CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

disconnect · Joined: 22 Jun 2010 Posts: 3 Location: Ottawa, ON, Canada

Hey everyone,

I'm new to these forums, but have been reading the info on the site for a while now. I was hoping to get some advice. I will be buying my first home very soon, it will be a 3 story townhome. The home isn't built yet, which means I can get pretty much anything built in, wired, or modified... so long as I let them know soon.

I'm very interested in getting a home theater set up in the family room but don't really know the best way to go about doing so given my available space. In fact, I'm not sure I even have enough space for a proper set up. I guess that is why I'm here, I've attached the floor plan, it would be great to get some advice on potential set ups if any are available.

Thanks!

Chris

P.S. in the attached image, the right wall of the family room is about 14', the left wall is 11'

zaphod · Joined: 16 Jun 2006 Posts: 2002 Location: Cloverdale

i moved into my new house a year back with similar ideas, and here is what i've realizing.

if you are comfortable pulling wire yourself, can you have the family room left "unfinished"? they may need to slap up drywall above grade for code (that is how code reads here in BC) but unpainted with no ceiling drywall makes it easier to do your own thing in your own time.

if it is unfinished, don't let the trades get lazy and staple the wiring et al to the underside of the ceiling joists. have them go through the joists as if the room was being finished - i have a dozen or more wires to punch through joists, as well as a gas line and a water line - grrrr.

replace the sliding patio doors with double solid exterior doors. just as much access, more secure, darker for the theatre and not as cold.

as for your room in particular, on which wall are you planning to have the screen? to me the left or right would work. if you have it on the right, you can use the mud room for an Infinite Baffle subwoofer...

the corner to the right of the swing door into the family room look prime for the equipment rack. you could consider having them frame that in, unless you are comfortable doing that yourself.

if you can figure out the layout, and want to have them run wires, then get them to run plenum grade speaker wire to the 7 locations and coax to the .1 location. looking at the wall layout, having the screen on the right will get you a wall where the right surround wants to be, if the screen is on the left, then you end up with nowhere to mount the left surround.

disconnect · Joined: 22 Jun 2010 Posts: 3 Location: Ottawa, ON, Canada

Hey Zaphod,

Thanks for the quick reply. They wont leave this room unfinished, there is actually an unfinished basement below this level though, so if i had to go under the floor to run speaker wire to the rear, it could be done.

So, you don't think this space is to small? I'm on the same page as you with regards to the layout. I would ideally put the screen on the right wall, with the equipment stored to the right of the entrance as you said. I'm not entirely sure what I should go with as far as projectors, still trying to figure that out. I have a nice leather sofa set that I would like to be able to use down there, perhaps put the love seat up on a platform behind the sofa or something.. I know this would be unusual but I'd had to ditch a new sofa set as I'd never recoup what i paid for it.

Would it be worth getting the guys doing the wiring to wire some sort of video drop on the ceiling for the projector? If so, what cable would I use and how far back would I want to be? Do I need to know which projector I want before answering these questions?

Cheers,

emdawgz1 · Joined: 14 Mar 2006 Posts: 7949

disconnect · Joined: 22 Jun 2010 Posts: 3 Location: Ottawa, ON, Canada

zaphod · Joined: 16 Jun 2006 Posts: 2002 Location: Cloverdale

my bad, i assume it was the basement level we were looking at.

okay, if you need the basement for storage, that's the way it is. but finishing a basement isn't hard. and i have a contact in ottawa if you decide to have someone else do it.

16x11 is tight, but my last theatre was 12x18 and i had the screen 4 1/2 feet from the front wall. if you pull your screen tighter to the wall you should be fine. speaker size will be affected by that size a room as well.

you might want to do exterior french doors instead of exterior solid doors for the slider replacement.

since this family room will be the first floor and finished, the speaker wire up from below should be fine. for the ceiling, have them put a 15amp circuit and a cable run from the equipment spot to the projector location. they'll probably use vacuum tubing for the cable run. after you move it you run hdmi/rgbhv/vga/whatever to the PJ.

if they won't put in a cable run, then have them run both hdmi and a 5 wire coax bundle (handles vga or rgbhv or component).

what type of PJ are you considering? CRT? good. many people find them a bit noisy. so they surround the PJ with a box to quiet things (a "hush" box) but that requires venting to prevent the CRT from overheating. So see if your contractor will install a bathroom fan where you want the PJ. They can vent it outside over the doors or behind yoy depending on which way the joists run.

If you don't end up with a CRT in a hush box, the fan will be pretty much invisible with a nice grill. If you do end up with a CRT, and a hush box, then you are looking at tearing out the ceiling to get the venting.

Good luck and have fun in your house!!

JustGreg · Joined: 07 Mar 2006 Posts: 3098 Location: Kenosha, WI

Welcome Chris!

I'm a big believer in getting what you pay for so I tend to lean toward claiming that real estate under your proposed garage. I researched spanning precase concrete slabs when I moved into my house 11 years ago but they're for new construction only. My home is 30-ish years old now with an attached 2 car garage, so unless I tore it down and started over ($$$$), it 'taint gonna happen.

Can you modify the plans or are you locked in? I ask because you can have the water heater and furnace moved pretty much anywhere you want them and now is the time to do it. I'd get them into a corner as close to the walls as possible to free up space just in case you later decide to finish the basement. It seems daunting but studding, insulating, wiring, and drywalling is easy, isn't overly expensive, and moves along so quickly that you and a helper could have it done in 4 weekends or so.
Just seems a shame to pay 1/2 your (our) mortgage for dirt storage. (Under the garage).

Sharing a room with a CRT based theater requires special considerations...wall treatments should be non reflective but not necessarily dark as night, you'd have to have blackout curtains/drapes/blinds, the ceiling shouldn't be stark white, bright white furniture can reflect light back to the screen and wash out the image to a certain extent, then there's all the hours of tweeking and adjusting.... Rolling Eyes

It's tough to get everyone in the house to buy into sharing living space with a CRT pj. Your situation might be better suited to *gulp* a large flat panel solution. Bright vivid images and life can continue on around it. Contrast ratios are coming up with every generation of direct view panels and in many models offer better CR than alot of CRT projectors still in use.

There's a slew of precast garage flooring systems if you Google 'precast garage floor'. It adds a chunk to building costs but it would be worth it IMO if you can swing it.

Good luck and congrats on your new home. Thumbs Up