Work has progressed quite steadily over the last while, and I've gotten to the point where the equipment is up and running. The quickports are a great way to terminate all of the various cable runs, and the color coding (and labels) will help make sure my kids plug things in the right way:
I still have to touch up a bit around the front row input cover (where I went too far with the Dremel), but overall I'm happy with the results.
I fired up the PJ, and began to finalize the screen size so I can start to plan out the stage/proscenium:
At the end of the day, considering the throw distance, it works out to a sceen of approximately 138" diagonal 16x9. The final room dimensions came out to 12.5x20x7.9 feet - this ends up leaving me about 17 or so inches on each side of the screen for speaker/sub placement. More flat black to address the front wall:
Looking at the stage area, I am limited as to how deep I can go by a door to the laundry room about 32 inches from the front wall. I've been debating whether to go with a curved design, or some sort of combination of straight angles. In order to enclose the sub (18 inches deep) and provide at least enough room for the rear ports (3 inches), I will be left with a 'shadowbox' for the screen of nearly 21 inches. The center is destined to be mounted above the screen, as I have about 12-14 inches to play with. I will also be adding the 3 3 inch can lights likely behind it for screen wash. The stage floor can come up maximum to about 10 inches with layers. This would leave me with roughly 3 to 4 inches to build a 'border' around the screen wrapped in blackout cloth to give the area a more finished look.