Anybody carpeted their walls in their cinema room?

[dazzler9000]

Hello,

I converted my garage into a little games room. It's been plaster boarded and covered in artex as I didn't fancy trying to plaster it. It's currently white which is nice and bright for the daytime, but I thought it would have a more authentic cinema feel if it had carpet or some kind of covering on the walls.

I'm not keen to paint it black as this would be too dark. I was thinking of a nice cream or grey carpet would give a nice cosy feel. I'm not bothered about acoustics, this is purely for looks. I think I would also benefit from a covering as I use a projector in the room.

Has anybody done anything similar and know of a lightweight carpet/covering, the cheaper the better!!

Cheers.

[dazzler9000]

Anyone??

[Gary Lightfoot]

I covered the lower walls and complete screen wall in foam backed carpet. The screen wall needs to be completely absorptive and the side and back walls only from ear height down, otherwise the room may be too 'dead' if you cover it completely and you need some reflectivity. MY room suffered a lot from slap echo until I did that so it worked from that perspective, but without doing any analysis I've no idea what the overall effects to the sound were. It sounded better than it did before so that was something. It can also be quite cheap.

I had plasterboard and wood chip walls (loft conversion) but just in case I wanted to remove the carpet in the future, I used thick wallpaper paste to stick it up with. If it needed to come down a steamer would have been used.

I've seen some people use carpet floor to ceiling and they seemed quite happy with it.

Dark colours are better as lighter ones reflect light back onto the screen more. If you have a mixed scene the bright parts cause reflections off of the side walls which can bounce back and effect the dark parts of the image. It can be measured as ANSI contrast and a poor room can reduce that own to around 50:1. it won't effect the on/of contrast though.

Gary

[andymckay2001]

Yup, carpet tiled the complete room. Floor, walls and ceiling. Its great, it manages to capture the feeling of a deadish sound when you walk into a cinema.

Dark slate coloured tiles, costs about £300 if i remember correctly

[dazzler9000]

Thanks guys, just what I wanted to hear....

I like the idea of having it all carpeted as I think it will look better. Sound isn't really an issue, as my garage backs out onto a quite road, so I never play the sound too loud anyway as I don't want to attract unwanted attention. Because of this I've started to use headphones a lot now anyway for games and the odd movie.

So colours, is it preferred to have a black on the screen wall and a dark grey on the others?

How good are carpet tiles at joining together, can you see the separate squares? Are they flexible enough to bend around corners?

[Gary Lightfoot]

The carpet won't do anything for soundproofing but may help attenuate some high frequency reflections. Soundproofing is a whole different ball game. You will often see people referring to 'first reflections' and these are the points where the sound coming from the speakers first hits the side walls and bounces off (possibly causing echo because those sound waves arrive a little after the sound wave that you hear directly from the speaker). There are various ways of determining these points but if you cover all the wall up to a little above ear height you should cover those points automatically.

For best results, use black all round, including the floor and ceilings (putting carpet on the ceiling isn't a good idea, so use something else, maybe panels using velvet or Maplins speaker grill felt, or paint). Next best would be having black approx 1.5m+ into the room so there are no direct light reflections near the screen. Having an all black area around the screen means you can only see the image and nothing else, so nothing (including reflections) can distract you. That makes a big difference to the image all on its own.

I'd use carpet on the lower walls, and Maplin black speaker felt on the upper walls (above ear height). This would allow the carpet to tame the first reflections, but still allow the upper walls to still be reflective. You could use a dado rail or similar to finish the join between the two.

Gary

[dazzler9000]

Thanks for the reply Gary.

I’ll definitely aim to use black as much as possible. The room’s main use is for cinema and gaming, but I’m keen not to completely black it out. I know I shouldn’t be bothered, but I don’t like the idea of a dark room!!

I think I’ll carpet floor to ceiling, as sound/acoustics isn’t really an issue. So if I use a foam-backed carpet, is the glue likely to hold it in place ok? Did the wallpaper paste show any signs of coming loose?

[Gary Lightfoot]

I converted the loft in 2000 and moved in 2007, and it was still up and showing no signs of slipping. Foam backed seemed to work well with the glue but to make sure it stayed in place while drying I used some tacks or similar just to stop it slipping.

Initially I didn't want a completely dark room so used Kodak 18% grey, but found later that for image quality with black walls/ceiling black was a big improvement. I used some black felt speaker cloth from the screen wall to 1.5m into the room and it was a great improvement. With lights on it doesn't look too bad, but if you want a room that isn't completely black you could do black on the first 2m from the screen and the rest a lighter colour maybe?

Gary

[dazzler9000]

Yes, it definitely makes sense to get the best image possible by using black.

Anybody got any pics of their carpeted room?

[dazzler9000]

Right then, I think I've decided on carpets.

Can anybody advise on an adhesive? I'm not really keen on buying 15 cans of aerosol, plus I'm not sure whether it's up to the job.

Any other options apart from wallpaper paste?

[kevo35]

something like F3 adhesive from F Ball

[dazzler9000]

Thanks, would this be ok sticking to artex??

[Gary Lightfoot]

I'd be inclined to rub down the artex and get it as flat as possible so that the glue has more surface to stick to. You could even use the skim coat stuff that's designed to be plastered over it.

Gary

[kevo35]

also prime the walls before sticking

[dazzler9000]

It's a fairly light artex, so I was hoping to get away from that. I'll see how I go.

Cheers for all the help guys.