Dressing Up My Retractable Screen

[Tiddler]

Unfortunately my situation demanded a retractable screen. It also demanded it look nice since it would be hanging 30" from the wall in front of our existing home entertainment equipment.

My first desire was to hide the screen case in the ceiling. To that end I cut the floor open in the room above. My biggest worry was that there would be no easy way to get power to the screen. Much to my dismay the house wiring all ran through the worst possible location and that ended that idea.

Here was the idea and why I had to abandon it:

[Tiddler]

Screen Valance

The in-ceiling was a wash so I went back to the drawing board and came up with an idea for a valance to enclose the screen case. I used baseboard molding since it was long enough. I also found that I could get deck boards in long enough lengths to span the room. Two deck boards are attached to each other to make a top and back mounting structure. The whole thing is only attached to the ceiling at the ends. That way I did not put holes in my nice stippled ceilings.

[Tiddler]

I also added some simple 120v puck light to the back of the back of the valance and there is an infrared remotcontrol light switch on the wall. This provides a nice back lighting effect to provide some light when watching movies.



And finally relaxing to watch
a movie on the big screen.

[mechman]

Todd,

I'd like to see a shot of what it looks like with just the puck lights on. Don't care if anything is on the screen, seems like it would look pretty good...

mech

[Tiddler]

Just the back lighting and some room lights on:


A few shots from the Omen:

[mechman]

I like it! Looks good!

[wbassett]

I like the valance, it hides the screen housing and makes it disappear.

Great job Todd it is a very professional looking job and great tutorial thread.

[Tiddler]

Ya it turned out ok. I still think a nice slot in the ceiling would have been cool. I could also put one of Da-Lites 3" roller type screens in there. I don'y think they will fit inside this valance though.