A dreamer stops dreaming

Triggaaar

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No, I’m not The Dreamer, I’m just a dreamer. Thread title unashamedly stolen from Phil, as my build has a fair few similarities with his, and I’m hoping for plenty of advice from him :)

For those who haven’t seen his thread, here’s a link:
The Dreamer stops dreaming!

Before getting on to our build, I’d like to thank all the pioneers who’ve lit the way for mortals to follow. The threads on here have been the inspiration behind our plans.


Onto our build.
I started planning the extension 13 years ago (at that point we only owned 1 of the 2 flats that we turned back into a house). We finally have planning permission for the build, and we’ve made a start.

I’ll be doing a lot of the work myself, and the extension will take until the summer. Once it’s finished, I’d like to do the cinema room (which will be by myself, except electrics and plastering). The cinema room will be in the existing games room, so we’ll be restricted on size.

Here’s a plan of the rear section of the existing house:

Existing House Plan.jpg



And here’s a photo of what that looked like from the garden, before I started smashing things:

Existing House Photo.jpg



Here then is a plan of the new layout for the extension:

New House Plan.jpg



And below are views of the planned layout for the open-plan kitchen/living area. The internal brick wall with windows and a door is the existing external wall to the games room. We’re keeping the brick wall as is, and the cinema will be behind that wall, so I’ll block the windows and door up from the cinema side.

New house view north west.jpg



New house view south east.jpg



And finally, onto the cinema. Here are the dimensions for what will become the cinema room:

Cinema dimensions.jpg



The priorities for the cinema are:
  • Projector with fixed screen, with front speakers behind it. Screen at one of the end walls (we may need to install a new door on the same wall as the existing door, but the opposite end).
  • 2 rows of seating. Front row will just have a sofa, for 2 or 3 people. Rear row (raised) could be a sofa in the centre and a chair either side (if there's room), or a long sofa.
  • Accoustics: I'd like to go to a lot of effort to treat the room well, so that it sounds as good as possible.
  • Speakers: I'd like to set it up for Dolby Atmos (or DTS:X etc).
  • Sound proofing. While I'd like to build a room within the room, like The Dreamer's build, I don't know if I'll have enough space to do that, without losing seating or speaker placement. We have the ceiling height to add a false ceiling. We could also build new stud walls within the existing room, but these would presumably also house any wall speakers.

Budget:
The main build will cost a lot (it's 83 sq. metres external, with a chunk of glass).
I don't have a fixed budget for the cinema room, but whatever it does cost will be far more than SWMBO will like. I'll be ok with the cost of timber, plasterboard etc. The AV equipment that goes in will have to be value for money. Not the best stuff available, but not so cheap that it wastes all the effort that this will no doubt take.

I’ll post photos of progress, and questions later.


Thanks for looking :)
 
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Subscribed, looking forward to following this for both the home cinema and extension progress :thumbsup:

Any reason you don’t want to just brick up the door / windows to the games room? I’d of thought it would look better from the kitchen side like that?
 
Subscribed, looking forward to following this for both the home cinema and extension progress :thumbsup:
Thank you :)

Any reason you don’t want to just brick up the door / windows to the games room? I’d of thought it would look better from the kitchen side like that?
Ideally we'll be here for decades (health permitting), but I wouldn't want to cause extra issues should we have to sell - and if we did sell, and the room wasn't kept as a cinema, they'd want borrowed light in the room (there is going to be a skylight roughly over the dining table). Also, I quite like the look of it with the original bricks and windows. It adds texture and shows how the house was before the work.

If we didn't like it, an option would be to add a stud wall on the kitchen side, and plaster it. Then it would just be a like a standard internal wall.
 
The start of the extension:

A test hole for the building control officer:

Foundation test hole.jpg



Foundations along the garden wall, dug and filled by hand, in 1.3m lengths:

Foundation strips 2.jpg



Foundation strips.jpg
 
Subscribed. As you’ve started way before me, I’ll be able to pinch your ides. :D
I'm not sure there'll be any ideas that I haven't pinched from any of the other builds, but maybe it'll help you settle on some choices yourself (and maybe you'll learn from my mistakes too).
 
Some more boring foundations. Took a while, as it was done by hand, but they're basically done now, and the walls have started going up, so next time I'll be able to post pictures of those.

One photo of underpinning the corner of the house, where a steel column will go, and the other of it being filled (along with the rest of the foundations). Foundations all mixed with a mini mixer, as it wasn't cost effective to have it pumped to the back of the house.
 

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Following
 
Steel columns in, which support the main steels that hold up the old house. Here's one of them:

Steel column.jpg



And a collection of other steels to go in:

Steels.jpg
 
Such a huge extension. It's going to be such an amazing space.
 
Huge steels. Are those for a single storey?
 
Subscribed. This is going to be great!
 
Sure, I'll take the blame.... 😂
 
Now i understand the size of the beams! I wanted to do that to our house, but the cost was too much for the size of the house to warrant it, unfortunately.
 
Now i understand the size of the beams! I wanted to do that to our house, but the cost was too much for the size of the house to warrant it, unfortunately.
I started planning this over a decade ago, and I remember talking to an architect about the cost of the beams back then, when we considered whether we'd need to add a steel post half way. Back then I figured that if it cost a few more £k to have no post, it would be worth it, but if it was £10k more, it wouldn't. In then end, all of the steel for the whole job cost £4.5k (which was a good deal), and I'm not sure I'd have saved anything having a post half way.

Obviously with all the labour the costs mount up, and it's not always worth it.

Here's a half of the main beam up (2 steels, with 2 more to join them):

Steel b4.jpg
 
Love the open plan kitchen you've gone for there ^. Inside/Outside dining - it's got it all. ;)
 

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