[cjmilner]

Hi all, I've been reading this forum for quite a while now and have really enjoyed reading everyones threads and watching each home cinema from start to finish, and I thought it was about time I shared my progress with you so far and contribute to the site.

We are currently 4 months into a total overhall of our house, practically everything in the building is being renewed and has been gutted right down to the brickwork. We have actually moved into the house next door which was renovated last year, once we finish work in our house then next door will be sold on.

Firstly the existing detached garage was knocked down in July, then work began on a new attached garage with a kitchen extension to the rear, and new bedrooms with en-suite above the garage. In August the roof was almost totally removed and rebuilt across the bedrooms extension, and a staircase built up into the loft, which is where the home cinema will be!

Kit bought so far: Panasonic AX100E projector, Onkyo 605 receiver, KEF 2005.2 5.1 surround speakers, and a hell of a lot of QED SA XT cables! These are all currently sat in the wardrobe waiting to be let loose.

I've taken 100's of photos so far of the whole of the ongoing building work, the gallery can be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/cjmilner...rt1StartJune07

The room taken from the top of the ladders once all the furniture was taken out (please excuse the orange walls!)

Bedroom ceilings removed (nice open plan effect it created I must admit):

The roof on its way down:

New roof going up:

This was the strangest view to see, walking up the stairs and seeing blue sky above:

I sent a photo of this on my mobile and told people my house had burnt down lol, though they didnt fall for it...

New roof being built:

Hole for the stairs:

Completed roof:

Floor down:

Masses of insulation:

Staircase built:

I'll keep updating as I go along on my Picasa page. Just had the electricians in today fixing the power points, lighting and speaker cabling in before the ceiling goes up and party wall gets soundproofed and plastered up. The projector will hang from the ceiling on a voguls mount, havn't decided on the screen size yet but I guess it will be around 70inches.


-Chris

[avnutter]

nice one fella, keep the pics comin in.

[putbinoot]

just sat through 370 pics, what a job.

[cjmilner]

Originally Posted by putbinoot

just sat through 370 pics, what a job.

Lol, thanks for taking the time to go through them all! Only halfway through the workload so there will be plenty more to come

[M4TT1982]

i also just look at all 370 pics, great work, can i ask how much its cost you?

[Miniholic]

Wow, looks like you've given yourself some work to do there.

If you want to post the pictures in your thread you simply need the url of the image, and post it with [*IMG*] & [*/IMG*] at either end (without the *'s).

e.g.
[IMG*]http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j163/Miniholic/Selfbuild/Sun05thAug05.jpg[/IMG*]

Keep the pics coming.

[shynsingh]

Wow, that sure is a big project, looks really good, keep the pics coming.How did it take from the first image, man on the ladder to the 370th image? Looking forward to watch this one develop.

[cjmilner]

Originally Posted by Miniholic

Wow, looks like you've given yourself some work to do there.

If you want to post the pictures in your thread you simply need the url of the image, and post it with [*IMG*] & [*/IMG*] at either end (without the *'s).

e.g.
[IMG*]http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j163/Miniholic/Selfbuild/Sun05thAug05.jpg[/IMG*]

Keep the pics coming.

Thats what I tried, but I can't seem to find the correct link on my Picasa page to use, if anyone here has used this site for uploading pics to, could you tell me which link to use, it has HTML code to embed into a website, but I cant see any actual addresses of my photos that end in .jpg that i can use between the [img] brackets.

[cjmilner]

Originally Posted by M4TT1982

i also just look at all 370 pics, great work, can i ask how much its cost you?

I really have no idea mate, this is actually my mums house, her partner is a property developer and has renovated the house next door which we are currently living in whilst the work is being done to our house. My project is just in the loft conversion to a cinema! He has a team of builders, electricians and joiners that are spending their time between this house, and one round the corner which was bought on the cheap and is being thoroughly modernised and wants it on the market asap. So work is kinda slowing down on our house at the moment until the other house is completed.

[cjmilner]

Originally Posted by shynsingh

Wow, that sure is a big project, looks really good, keep the pics coming.How did it take from the first image, man on the ladder to the 370th image? Looking forward to watch this one develop.

The work started on 18th July (just looked at the date on the photo!), the garage and bedrooms extension went up within one month, and the roof built in less than a week, its just the insides that take the longest time! The plumber and sparkies have just finished their first fix stage, and the plasterer has reboarded most of the ceilings throughout the house.

The electrician has wired up the cinema room for all the power sockets, lighting wires, and speaker wires for the KEF 2005.2 5.1 surrounds, though there was a little bit of a mix up with what speaker cables he used! Gave him 20 metres of QED Silver Anniversary XT for the front left and right pair, and 30 metres of QED original for the centre and rear surrounds. I came home from work to discover that he had used the correct XT cable for the front left, but had also used it for the rear left, and used the QED original for the remaining 3 speakers! Gave him 'what for' the following morning and he said "arn't all speaker cables the same?" ! Truth be told, I'm not sure that my ears would be able to tell the difference between a fiver a metre cable and one that costs less than half that, but it was just the principal of it, I wanted the same cable to be in pairs front and back, as its meant to be! His excuse was that he ran out of XT to reach the front right speaker so thought it would be ok to use the remaining amount for the rear left instead. So onto eBay I went to order another 13 metres of XT, just waiting for him to return to wire it up into the correct position now.

I would have uploaded more photos tonight of the cabling work, but I seem to have left my cameras USB cable at work so it will have to wait till Monday.

Cheers
Chris

[diesel]

Hi mate.
Just looked through you collection. Quality of workmanship looks aboslutely cock on.

Two questions for you if I may?

Was the step down in the roofline a planning requirement and what was the purpose of pic 332, did you lose something down there?

Can't wait to see the 2nd fix.

Andy Brown

[cjmilner]

Originally Posted by diesel

Hi mate.
Just looked through you collection. Quality of workmanship looks aboslutely cock on.

Two questions for you if I may?

Was the step down in the roofline a planning requirement and what was the purpose of pic 332, did you lose something down there?

Can't wait to see the 2nd fix.

Andy Brown

Yes the step back is a planning requirement, they dont seem to allow an extension to the side of the house to be right to the front, I think its so that it doesnt create a terracing effect to the style of the house, and thus the roofline had to follow above. Regarding pic 332, it was a photo of between the two rows of brickwork from where the knockthrough is leading to the two bedrooms above the garage, I think I was trying to be arty with the shot!

Chris

[cjmilner]

I've continued the photo progression here from the first post, once I worked out how to add the photos!

Large Velux in:

Velux in toilet room:

Velux above stairs:

Plaster boarded out:

Screen wall:

Rear of the house:

Front:

Initial plastering around cupboard areas:

Storage area to the back:

Timber stud work up to separate cinema room, toilet and stairs:

Door frame to toilet room:

Cupboard frames and gap for fridge:

Few new pics of the wiring so far last week:

Boxes for 3 double gang power points on the right, and the singles are for a fused spur for the projector, a TV aerial socket, and the lower left box is where the HDMI to the PJ and 5 speaker cables will exit.

The sparky certainly isnt the tidiest around!:

Power and HDMI cable to the projector:

View to the back of the room showing the cable routes:

-Chris

[cjmilner]

Pics edited in at last

[Mr. Wilby]

Looks really good. Can't wait to see the cinema room develop!

[cjmilner]

Update from today:

Most of the room has been plasterboarded now:

Spot light power cable:

Front left speaker cable:

Rears:

Not far off being able to get the plasterer in to finish the job off now, then theres just the rest of the house to plaster!

[Max Payne]

Excellent project and brilliant progress pics.

Keep them coming, loving this thread

[inzaman]

Originally Posted by Max Payne

Excellent project and brilliant progress pics.

Keep them coming, loving this thread

Same here

[Kenny Glasgow]

Can really see the progress being made now

will you be finished for Christmas?

[cjmilner]

Originally Posted by Kenny Glasgow

Can really see the progress being made now

will you be finished for Christmas?

The cinema room in theory could be finished in a matter of weeks once plastering and decorating is done, but I think it will be early next year when the whole house is finished, and therefore things like carpets wont be fitted until everything is done and dusted, so I dont think il be watching any big screen films for a while yet sadly

Chris

[Kenny Glasgow]

good luck with it Chris, looking forward to seeing the finished job

[albriscoe]

Hi Chris

Its all looking great and it doesn`t seem to long since we were at a similar stage as you. It will come together before you know it trust me and you`ll soon be relaxing and thinking of your next project

Keep up with the pics are they are great for all the would be have a goers.

All the best

Allan

[cjmilner]

Originally Posted by albriscoe

Hi Chris

Its all looking great and it doesn`t seem to long since we were at a similar stage as you. It will come together before you know it trust me and you`ll soon be relaxing and thinking of your next project

Keep up with the pics are they are great for all the would be have a goers.

All the best

Allan

Hi Allan, cheers for the support!

its all taking shape now in the loft, although I have just been in today for the first time in daylight hours since last week, and noticed that the plasterer has poked the front speaker cables through at different distances from the side walls, so are not symetrical! How much trouble have those damn cables caused me, first the electricians put the wrong type of cable in, and now this! Gonna have to try and pull more cable through on the right hand one and make channel it so that its the same distance from the centre as the left hand cable. Arghhh! anyways, more photos to follow...

[cjmilner]

As mentioned above, can you spot the cabling mistake?:

QED HDMI and power cable for projector:

Door into tiny toilet to the left:

Anyone over 5.5 foot has to duck!:

Plenty of cupboard space:

Fridge space here:

Feel free to browse the rest of the images of the whole of the building work here: http://picasaweb.google.com/cjmilner999/BuildingWork

Cheers for now

Chris

[albriscoe]

Hi Chris

its no prob to do the cable, in fact rather now than later I think you`ll agree. Its coming on a treat mate and I like all the storage space you`re creating.

Also I think you`ll be ok with the loo as I`ve never seen a duck taller than 5 foot

cheers and keep the pics coming

Allan

[cjmilner]

Originally Posted by albriscoe

Hi Chris

its no prob to do the cable, in fact rather now than later I think you`ll agree. Its coming on a treat mate and I like all the storage space you`re creating.

Also I think you`ll be ok with the loo as I`ve never seen a duck taller than 5 foot

cheers and keep the pics coming

Allan

Managed to sort the cable problem I think, just been in there cutting a groove in the plaster using a stanley knife and routed the cable 200mm to the right, and left an appolgy note to the plasterer for the mess!

[cjmilner]

Been a while since I posted some photos, the loft is done as far as can be really until the painting and carpets are fitted, though this will be a fair while away as the whole house will be done together.

The plasterer is working his way through the house from top to bottom so so far the loft, 2 new bedrooms, bathroom, and 3 old bedrooms are now done.

The main work that is still underway is the new stonework at the front of the house which the brickies are almost done fitting. This involved the whole of the bay window from top to bottom being pulled down brick by brick and being rebuilt with new clean stonework and steel framing behind for added strength.

See the whole Picasa web album for photos of the rest of the building work (link in sig)


Cupboards fitted with doors and frames in cinema:

Plastering down staircase:

Cheers
Chris

[dbs2]

That is coming on really well, are you ahead of schedule now, dis you do a similar transformation on the house next door, or was that done on a simpler scale as to eventually fund bigger and better improvements on this one ??

Keep up the great work, and keep them pics coming

Deano

[cjmilner]

Yeah was a similar thing next door, though without the loft conversion and smaller kitchen extension, it will be sold on when we move back in to the house which is being done now, sold as part of my mums partners property developing. Don't really have a schedule as such, its just a case of get on with things as steadilly as possible really. I think the main bulk of the work yet to do is the plastering, he seems to be doing almost a room a day which is pretty good going really, then we need to choose the finishing pieces such as wall colours, carpets and bathroom suites, the kitchen has been chosen and the guys are drawing up plans now.

[chrish16]

Hi
THis is looking really great.
Can't wait to see the finished product!