all sounds a bit "temporary" and "trial", but that's the way we do things - ourselves, to budget and when we have time

I think that we will need to lower our mantle-piece as when we purchase a "real" fixed frame screen down the track, we will need more height. We tried a few demos last night and loved the increased size. No noticeable resolution or light loss and although the BO fabric is not awesome, it is very good and we are still glad we have gone through the DIY process.

We are left with a cavity in the ceiling from our original pull down 4:3 screen and may come up with a lighting solution to use it rather than just replastering.

Old screen set-up:

Old screen and pelmet removed exposing ceiling cavity

New trial mount of temporary screen

Now will start to really think about aesthetic treatments. Paint, window coverings and lighting. It will all get slow from here as the reason we started this was to cut off a section of our original room for the kids computers/study. Must finish that area now

Edited January 28, 2014 by 709er

[bbar]

We have trial mounted our temporary screen. This involved moving both centre speakers back and outwards and the L/R speakers outwards only.

I know it all sounds a bit "temporary" and "trial", but that's the way we do things - ourselves, to budget and when we have time

I think that we will need to lower our mantle-piece as when we purchase a "real" fixed frame screen down the track, we will need more height. We tried a few demos last night and loved the increased size. No noticeable resolution or light loss and although the BO fabric is not awesome, it is very good and we are still glad we have gone through the DIY process.

We are left with a cavity in the ceiling from our original pull down 4:3 screen and may come up with a lighting solution to use it rather than just replastering.

Old screen set-up:

Old screen and pelmet removed exposing ceiling cavity

New trial mount of temporary screen

Now will start to really think about aesthetic treatments. Paint, window coverings and lighting. It will all get slow from here as the reason we started this was to cut off a section of our original room for the kids computers/study. Must finish that area now

Great job. See what you mean re lowering Mantle as the DIY just fits!

I must say I would be concerned about the screen getting dirty from the fireplace as some smoke always escapes. Especially when you do dumb things like me and leave the flew closed .

[709er]

Great job. See what you mean re lowering Mantle as the DIY just fits!

I must say I would be concerned about the screen getting dirty from the fireplace as some smoke always escapes. Especially when you do dumb things like me and leave the flew closed .

Thanks bbar. We only have open fires once every couple of weeks over Winter and have had our screen above like this for 19 years. The mantlepiece acts as a heat baffle, plus the fireplace is unflued so draws very well.

It would be great to have a screen that just went exactly at the right viewing height on the wall, but once again - another compromise. If I had a spare $80K, I would be building a dedicated room on the end of the house and enjoying "doing it right" from scratch

Started stopping the plaster today. Moving slowly, but surely.

[709er]

In case any body is interested, I made the finishing touches to our DIY screen today:

Attached double sided carpet tape (cut in half} to the sides at exactly 75mm (drew a black pen line to keep perfectly straight).

Placed faux suede upside down - stretching lightly and pressing evenly. I am using the reverse side of the material. It is super "matt".

Next I folded the fabric back on itself and gently stretched over the side edges of the frame securing with another full length of double sided carpet tape.

Continued on all sides using 75mm on opposite side and 50mm on the top and bottom.

Finished the back corners with a staple gun and a full perimeter tape.

I am very pleased with the results and this will do just fine for the reno period while we are working out what to do with our brickwork/fireplace and windows

Edit: My better half came home from work so yet another "trial mount"

Total cost: $79

Edited June 2, 2010 by 709er

[Johnny_Boy]

Very impressive temp screen. If anyone not in the HT game came over i dont think they would notice thats a homemade screen. Makes me want to make one to try out some different sizes!

[709er]

Very impressive temp screen. If anyone not in the HT game came over i dont think they would notice thats a homemade screen. Makes me want to make one to try out some different sizes!

Thanks Johnny.Boy. I must admit (modesty aside), it looks rather professional (took me 3 hours today just to do the edges). The main benefit of DIY is that you can make it any size you like. Not restricted to 100, 106, 110 inch etc

[dham]

nice and neat 709er ....

BTW what is that black square thing on the right hand side

Cheers

Dham

Edited June 2, 2010 by dhammika