[deadhammer]

Hi all! I've spent what must be hundreds of hours on AVForums soaking up information about prospective purchases, leeching advice and ideas and never really contributed anything - so here's my attempt to put that right...

The idea is to create a room for my kids (girls - aged 7 and 10) that they can enjoy with their mates without worrying too much about spilling drinks/dropping crumbs/jumping on furniture/dancing etc. etc. - basically doing all the things that are frowned upon in our main sitting room (and that they should be doing at their age ). I want the room to be fun, light, have plenty of storage and be kid friendly but at the same time at the touch of a button, be able to convert into a half decent home cinema that they can relax in of an the evening.. You never know - I may even use it from time to time too..

Please feel free to help out where you can - all advice is gratefully received as I will be pretty much making this up as I go along. There are a few known parts to the equation though, as today I've ordered the following :-

1 x Denon 4308 A/V amp
1 x Pioneer PDP-LX508D
4 x Dali IKON Phantom’s
1 x Dali Vokal Phantom Centre
1 x Dali IKON Sub

I also bought the following a while ago with this room in mind but I'm unsure if it all still fits in with my (loose) plans:-
1 x Philips Living Colour light
1 x 8ft wide electric screen
1 x Themescene HD72i projector

I’m hoping that this could turn out to be quite an interesting project as I’ve trawled the net looking for similar ‘kids’ rooms and so far drawn a blank. If anyone here does know of any similarly themed projects that I’ve missed though, either here on AVForums or elsewhere, links etc. would be much appreciated!

I’ll post some pics shortly to show the work done to date and to give you an idea of the 'canvas' I'm working with and lets see where it goes!..

[deadhammer]

OK - these are the before shots... You'll have to forgive the focus on objects within the room as they were taken to try and sell stuff on Ebay rather than to show the room layout. The good thing though, is that I inadvertantly got a view of the room from most angles

You can see from the photos that the only way to enter the room was by the large double door sized hole from the front room. We wanted to create a new doorway so that the room could be entered straight from the hallway - just inside the front door to the house. The location for the new doorway can be seen in shot 3, on the right hand wall where the seat is and to the left of the wooden panel..

[cybrey]

Originally Posted by deadhammer

The idea is to create a room for my kids (girls - aged 7 and 10) that they can enjoy with their mates without worrying too much about spilling drinks/dropping crumbs/jumping on furniture/dancing

PVC the walls / floor / ceiling ( I've heard it wipes clean).

I can't believe your giving up a snooker table for a kids room, I'm trying to convince my Dad to convert his current double garage into a snooker room unfortunatly hes not buying it.

Best of luck with the build.

[miceri]

Originally Posted by deadhammer

1 x Denon 4308 A/V amp
1 x Pioneer PDP-LX508D
4 x Dali IKON Phantom’s
1 x Dali Vokal Phantom Centre
1 x Dali IKON Sub

You have THAT for the kids room . Mate, as long as it is well setup (i.e. one touch start etc) you can't go wrong.

Speaking of which, what about a programmable all-in-one remote. You can download your own graphics to certain models that make it even simpler to use.

Don't forget the popcorn machine...

[deadhammer]

Hi Chaps!

I can't believe your giving up a snooker table for a kids room, I'm trying to convince my Dad to convert his current double garage into a snooker room unfortunately hes not buying it.

Cybrey - Yep I was gutted when I sold the table but the fact was that we just didn't use it. The previous owner left it when we bought the house and we built the room around it - pub style! Great for parties but sadly it remained unused for 99% of the time. I like the idea about the PVC -seriously! I might try and incorporate it somewhere - like a graffiti wall where their mates can leave messages, cool!..

Speaking of which, what about a programmable all-in-one remote. You can download your own graphics to certain models that make it even simpler to use.

Ah - ahem! You've caught me out there Miceri - I forgot to mention the Nevo S70 I ordered with the stuff above ..(Did I mention I might use the room occasionally? ).
I notice that a lot of people on this board favour the Harmony range but they didn't seem to be as customisable as the Nevo. A lot cheaper though!..

[deadhammer]

As I mentioned previously, we decided that we needed an extra door so that the kids and their friends don't have to traipse through the lounge to get to their room.

To achieve this we placed two acro props and a piece of wood on either side of where the door opening was to be and cranked them up until we felt that the props were supporting the weight of the ceiling. Then we started to drill between the courses of blockwork, removing pieces of block as we went. This is my pal Iain doing some of the drilling.

We continued doing this until we had chopped out enough space to fit the concrete lintel (the size of the concrete lintel is dictated by building regs.). Once the opening was wide enough we bedded the lintel in place using a stiff mix of cement.

Once the lintel was in place we let the cement dry and then filled up the remainder of the space with bricks scrounged from a neighbour (Thanks Kev ) we packed the top layer of cement with slate too to make sure that there was a firm base where the ceiling joists rest. After carefully marking out the location for the door (actually we'd obviously done this before we started, but we did double check at this stage as obviously there would be no going back! ) we then started to drill hundreds of holes which we would later chisel out to form the hole for the doorway. We decided not to use a grinder in this case as the amount of dust would have been hideous and, as the door is in the hallway, every room in the house would have been full of the stuff!

Once we'd cut out the door shape it was just a case of pushing the wall down! Before I did this I placed an old 'sacrificial' bar stool behind the wall so that it didn't come down too hard on the concrete floor. Viola - one big hole! -

Then it was just a case of fitting the door casing and door.

Result!

[deadhammer]

has anyone got any handy tips for removing old plaster?

The plaster that's on the walls has a kind of rough 'cake icing' finish which looked OK when the room was in its previous 'pub' guise but won't suit the new room. I had planned on getting it skimmed over but 50% of the plaster was coming away from the wall so I decided it had to go. Having now started the job I realise that where the plaster was coming away from the wall was one type of breeze block (which came off easily) and everywhere else is a different kind of block where the plaster sticks like a limpet to a superglued gecko. I've tried a hammer and bolster, a wrecking bar, bare hands and my head - any other thoughts?

[Mr. Wilby]

Might be overkill, but what about an SDS drill?

[deadhammer]

Thanks Mr Wilby!

I didn't realise that SDS drills had a 'chisel only' mode - doh!

I'm on the lookout for one as we speak. Any recommendations on a particular make/model? I usually go for Bosch or more recently DeWalt, but they can get pretty pricey and may be overkill for, what is essentially, DIY use? I notice there is also SDS, SDS Plus and SDS Max - is there a better size to go for?

[Mr. Wilby]

I'm afraid I don't currently own one so I'm not the best person to ask... I think you can't go wrong with Bosch or DeWalt (also my preferred brands for tooling) but as you say, they are not cheap... but then, they are built to last?

There's some info here on the different types:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_%28engineering%29

(I was also unsure what the difference was until I found this page).

I reckon an SDS would definitely clear it... and hopefully leave the rest of the wall intact

[cybrey]

I'd speak to your plasterer, but, if the old stuff is stuck firmly on just take off the loose stuff and get the plasterer to hardwall the gap, then apply a skim over the top.

Incidentally wrt to buying a SDS drill I bought a cheap one from Screwfix which was on offer at 30/40 quid at the time. It was more than sufficient for going through an exterior wall and creating channels in the wall.

[diesel]

Hi mate.
I bought all Dewalt kit when I did my self build.
Its not the same quality it once was. I have a cordless 24v SDS drill which I've had to have repaired a couple of times. The bloke in the power tool shop told me to buy makita, stihl or fein gear (haven't priced any of this kit up so it might be serious money)

The place I took the drill are Dewalt service agents and he didn't rate their kit at all.

Just a thought but if it's only for one job why don't you buy whatever's cheapest from B&Q. If it breaks whilst your doing the job, take it back and swap it for a new one, repeat until the job is done.

[SeanT]

Best SDS drill (and drill in any guise for that matter) I ever used was a milwaukee. Milwaukee tools