Our Theater Re-Set Is Finally Complete (for now, haha)

**Restless** · **04-10-08, 12:22 PM**

Hello all!

Before I begin, I want to send our thanks to everyone that has ever posted photos of your dedicated rooms for people to view. Your photos gave us such inspiration to work with the small space and small budget that we have. Ours isn't very extravagant, like some of you are so lucky to have, but thanks to being able to see yours, we are very happy with what we've built and are once again enjoying the experience.

My husband and I bought our first home last year and set aside one of the upstairs bedrooms as our dedicated theater. We only set up the basics to get the 12' x 11' room usable while we went to work on the rest of the house during the move-in / set-up stage.

Well, due to some recent improvements we decided to make to the home, a part of our theater was affected and needed to be re-set. My husband put allot of work into this room and just finished it last weekend. The room feels great to us, we absolutely love it! The only pieces lacking at this point are the theater seating and new carpet, both of which we plan to get.

So here are some pics of how our dedicated home theater turned out, although it looks better in person, haha. I've combined some pictures together to see the entire wall, so please be kind towards my photo-shopping skills, haha.

Above shows the view when you first walk into the room.

And the screen wall, of course.

And this image shows the custom built dvd rack across the back wall and the entrance to our concession stand. (Over time, I bet I come up with a refreshment sign, haha.)

**salvasol** · **04-10-08, 10:07 PM**

Nice!!!! ...

Congratulations ... enjoy it!!!

**superchad** · **04-10-08, 10:23 PM**

Hey nice to see you have your own space! There is nothing like your own little movie retreat that isnt a shared space, we love our humble room aswell, you guys have an awesome movie collection and some of the smallest speakers I have ever seen, I at first thought you had in wall speakers. We hope to be able to atleast paint our theater this year, new bouse so everything takes tiime but its a pretty bright room s a dark color like you and others use is hopefully in my future........enjoy!

**Prof.** · **04-11-08, 06:36 PM**

Very nicely done Restless..

Love the colour, and that is some DVD collection..

Your seating looks OK to me..I think I would spend that money on..shall I say, "bigger speakers"..and perhaps a Sub..I didn't see one there..

I have a small theatre also, and it can make a nice cosey set up..

**Restless** · **04-12-08, 09:26 PM**

Thanks for the kind words, we are absolutly loving the experience!

And yes, our speakers are small, haha, but they sound awesome. Because of the size of the room, we opted for a "home theater in a box" system. For such small speakers, we were extremely surprised at how good it sounds. They really blew our last system away. It came with the 5 disc changer, 5 surround speakers and the sub. So far, we are very very happy with it...although Im sure, given time, my husband will want to "upgrade".

**superchad** · **04-12-08, 10:41 PM**

Yes one things is almost certain....men want to upgrade! My wife looked at the pics and she gave me a dirty look afterwards because she said the "Tweety things" in my speakers are bigger than your entire speaker.........I quickly closed the lap top and yawned, we went right to bed

**Restless** · **05-13-08, 12:27 PM**

Looks like you were right, we've added another element! haha.

We just got in our theater seating and absolutely love it! Oh no! This is addictive! haha

**Restless** · **05-13-08, 01:47 PM**

Hmmmm......

So I wonder what will come next?

**salvasol** · **05-13-08, 02:17 PM**

Quote:

Restless wrote:

Hmmmm......

So I wonder what will come next?

Buttkickers!!! ....

**Prof.** · **05-13-08, 07:18 PM**

Quote:

Restless wrote:

Hmmmm......

So I wonder what will come next?

My guess is BIGGER speakers..

Is there a prize for who guesses correctly?

BTW..Very nice chairs..

**Restless** · **05-13-08, 07:44 PM**

I take it I need bigger speakers?

**Prof.** · **05-13-08, 08:04 PM**

Quote:

Restless wrote:

I take it I need bigger speakers?

One thing that I've found over the years, is that the sound needs to match the image..
By that I mean that the image on the screen, needs to be complemented by the sound..

For example...If you had a very big screen and small tinny sounding speakers (I'm not saying yours are) then the sound wouldn't match the size of the image..
Conversely, If you had a fairly small TV set and big powerful speakers( which is similar to my early situation) the image would be dwarfed by the big sound..

It wasn't until I went to a 100" screen, did I feel that my sound matched the size of the image..and this includes the subwoofer aspect as well of course..

**Restless** · **05-14-08, 08:00 AM**

Dang! Thanks, your explaination was great! I never looked at it that way...but I see now...

**Prof.** · **05-14-08, 08:54 PM**

Glad to have helped...One thing I should have mentioned is that you don't necessarily need really big speakers to get a big sound..
My speakers (L&R) only measure 12"x5"x4" deep, but they put out a big sound..

Most of the sound you hear in movies, comes from the centre speaker and to that end I have a massive, powerful centre speaker, which complements the L&R speakers..

My advice if you buy new speakers is to consider spending almost as much on the centre speaker as you do for the L&R speakers..and of course an appropriate size sub to complement the whole system..

**Restless** · **06-19-08, 10:50 AM**

Did everyone miss me while I was gone? Ha-Ha, just kidding. Y'all wont beleive this one, I mean you really wont beleive this!

The last thing anyone here knew of was that we finished our re-do of the theater and we finally got our theater seating. After a shipping fiasco was cleared up and they found the missing chair, we added the seating to the room and were extatic. We got to sit in the theater one time before the next cloud appeared. Are you ready for it??

Two days after we installed the seating, we left the house for work on a normal day. When we got home, the house was flooding from the upstairs bathroom down. Yes, 5000 gallons of water flooded the house while we were at work. I was absolutely livid, to say the least. The supply line to the upstairs toilet blew, so it shot pressurized water out of the bathroom into the hallway, under the side walls of the bathroom into the theater and the guestroom, then crashed thru the ceilings below into the master bath and bedroom. It was an absolute mess! Water raining everywhere leaving drywall and home furnishings completely soaked thru.

All we can say is thank goodness for insurance! When it was all said and done, everything was moved out of the house that was damaged, then we moved out everything else we thought might still get damaged. It took 20 days to completely dry out the house, we moved into a hotel, and 6 weeks later, the contractor is about half way done with repairs. From there, the new flooring will go in and we will be able to start moving our belongings back into the house. We know things will work out better than ever, but its just such a headache.

Soooooooo, can you beleive it? All the work we did to our theater not just once, but twice, and now we will be re-doing it yet again. Actually, you have to laugh at that part, another re-do. I've learned that if you dont laugh, you go nutz.

A good thing that has happened, our luck has actually made other people realize that they are blessed and they end up being glad to have the trials and tribulations that they have.

**salvasol** · **06-19-08, 12:50 PM**

Things happen for a reason

... will you change anything to the HT room or just re-do it the way it was

Good luck

**Restless** · **06-19-08, 12:57 PM**

Very true, and as far as the re-do, if we change anything, it would be minimal. We liked it before the flood, so we'll see what happens. Im never against a possible change, hahaha.

**tonyvdb** · **06-19-08, 01:55 PM**

wow, There is nothing worse than the feeling that you get when you find out all your hard work is gone in an instant. I hope everything works out for you.
Did your AV equipment get ruined?

**Restless** · **06-19-08, 02:50 PM**

You are completely right, took me 3 weeks to get over that feeling. Luckilly, all of our equipment was either hanging from the ceiling, or in cabinets and didnt get hit. The legs of the seating were wet, but we immediatly got them out of the way. The next day, we took all the electronics etc out of the house while everything was drying. Between the moisture and the heat thru the drying process, we were affraid things would fry. So, for a shorter answer, I think everything was saved in the theater.

**Prof.** · **06-19-08, 07:22 PM**

I know the feeling..

My house got flooded about two years ago..not from anything happening inside , but from a flooded road that had nowhere to go except through my house..

I like you had insurance and everything got re-placed with brand new products..Quite a blessing really..
It also gave me the opportunity to re-design the HT..and the end result was an even nicer theatre..

Good luck with your re-build..

**superchad** · **06-21-08, 11:15 PM**

Man that sucks, If you can insert the new automatic shutoff water valves so that never happens again, they are only a few bucks and stop water leaks when they sense a large jump in pressure, as you already can attest they are well worth it!
You know a really great speaker for not much cash is the Axiom line of speakers found both new and used very affordably, I was hinting that I felt your speakers were too small but didnt want to insult or hurt anyones feelings but they do need to match the scale of the picture. Now I have overkill speakers that are just under 6ft tall and each weigh over 300lbs but I am a big music guy so they are outstanding for rock and large scale Classical music and about any speaker thats great for music is a no brainer for movies. Check out Axiom and see if you like what they offer, for the cash they have no business sounding so good!
Best of luck on your re-do, if your gonna have to repaint your room check out the Suade paint from Ralph Lauren at Home Depot, it comes in many shades and you guessed it, it looks and feels like Suade and has that classy look. I am going to repaint my HT soon but probably next year but am doing a accent wall in living room next week in a baseball glove leather shade of the Suade, my friend used another shade and it looks awesome. At $35 per gallon it isnt cheap and it takes a rolling and brush application but the payoff is well worth it. Best of luck, I am pullin for ya!

**Restless** · **06-24-08, 11:06 AM**

Awesome suggestions, thanks!! I like the idea of the suede, so Im definitely gonna check that out. And do you know where we would look for the automatic shutoff water valve? I asked my husband about that and he said he's never seen them but is very interested in that idea also so I'd like to find them. Thanks again.

**superchad** · **06-28-08, 10:34 PM**

Go to DIYNETWORK.COM and look under the "Cool tools" file of shows, thats where I saw it.....cheers

**splitz** · **07-09-08, 03:06 PM**

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