Hello everyone,

I am starting my home theater soon. I have done a lot of research and this is what I have planned so far.

I will have a 7.1 surround system with two speakers above my bar for a zone two. The speakers I have chosen are as follows.

Two Polk Audio - RC85I In wall front speakers
Four Polk Audio - RC80I In ceiling speakers two for surround and two for zone two bar area
Two Polk Audio - RC55I In wall rear speakers
Polk Audio - PSW10 Free standing subwoofer. I've actually been using this upstairs currently and it sounds amazing. Might buy another for the basement.
One Polk Audio - RC6S In wall loud center speaker

To push all of this I have a Pioneer VSX-1020K. Amazing receiver, it up converts anything I plan on it to 1080P on my 60" LG Plasma. I am currently using that upstairs too on some HTIB speakers and it has amazing sound for 5.1. I can only imagine what it will sound like on better speakers and with 7.1.

Now for my viewing pleasure, I'm currently on the fence. I plan on creating a projector screen 120"-108" in size similar to the one in this picture


Its painted on the wall with a frame built around it. Anyone seen any other painted on wall or on wall screens and can add maybe some suggestions?

As far as projectors go, I'm looking at a few 1080P lcd projectors. The one I am really thinking of getting is Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 8350 Home Theater Projector. HHgregg has it and they are always running the 12 months 0% financing on stuff. I read some reviews and it seems like a very capable projectors and for $1k the price is right.

If anyone has any other projectors they can recommend that are 1080P and under $2k, I would appreciate it.

Also welcome to opinions on my setup as well as I have not built it yet, everything is just sitting around waiting for me to finish the basement.

 

Can the mods change the title to "Starting Home Theater" please? I wasn't paying attention when writing the title.

 

Fixed!

As far as the speakers, figure out your sofa/recliner locations and set the speakers around them. Also it might be worth it to check other brands and look at some reviews on AVSforum.

If you are using the subwoofer, rather than buying one, it might be a better bet to try something a bit beefier for the basement since it's probably going to be larger.

 

Thanks!

Yea thats a good idea to figure out where I'm going to put everything. I'm going to clean up all of the demo tomorrow and probably throw the dry wall up the weekend after that. I'm hoping I can have this done by NFL preseason(if there is going to be a season at all)

I may go with the 12 inch version of the 10" Polk sub I have. Although my basement area is larger than the living room, its not THAT much larger.

Thanks for your advice!

 

Make sure you take before and after pics...

 

Half the walls are up, I ran all of the speaker & hdmi wiring. I wired up all of the recessed lights as well. Built the bar as well. My father and I got alot accomplished in two days. We start working again tomorrow. We need to frame out all of our soffits and finish drywalling. Then we can start adding finishing touches like flooring, paint, and wall plates. Pictures to come.

 

Nice updates...may have to steal some ideas from u when am ready to start my own.

 

Thanks and steal away

 

Lets see some pictures =)

Btw, get a motorized projection screen =D

I get my AV ideas from avforums.com

 

Looking good. Didn't know we have something in common.( that sounded weird ) Anyways I've a 60' Sharp Aquos that I bought from Costco 4 months and I thought at one point on doing a projector but I don't spend a lot of time watching TV in the basement. Calibration will be my next step if I can find someone local and they don't drain my pocket.

Looking forward to see the final product.

 

Thanks! Didnt realize you were into home theater either

I tested all 9 speaker feeds to ensure everything worked before I sheetrocked the ceiling in. The 9.1 in wall surround sounds amazing. Cant wait to finish this basement.

Purchased the paint for my screen yesterday too. I picked up some Valspar Ultra Premium Interior Latex in Eggshell finish tinted to match Behr 'SilverScreen' The color looks pretty nice. Should allow for the projector to have a pretty bright picture in a room with ambient light.

Next up is to pick out paint colors. Since my Furniture is burgandy leather with gold accents on it, I was thinking some type of gold colored paint to accent that. It, also goes with the Redskins colors of brugandy and gold. Just have to find the right gold that doesnt look yellow (even thoug Redskins gold is kind yellow) I need to pick out bar stools too

 

Wow you're going all the way. I'm slowly doing some upgrade on my basement. Just painted the walls 2 months and the wife don't want any movie poster frames. What type of cabinet do you have? very hard to tell on the photo you posted. Are you doing a real theater replica. If I have time I'll snap some pictures tonight. How do plan on calibrating the projector.

 

Haha yea I figured if I'm going to do something, why half ass it? Being able to do 100% of the work myself saved me so many costs, I was able to splurge a little in other areas. It helps my basement was a skeleton when I bought the home too.

My fiance didn't want me to put up any movie posters or too much football memorabilia. So I'm trying to add stuff like that subtly.

The picture I have up there is a picture of someone else's theater setup. I just used it to see if anyone had any painted on screens like the one in the picture. But I built my own cabinet recessed into the wall to save some space and it looks cool.

I won't be doing a real theater replica though. I didn't really have enough space to do that and still wanted to have a living room atmosphere. Maybe in the next house though. As for calibrating the projector. I'm going to go with this Spears and Munsil blu ray calibration disc. I've heard nothing but awesome thngs about it. Link is here

Here are some pictures of the basement before we started.

 

Let me know when you calibrate your projector. I've contemplating on doing myself but will see. So far I've gotten a quote for 200.00 per receiver to calibrate my led.

 

Thats ridiculous! If you want you can borrow the disc I'm going to use if you have a bluray player

 

That will great, thank you. yes I've a bluray.

On a different note, are you going to the Fair Oaks mall this Sunday. I'll be there.

 

I'm seriously comtemplating it. I've finally gote my car back. But now it needs lower control arms and ball joints. I've found an 08 I can get those parts from. (Acura wants close to $1000 in parts alone) I just need to go out to Stafford and get them. I may stop by for a little bit though. It'd be nice to see your car.

 

I should be there by 12:00 but not trying to stay all day neither. Looking forward meeting you and thank you again for the dvd claribration offer.

 

Zelata no prob! Sorry I couldnt make it. Had to keep working on this basement while I had the help available.

Some update pics. We sprayed the popcorn/sound dampening ceiling this Sunday. I'll take pics of that tonight.

Sorry for the crooked cell phone pics. When I buy a camera I plan on taking better pics.







More work was completed after these pictures. But all that is left to be done is to finish mudding and sanding the walls. i'll probably use an hour a day after work to do that. Prime the walls, create my screen, paint, and lay the carpet and hardwood. Looking foward to finally getting this complete.

 

Don't worry, we all have priority's. The progress is moving fast. Can't wait to see the final product.

 

Damn, this project is coming out really good!!! Can't wait to see next set of pix.

 

I have a couple of pics of some little touches that I made.

Finished trimming the HVAC room bi folds


Cut and trimmed out an access door/crawl space for under the stairs, also test fit the oak pole coverings that I'm going to stain to match the bar


Put some crown up to cowver the gap between the ceiling and the fireplace. Ceiling is also completed along with celing speakers and recessed light trim


Picture of the projector ceiling mount, hdmi plate, and gfi power outlet

 

Loving the progress!

 

Thanks! Haven't really done much since. But going to hit it hard for the next 9 days so I can get this done by sunday week 1 football.

 

Hurry up!!! I'll bring the poison

 

 

Well I wont be ready by this weekend. I had the carpet scheduled for install today but on Wednesday, with all of the rain we have been getting, my foundation decided to form two cracks on two separate sides of the basement. I literally spent all day and night Wednesday vaccuming water from the cracks. I've slept maybe 8 hours in the past 72. Not to mention my birthday is tomorrow. lol

Once the rain let up I went out and bought some hydraulic cement to plug the cracks.
So far so good, but I'm going to give it some time to ensure the cracks are plugged for good. Plus I need to finish drying the basement out. I'm just happy that A. my carpet and hardwood wasnt installed when this happened and B. that nothing was really damaged during all of this.

Once I get some time I will have to dig up around the foundation and waterproof everything with some drylock.

 

Decided to put in some work and test out the hometheater. I smiled for about 10 hours straight yesterday. Sneak peak

 

WOW! You're such a teaser. Give us better pictures.....

 

Quickly disconnect the projector!!! You will get so much more done if you do!!

What color are you doing the walls? I went as dark as I could so the room disappears when gaming/watching movies. I went with a dark red in mine. Red basically turns black in a dim room, yet still looks really nice when lit up.
BTW, you have now ruined watching movies anywhere else. Especially in a public theater! My wife refuses to go see a movie now. The ability to pause it, take a piss and grab a beer spoils the hell out of you!


NICE WORK!!!!!

 

Haha! I got you man! I'll snap a few tonight.

Who are you telling! Now that its up its been hard to do anything. But not much is left besides a good cleanup, staining the bar, carpet, and paint. I've decided to go with a dark copper/burnt orange. Was going to go with red but the fiance said it looked too much like blood. I disagreed but hey I'm happy as long as there are dark walls.

And you are correct about ruining movies! I tried watching TV upstairs on the 60" and I just wasn't satisfied. Its fine for regular TV shows and stuff but movies and sports have to be on the projector. But that what all this was for, I'm tired of going to the movies and having to sit next to some 400 lb dude who thinks his chair is apart of mine and snores while awake the whole movie LOL Best investment I've ever made by far. Should pay for itself within a year or two.

Thanks for the kind words! Its definitely been a rollercoaster but VERY fun.

 

Coming closer to completion! Excuse the cell phone pics, I need a new digital cam. This weekend I plan on cleaning up, finishing the staining of the bar, adding the bar top, cleaning the fireplace up, adding trim around the back speakers, adding door knobs, adding a couple more dimmer switches, adding some preforated black board behind the entertainment cubbies, and painting the crawl space access door.

 

There are a couple of little things that Id like to change, like making the gaps between entertainment cubbies even and so on but other than that I am pretty damn content with what my father and I were able to accomplish by ourselves. Every single thing except for the carpet was done by us, including electrical, making the screen, entertainment hookup, etc. 100% original ideas. My father already has his own business so we are considering creating a subsidiary for creating home theaters.

 

This thread really shows the transformation...you did a tremendous job. Soooo, Superbowl party at your house?

 

OMG!!!!! I'm jealous but very happy for you. It's coming alone very very nice. I'm sure once you finish everything you won't come out from there, lol. On a sidenote, did you calibrated your projector? I need to do my badly for my components, bluray and directv. I was watching the game on Monday night the colors was way off. Here's my question, I twitch the colors little bit before but we had some power outage couple days and don't know if my color settings has been erase. I think it has.

What's your opinion?

 

Thanks man! And just might have to be! LOL
Thanks man thats how I feel about your RL so now we're even ! I havent calibrated it yet because for some odd reason the shit looks damn near perfect with the colors, black and white levels and sharpness/contrast. Since I'll be finishing things up this weekend, I'll probably calibrate then. Depending on how long the power was out, it couldve reset your Tv to the factory settings. I know the settings memory on TVs is supposed ot be non-volatile but if the power flickered enough times, it couldve caused a reboot surge. I say tweak them again and see if you can get them back. You can still use my calibration disc or we can do it together. Whatever works for you.

 

Thanks man. If you want to do a road trip let me know. I live in Frederick county, lol.... I can try calibrating myself. How accurate are the one you have compare to the one technicians have using their laptop.

 

Supposed to be on par with technicians coming out. Look up Spears and Munsil High definition benchmark Blu_Ray Calibration DVD. And holy shit! LOL You travel from Frederick Co to Mo County everyday?!?!? Down 270?!?!? I commend you on that alone LOL

 

Yeah man!!!!, Tell me about it. My commute is about an hour and 20 minutes every morning and not counting if an asshole had a accident and back i270. I carpool with my wife and daughter and drop my daughter at her school
( Potomac ) and come to Bethesda. My wife and I only work 2 blocks away so no need to drive two cars. My wife is trying to convince me to move move to Rockville area and rent our home but trying to find good tenants it's a pain in the ass. I'll scope out the calibration dvd you mentioned. Thanks

 

O damn, I missed out on all the progress. After you started this thread i begun picking up some pieces for my real HT. No more computer speakers for me. Right now am closing on a new house in Baltimore so the basement is pretty bare. So i might ping u for ideas