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Alberta Energy Theater

20K views 98 replies 13 participants last post by  jgourlie 
#1 ·
As many people before me have said, it pays to give back. I have looked at so many designs and builds and have stolen so many ideas or rather copied.

So here goes my build:

But you may soon see I am not a man of many words so please ask questions, cause I will probably forget alot of details.

Room: The room will be in the basement it will be 25 feet by 13.8 feet wide. I will have a finished space of 21 feet by 13.6 feet. I have to build a false wall as you will see from the pictures that follow.

Sound: This is an almost all Energy 5.1 system.
Towers: Energy CF-70
Center: Energy CC-10
Surrounds: Energy CR-10
Subwoofer: Outlaw LFM-1 Plus
Receiver: Denon AVR-1712

Video:
Projector: Benq W1060
Bluray: Samsung 5500
Satellite: Bell Motorola 9242 PVR with Picture in Picture and 2tb external hard drive

That's the hardware let's look at the build.
 
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#2 ·
The basement consists of an existing bathroom that we had the builder finish as part of our build.




The builder also left space for a bedroom. It won't be big at 13x7.6 feet but it will work for our guest bedroom, which is a good thing.

So here was what the basement looked like when we took possesion of the house 6 days ago.




As you can see there is a bump out at the front of the room that is 4 feet deep by 9 feet wide....we are going to make this into a false wall....hopefully!!
 
#5 · (Edited by Moderator)
End of day #6 Construction

I just sweated my butt off for the past 2 days insulating every corner of the basement. I never ever want to do insulation again. That really stunk, but what was worse was getting the acoustical sealant all over the place including myself. Hate that stuff!!

Ready for drywall:


A couple things to make note of. To the right of the screen wall near the ceiling you can see my equipment rack. It turned out way better then I could have ever imagined. I can't wait for the finished product, I think it's going to be great.

Second, you can now see the framed portion at the bottom of the wall. That is the entrance to the room behind the wall. It is also motivation for me to be skinny so I can wiggle my way through there. Could be interesting in the future.

Here is a shot that shows the entrance to the bedroom.


I have hired out the drywall and my guy will be starting tomorrow. He tells me it will take 7-10 days till it's ready for paint.

So that's all I have for awhile.
 
#12 ·
Before drywall I assume you ran all your audio cables, ethernet, electrical, etc.
Much easier before walls are installed.
 
#13 ·
I didn't have any pictures of the electrical we did so I didn't really talk about it.

But since you mentioned it:

I ran cat6 to behind the wall as I will be putting my wireless router behind there. I am planning to plug my Bluray and my pvr directly into the router so that I don't have to run them wireless, which should help with the streaming of netflix etc...on the bluray player.

I ran a 35ft hdmi cable and 2 15ft hdmi cables to behind the wall as well. The 2 15 footers are located on the side wall. We will use these to plug our laptop in for streaming as well as for our digital camera for watching videos or slideslows of the pictures.

I ended up with probably 5-10ft too much on the hdmi cable for the projector. Oh well better safe then sorry.

We also wired a light switch and a light for behind the wall so I can do any wiring and see what I am doing when I am behind there.

We did a 20amp dedicated plug for the subwoofer and a 15amp for all the other equipment. I have a Rocketfish power manager that we will run off the 15amp plug.

I also ran from the ceiling 12awg speaker cable for the 2 front speakers and the 2 rear surrounds, I went back and forth on running speaker wire for Front Heights as my denon 1712 can run 7.1 with front heights. I talked myself out of it because I don't have the speakers and then, from what I am reading some people don't like heights and the effect that it creates. I hope I didn't gamble and lose on that one :(

The center channel will be behind the wall so I can run cable directly to the reciever behind the wall.

For lighting we wired for 3 sconces on the side walls. 2 around the door to the bedroom and 1 near the window on the other wall. All 3 sconces will be in an infrared dimmer from Lutron that I believe will work with my Harmony One remote. I am pretty excited about being able to control the lights with my remote. I hope it works!!

I think that covers all the electrical :gulp:
 
#14 ·
Sounds like you got it all layed out. :T
 
#18 ·
Hmmmmmm....now you really have me thinking....I was going back and forth on it...and like the argument goes bi-amping doesn't really have any benefit so I was believing that side of the argument. The Energy CF-70's have an efficiency of 96db's so I think that is why I talked myself out of doing bi-amping as my denon should have no problem running them on 2 channel's.

I may changed my mind on it though. Plus i could always just run the wire and leave it in the box and not hook it up. I had better decide right away :scratch:
 
#17 ·
Other wiring considerations - if you are planning on powered subs, you may want to allow for passive connections as well. It sure can't hurt to future-proof as much as possible. I made connection points for subs in every corner of the room just in case I ever wanted to go for 4 subs.

It also allowed me some flexibility when it came to doing the sub crawl later......
 
#19 ·
That is a great point...My previous room had 2 subs....sadly this new room is just so skinny and with the bedroom door on the other wall it has really limited where I can put stuff in the room.

So the only place I have room for the sub is behind the false wall. Luckily there is room for 2 subs back there. The other benefit is that the sub crawl is going to be really easy :gulp:

Positions for the sub is one of the really big compromises I had to make with this theater. :hissyfit: I sure hope it sounds good in the spot I have room for it :gulp:

Dang all you guys with your really good suggestions....Just when I thought I had thought of everything :help:
 
#21 ·
I agree with covering as many eventual outcomes as possible at the stage you're at. You never know what you'll want/need down the road. And going back into the walls is not fun at all. I only used about 1/5 of the wires run in my front wall by the time I had everything terminated. But I wrote it all down on a piece of paper, and if I ever need something down the road I should be covered...I hope.
 
#28 ·
You could try a signal trace. Electricians use them to finish coax and Ethernet cables in a rough in where nothing gets labeled. You put a signal generator on the end you can see and use the trace tool to find the other end. I've used one, and it seems to pick up the signal from a few inches away. But I've never tried it through drywall. Try borrowing one...they're not cheap tools.
 
#29 ·
Drywall Day #1

Entrance to behind my screen wall

Homemade Equipment rack

View towards bathroom and furnace room


My drywallers need to finish the stairway and the closet in the bedroom tomorrow they say it will take a few more hours to finish up. Man they work pretty quick....They tell me that it will be ready for paint Thursday.

We bought baseboards and casing today which we will paint monday so they are ready to go. Carpet is two weeks away as it needs to be ordered and shipped here.
The door for the bedroom and the bedroom closet have arrived, so there is nothing left for me to order.

Now it is all up to my wife to paint the theater, stairs, and bedroom in a week and we should almost be there.
 
#32 ·
Guys I need some help!!

I am having a hard time finding blackout blinds or something that might work as such. I can't plug the window so that isn't really an option.

Is there anything that provides some sort of sound control??

I am having a hard time finding anything that seems good.....have any of you guys used something you might recommend?
 
#34 ·
Bout time for an update:

We have had a problem with the drywall. Cause it has been so hot and humid the mud hasn't been drying and so it took a week longer then it should have. But I am glad to say that it is all done today.



So the roof has been textured and is good to go and we have put on one coat of primer so far.



Here you can see a color we are trying out and we have decided that we don't like it :hissyfit:



You can see one of the sconces there and what our carpet will look like as well as the baseboard color.
We are starting to go into panic mode as the carpet will be installed on tuesday and wednesday.

So the list of things to do before Tuesday:
Pick paint color and put on 2 coats
Paint Screenwall mouse ears and n8 grey
put on baseboards
put on door casings
Caulk baseboards and casings
Repaint doors, baseboards, and casings
Wire all the electrical outlets

I hope that I am not forgetting anything...it helps to actually make a list here, just so I can keep everything straight. Well It's going to be a long weekend of painting and mass hysteria....see you guys soon
 
#35 ·
Wow what a long day....I am exhausted....Projector is up....put some lights up and have most of the first coat of paint up....was a tough day for finding the right screen paint. I went to home depot and they told me my paint mix was no good anymore as they had all new colorants...I went into panic mode as I didn't really have a plan B.

I did a quick search here on the site and decided on Unique Grey...I should find out tomorrow how it is going to work. Then I went to a different paint store where I get 30% off and I was trying to get some Mouse Ears black for my screen border. They obviously couldn't match it off a computer as they didn't have one. So I was kinda of stuck on that paint choice. So they guy says if you want black I will give you black and we will call it good. So I agree and say give me some black enamel. I realize later that I have black latex, so another minor freak out as I really want to drive my truck off the local bridge. I really thought the paint choices were going to be the easy part of this build...boy I sure was wrong!!

I am going to try the latex, I am sure it will be just fine....but I was disappointed no the less.

When I first put up the projector it was coming out as 126 inches and my wife was telling me that was all it could do....I laughed pretty hard inside, I of course was going to tell her she was wrong....so I worked on the mount a bit more and managed to squeeze 132 diagonal out of the projector....I am pretty happy now!!

Hopefully should have some pictures for you tomorrow!
 
#36 ·
So the list of things to do before Tuesday:
Pick paint color and put on 2 coats: Check


Paint Screenwall mouse ears and n8 grey: Half a check....screen is painted 2 coats

put on baseboards: check
put on door casings: check
Caulk baseboards and casings: Monday's project
Repaint doors, baseboards, and casings: Monday as well
Wire all the electrical outlets: check and I only electrocuted myself twice :coocoo:

And a bonus I have the projector up


One last picture is just a view from the top of the stairs to the basement


So at this point I am pretty tired of sweeping the floor. After every little thing you do it makes a mess. Obviously the drywall was the worst, but man cleaning up is no fun :foottap:

I managed to get the Lutron Mastro IR switch installed. I am most excited about this item for the theater. I am currently trying to get it programmed into my Harmony One and I think it's going to be great. My only concern is that it will pick up the IR bouncing off the screenwall cause it will be behind me at the bottom of the stairs. Worst case scenario I will have to point the remote over my shoulder.

I did manage to watch a little bit of Pearl Harbour on the screen once we had just put up the first coat of paint and it was looking pretty good. It's getting so close to being done, I can almost taste it :sn:

Hopefully we can keep things moving along and be done Thursday for the Stampeders Roughriders Game :T
 
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