Smurfin's new lounge project

[Smurfin]

Hi all

Like many on the forums, I've read many threads on here and wished I was in a position to do a "proper" job and take on a decent project. There are so many reasons why I've not been able to do this previously, finances being an obvious one, but also having the right property. I've only owned one house before (stupidly I spent 12 of the last 15 years renting ), and even that one wasn't suitable as a project as I bought the house with a mate and it was always a temporary thing - a 2 year investment really which would change when "one of us got married". As a result, my setup was the usual room dominating affair, which I was pleased with at the time. The setup in question can be seen HERE ....that seems a very long time ago now, and almost all of the setup has changed since then (in fact I sold most of it on the forums a couple of months ago).

Fast forward a couple of years, and it ended up with me getting married The wife and I were originally planning on saving for another year and waiting to see how the housing market went, but with the prospect of our first baby arriving in October () we got our skates on, bought a stupidly big project that of course we underestimated, and took possession of the new house 4 weeks ago.

Alot has happened in that time. The house itself is pretty big, it's detached and I'm lucky enough to have a spare downstairs room which can be used as a dedicated cinema room Sadly, although the structure of the house is fine, there's lots that needs doing, with ceilings, lighting, flooring, bathrooms, kitchen all needing attention, as well as extensive decoration (oh and the garden is a mess). Ultimately this means that a. We can't even move in yet and b. the cinema room is a good 18 months away.

Everything has cost so much more than I was originally anticipating - such are houses! - so we're having to do things bit by bit, but what this does mean is that I need to focus on the living room setup as I can't go without my AV fix for 18 months!

The brief is to achieve the following:

Good sound quality
Discrete setup
All electronics hidden away
Child friendly
Distributed video throughout the house
Hard-wired network distributed throughout the house
Review of general lighting

Oh and lots of other wife satisfying house stuff

If anyone is interested I'll post some pics of the other rooms, but I'll mainly focus on the living room and family rooms as that's where all the good AV stuff is happening

The previous owners were kind enough to leave us a moving in card. The card sums it up really, but what I really wish is that they'd left some industrial strength cleaning solution as the moment we walked through the front door with the keys we were hit with the stench of years of stale smoke, the smell of dogs and parrots and God knows what else....... Anyway, I had fun in the living room with a hammer.....

So...4 weeks in and how does it look? Proper pics coming over the weekend....

[alz2605]

Congrats on the the new house, new wife, new expectant baby and the new to be dedicated set up

I'll be enjoying following your thread given how good your last set up looked and I for one would love to see the before and after of all the rooms in your house as no doubt AV and tech will sneak into most of them

All the best mate

[Da_Rude_Baboon]

Originally Posted by alz2605

Congrats on the the new house, new wife, new expectant baby and the new to be dedicated set up

+1 to that.

I would be very interested to see the progress of the rest of your house as well as the AV centric rooms so please keep us updated. I'm also interested in your ideas on lighting as i've lived in houses with terrible lighting and its now one the things i really intend to get right on my upcoming project. I've bought quite a few lighting books trying to learn how to do it properly and i can highly recommend Residential Lighting: A Practical Guide. Its very informative with out getting overly complicated (its aimed at professional designers) and surprisingly entertaining in places.

[Smurfin]

Thanks chaps In terms of lighting, I've not been able to do hardly anything really The project is going to be done in stages, and some of the nice-to-haves just haven't worked out. I had some funky, LED wall lights for the stairs and landing which activate on a motion sensor, but time and money have run away with me. Ultimately, I've got a deadline to work to (i.e. baby), and it's looming fast. As a result, there's been a couple of errors which I can't afford to rectify.

Anyway, this is how it looked when the old owners lived there.

First up, you can't miss the hall when you open the front door, it's huge....

The room beyond the open door to the left is going to be the cinema room (the previous owners used it as a 5th bedroom, and it's got it's own ensuite - needless to say this is going to be ripped out (albeit not for a good year at the rate we're going!)

The big double doors to the left of the front door house the VERY old consumer board (uh-oh, wiring woes here we come?) and also double as a cloakroom for coats, shoes and whatever junk needs to be hidden. The plan is use it for coats and shoes, the dyson and the mop n bucket But you lot aren't interested in that, so I'll add that the entire house networking will be routed back to here, to a patch panel and the server, which all fits in very nicely

And from the very back of the hall:

There are two arches left and right of the upright at the bottom of the stairs. I don't particularly like it, but I've discovered that they're there for a structural reason. The stairs themselves are a bit of a hack job - the side rail doesn't run to the floor but to the bottom post, but although the floor is concrete, the post just sits on top. So cut down the post, remove the arches and I'll end up with one unstable set of stairs Gutted really, but this one is a can of worms so we've decided to leave it as it is for now.

Shot of void under the stairs:

As the ensuite in the cinema room is going to be ripped out in time (and I wouldn't use it now anyway, it's disgusting!), we're going to put a cloakroom under here

The lounge is to the left of the hall:

The good wife and I had a big debate about this one. The fireplace is an original, working solid fuel fire, but it's huge. Typically our living rooms have had the plasma as the centre piece, but a 60" panel over that thing simply wouldn't work (heat, size and aesthetics all spring to mind ).

Having no fireplace is out of the equation too, as we've both always wanted a real fire, and to be honest a living room almost needs something else other than a bank of speakers and a big TV. But they have to go somewhere. Like this wall:

[Smurfin]

So there you have it, I couldn't wait to get in there on day one and rip out the carpets. Which is exactly what I did, along with the ensuite toilet, sink, shower tiles and every other grotty thing which was loose in the house

What a satisfying sight....

The pile of dirt is from the trench I had to dig for the new understairs cloakroom - why I dug the run for the soil pipe in the first week is beyond me. But smashing other things from the house with the mattock was fun anyway

[Smurfin]

More to come, but it's late and I'm knackered. I have to finish prepping all the upstairs floors for sanding tomorrow

[Smurfin]

Poo. Sorry folks, I've just realised I haven't resized all of the photos - oops. The grotty ensuite looks even grottier that size (I'll resize them over the next couple of days if they're too big or the page is moving too chuggy for people).

[Smurfin]

Back to the living room. Finally the room is empty, the carpet has been ripped out (I needed a face mask for that job), and the blinds are down for the shutter people to measure (we're having plantation shutters pretty much throughout the house):

This is the wall where the AV magic is going to happen. We noticed there's no radiator in the room, just these two pipes sticking up which the sofa was hiding.

Not the most enthralling photo, but it was satisfying to get the first job on the list done - pipes gone!

[Smurfin]

You may think I'm jumping the gun here (considering at this point we had no power, no water, no carpets, and a whole lot of dust flying around the house), but there is a good reason for putting the plasma on the wall

We need to set this out properly, as alot revolves around this space, as my pencil marks show (or not )

[Smurfin]

Sadly the plasma went back in the box, where it's still living and will be for at least another month

One thing you probably can't tell from the photos is that the living room ceiling is wallpapered, as well as the area above the picture rail. This is a problem as I plan on having recessed ceiling and wall-wash lights, because wherever you find wallpaper on a ceiling, you know it's there for a reason. I was right, as it turned out the ceiling is good old lathe and plaster, which means I need to get it overboarded to ensure a good clean finish. So in goes the claw hammer on the coving. I looked like a snowman after this exercise....

[Smurfin]

Ceiling almost boarded....bye bye wallpaper....forever

Walls chased to house left speaker. Door closed, goggles and face mask on (that was the electrician, not me ) - from outside the house it looked like a bomb had gone off inside, as dust was billowing out onto the street

The cut-out is seriously oversized, but it needs to be as a timber frame needs to be set inside (it seems the speakers were designed for stud walls only )

Right speaker setting out marked on the wall. Shame the door can get in the way, but as the speakers are recessed it's not a problem, and the door will be shut when watching movies etc

[Smurfin]

More chasing, more dust, but now left and right speaker cavities chased, as are other cable runs:

Cables run and chases filled, spots are now fitted in the ceiling:

3 x Mark Grant HDMIs are routed to the plasma. I don't need 3 (except for their usefulness when it comes to ISF'ing the panel again). It's also nice finally having a power socket exactly where I need it - one for the panel, one for the screen backlighting

[namuk]

Why you bothering with heavy duty Hdmi cables .. just get cheap Christmas cracker ones i.e supplied £2 ones..

there all the same..

[Smurfin]

Rear right and left speaker cables chased:

You'll notice that the spots are in the ceiling (all except wall-wash lights for some artwork), and this is where the first problem comes in. I based the lighting spec on the basis of my old house, but the old room was longer and narrower, and had a lower ceiling. As a result, with 6 x 50w downlights, it simply doesn't look bright enough

I love "light pools", but it's just too dull - it's mood lighting (which we both like), but sometimes we may want it brighter. The difficult thing to judge is how much effect the bare plaster ceiling and orange walls are having, I'm hoping it's significant because I couldn't justify the £400 to add more lights and change the setting out of the existing ones.

Basically, the lights are set out in two grids of three:

There are two more lights to go in, one on either side of the middle spots, but these are to highlight art more than anything else, and I don't think they'll add anything more than a bit of ambience. We'll see though, because it's too late to go back. White ceiling, jasmine white walls and maybe a floor standing lamp will do that trick

[Smurfin]

Originally Posted by namuk

Why you bothering with heavy duty Hdmi cables .. just get cheap Christmas cracker ones i.e supplied £2 ones..

there all the same..

I've never seen 6m Xmas crackers ones and I for one wouldn't risk a crappy £2 cable in the wall which is permanent. They weren't actually that expensive, especially if you ask nicely - plus Mark tested each of them before he sent them to me. Expensive mistake if there's something wrong

PS - I don't subscribe to the whole £90 on a 1m HDMI cable thing either