Another Newbie Joins The Ranks

[Mansionmanager]

I have never been on a forum, but I sure look forward to the help on my theater, and I can also give a lot of help if anyone wants to know about raising the ceiling in your theater, electrical, carpentry and drywall work.

I have been working on my theater (weekends only) for about a year. I have a lot of pictures and stories to share.

Best Regards To All,

Robert

[Mike P.]

Welcome Robert! Glad you joined us!

[Blaser]

Hello Robert!

We are ready and awaiting to hear and share stories Your help will be very highly appreciated. Start a thread and let's discuss!

[John Simpson]

Welcome Robert -- looking forward to the pics!

[Sonnie]

Howdy Robert and welcome to the Shack!

We are always looking for a few good men to help out...

[Mansionmanager]

Thanks for the welcome!

I hadn't really planned on starting a home theater until I won a Sony projector at a company outing.

I thought it would be pretty simple, just mount the projector on the ceiling in my livingroom and get a screen. I looked up at my 8' ceiling and thought the projector would look really low, so I wondered what it would take to make a "tray" ceiling, that is, come in about 2 feet from the wall along the entire perimeter and then cut out the ceiling, reframe the trusses and raise the ceiling about 20".

(At this point I tried to upload some photo's but recieved a message that my pic sizes were too large 2016x1512, to manually resize and return)

I will try to resize my pic file and attach on the next post.

In the meantime, let me just say that after cutting out the drywall ceiling, and making a HUGE mess with the falling blown in insulation (which was made easier to clean up by installing plastic sheeting on the floor) I realized that almost EVERY wire that powers my home seemed to run right through the area that I wanted to raise. And of course, not one wire had enough slack in it to stretch up and over the 20" raise, so EVERY one had to be cut and extended with additional house wiring and electrical boxes.

Then there was the main air conditioning trunk line that had to be raised.

The framing was fairly simple. Just BOLT in new 2x6 vertically from the bottom of each truss to the very top, closest to the roof decking. Drill out and bolt (I used 5/8" bolts, nuts and washers) every place where the 2x6 intersects with your existing truss. Then bolt on another 2x6 horizontally at the height you want your ceiling to be. After ALL trusses are bolted, just cut off the bottom stringer of your original truss. It may sound a little confusing but you will see in the pics that I will be sending.

I will be back soon with some pics.

Robert

[mechman]

Welcome to the Shack Robert!

[Mansionmanager]

Thanks Again for the welcome!

Here are a couple of pics of my ceiling / framing.

It is now completely wired and drywalled (5/8)

Note that my blue wall has been framed over with a double wall. I left a 1" space between the original wall and the newly framed wall. (It sure made it easier to wire) I also run large pvc conduit in wall to make it easier to run future wiring if needed. Walls are now insulated and drywalled. I also took the opportunity to add double pocket doors into the entryway while framing the new inside walls.

I adjusted the picture size, and uploaded. I hope it works.

Best Regards,

Robert

[Blaser]

Robert,

Where? Do I have anything wrong with my computer?

[nova]

Welcome to the Shack Robert.

[salvasol]

blaser wrote:

Robert,

Where? Do I have anything wrong with my computer?

Nope ... I think he's not allowed yet to post pictures, links, etc. (10 posts rule???)

Unless the boss can lift that ...

[Mansionmanager]

It may be that 10 post rule is blocking my pic uploads. I'll just keep trying until I reach the 10 posts.

It also may be that I am doing it wrong. I tried "insert image" on the taskbar - which did nothing at all, then I went to "manage attachments" found my resized pics and clicked "upload" but I never got a confirmation that it was sent. I will try again now.

Thanks for your interest.

Robert

[Blaser]

Robert, It worked! Great place!

[bobgpsr]

Makes me want to get out my old "Statics and Strength of Materials" engineering college textbook and do a structure analysis.