Hi,
Thought I would give a brief run down on the formation of my home cinema room.
We bought our present house almost 3 years ago, the previous owners had carried out a number of modifications; the garage at the side of house originally was not attached to the house, they extended the garage and lengthened it slightly, then joined the garage to the house by means of a conservatory. The newly lengthened garage was converted into two rooms, one a useful utility room, the other an office measuring 7.5 ft wide and approx 15 ft long.
My job requires me to work from home, so the office space appealed to me (and the wife). I figured the room would also make a good (albeit compact) media / cinema room.
The room has to fulfil 2 roles, one is an efficient office environment, the other a comfortable “big boys” toy room (read media / cinema / gaming room).
I wanted the cinema / games consoles and DVD’s etc to be integrated / hidden, so I constructed a false wall at the end of the room giving an approx 2.5 ft void. At low level within the void I have mounted the amplifier / dvd players and games consoles, along with the B&W speakers (fronts: 602 S3, centre: B&W LCR60) and a subwoofer (originally a Paradigm PDR10). Above the equipment within the void I have fitted shelving to the original wall which holds all the DVD’s and games. A large cut-out in the false wall allows access to the DVD’s and games. I purchased a Beamax 92” pull down manual screen which is mounted to the front of the false wall which covers the cut-out access hole. So when the screen is down you cannot see any DVD’s or games, further cut-outs at low level allow the equipment to sit flush with the front of the false wall.
The equipment sits on cheap Ikea bedside tables with castors on, the false wall at low level is held in place with hidden magnets so as to allow easy removal of the false wall, and then the equipment racks can just be rolled out.
About 2/3rds of the way back in the room I have wall mounted at high-level the rear speakers (B&W 600s).
The colour of the room is a Dulux colour match I did, I spent along time deciding on colour, then one day I was working at a building in London which happens to be a recording studio and I saw the colour I wanted, I asked an engineer what the colour was, he didn’t know but he did give me a small piece of timber which had the colour painted on to allow me to match it.
The previous owners also fitted patio style doors to the office room which overlook the back garden. I have fitted a dark blue Ikea back-out blind and formed some MDF “sides” which prevent light leakage around the blind when down. The room is now well light controlled.
Recent additions / modifications to the system have included a PS3 for BD playback and a Monolith FF sub to replace the Paradigm. The Monolith has been perhaps the single biggest upgrade I have ever made to the system – it is awesome.
As the cinema room is right at the back of the house and not really attached other than via the conservatory and we are a detached property I can run the room at very high levels even at night and know one hears a thing (the room was fully insulated when it was converted by the previous occupiers).
I have been after decent comfortable seating in the room for ages, was up until recently using a couple of cheapo recliners/rocker chairs which were showing their age. Then I saw a couple of black recliners in Homebase reduced to £99 each – not sure if they would be too wide to have 2 in my room – but thought what the hell at that price and got them and truth be told I am chuffed to bits with them – very comfortable (and not too wide).
At the other end of the room I have my PC within an Ikea cabinet work-station, the cabinet also acts as a stand for the Sanyo Z3 720p projector. Whilst working I also decided I needed more desk space, so I constructed a wall mounted fold-up table out of MDF and painted the same colour as the room, so when I am “at work” I have the table up for my laptop, then when I am at “play” I fold the table down again to regain the space. This arrangement has worked well for a couple for years now.
The equipment in the room is presently:
Cinema Mode:
Sanyo Z3 Projector
Denon 3802 Receiver
Pioneer 565 DVD player (multi region)
Panasonic HS2 DVD / HD recorder (multi region)
Sony free-view box
Xbox 360 and HD-DVD add on
Sony PS3
B&W 602S3, LCR60, 600s
B&K Monolith FF
Office Mode:
Home built Shuttle XPC with Athlon 3000 64 bit with a 200gb HD, 1gb Ram, running XP media centre 2005
Video 7 17” LCD monitor
Netgear wireless ADSL router
Maxtor 250gb external drive.
Acer company wireless laptop.
The Sanyo Z3 receives video feed via the Denon amplifier for video switching (all via component), but also a DVI-HDMI converted feed from the PC so that I can use the PC on the big screen if I so wish. The external hard drive contains all my music, which can be played back through the PC (which is wired back to the Denon) – but is also networked to a Shuttle PC in the lounge which can also stream music from the external HD (pumped through a separates Sony amp and wall mounted KEF speakers).
Future plans for the room (funds permitting) include the addition of a wall mounted DX heat-pump split air conditioner – I currently use a portable air conditioner but it is bloody noisy. Also want some better lighting control – currently the recessed ceiling lamps are controlled on a single circuit via an infra-red Varilight switch. May paint the computer work station so that it blends into the room better.
I would like to end by saying that this room has been put together on a budget, and I am no DIY expert, so some of the finishes are not perfect, but I have learnt a lot from the experience. The room gets a lot of use both as an office and as a “play” room. My 4 year old daughter loves watching movies in there – worth every penny IMO.
A few pics can be seen here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Colin.Sh...inemaApril2007
Any questions / constructive comments greatly received.
Sheks
05-04-2007, 5:16 PM
E. & O.E.
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