Archie's Snug Cinema

archie2000

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Finally got the ok off my beloved to go ahead with this. I've been wanting to do this since we moved in 7 years ago.
The snug is a small extension (14' x 12') on the side of the house which has just been a chill-out/reading/rubbish dumping/room. But now it is about to become our second lounge/cinema room.
I hadn't planned to do this for a few months yet, but getting a great bargain on the projector kick-started it early.
I planned to have a 92" screen and a ceiling mounted projector between 3 and 4m away, all speaker cabling and power to screen and projector would go through the ceiling as we have a sloping roof, so just about enough space to get in and do the runs.

Equipment so far:
Epson EH-TW6100
Sapphire SEWS200RWSF-A screen
Yamaha FX-V767
Tannoy Mercury F3's Front & Centre
Q-acoustics surrounds
Mission Rears (to be changed)
Sky HD
Sony BDP S370 (to be changed)

First thing to do was open up the ceiling to gain access.
This was when I made two discoveries:
1. There is not a mm of insulation up there!
2. We have a hornets nest!

*I seem to be having a problem uploading pics, will do so once I get it sussed

Can a moderator move this to the Home Cinema Building DIY section please
 
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The Snug
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Screen end
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Projector end
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Accessing the roof space
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No insulation and a hornets nest
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Gathering the bits
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I've managed to get speaker cables behind the coving and through the ceiling and into the roof space
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You can remove the nest - it should be 'dead' now. The queen will be somewhere around, hibernating - ready to start producing again as the weather gets warmer.

Last year was a really bad year for wasps - we were in to double figures of nests between the sheds and garages, and in some trees! I became quite adept at 'foaming' them and running away bravely!

Looks like a great project! :smashin:
 
You can remove the nest - it should be 'dead' now. The queen will be somewhere around, hibernating - ready to start producing again as the weather gets warmer.

Last year was a really bad year for wasps - we were in to double figures of nests between the sheds and garages, and in some trees! I became quite adept at 'foaming' them and running away bravely!

Looks like a great project! :smashin:

Thanks Dreamer. Yeah, I reckon the nest is empty, so plan to shift it later this week.

I'm painting the ceiling slate grey over the next two nights (couldn't get the wife to agree to black) before I cut holes for two dimmable down lighters on each side of the room and fit the screen and projector bracket.

I will be covering the 'access hole' with a floating ceiling section in the middle of the room which will have LED lights round it and a Central dimmable down lighter.
 
Got the ceiling painted over the last few nights, and also fitted the surround speakers.
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Tomorrow night I'll be making a start on laying the power cables in the roof space for the projector and screen.

The down lighters came today,
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so I may well cut the holes for them and run their cables also. I'm planning to fit the screen and projector mount this weekend, so everything is on target at the moment.
 
Only a little bit done last night. Holes cut for the down lighters, and placed one in situ to see what it looks like.
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So much for low tac masking tape :mad:
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Mate you want to get some frog tape, apparently that doesn't rip off your paint job! Room will be amazing when its all done. Looking forward to seeing it complete. How did you find the screen? Mine seems really heavy and im worried the lounge ceiling is going to cave in!!
 
Mate you want to get some frog tape, apparently that doesn't rip off your paint job! Room will be amazing when its all done. Looking forward to seeing it complete. How did you find the screen? Mine seems really heavy and im worried the lounge ceiling is going to cave in!!

The screen is being fitted tomorrow. My mate who is giving me a hand is very much a belt and braces guy, so he suggested that we add additional bracing above the ceiling to spread the load. In essence, the brackets will be screwed to the ceiling, but we will use extra long screws to go through the plasterboard and into a block of wood fastened between the rafters.
I'll take pics as we do it.
 
Screen up
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Projector up
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Fired up
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Sorry about the poor quality of that last pic. Used the iPad, so not really reflecting how brilliant the picture actually is. I'll take some better ones later in the week.
 
As promised, here is a pic of the additional bracing we put in the ceiling to support the screen.
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And this is how the projector is supported.
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All speaker cables, HDMI lead, network cable, Sky cables in situ ready to be put into the conduit.
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Would have had the lights working today only I've got a duff LED driver
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I realised I had missed some pics out from when we mounted the projector, so here they are.

I installed a Unicol mount as my mate reckons they are less prone to moving after they have been fitted.
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The curtains behind the projector were still open, but the blinds closed when I took this pic of the screen image.
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I will be fitting the floating ceiling this weekend, and I am just preparing it now.
The only thing is, I'm not sure which way to have the RGB LED lights facing. Should they be around the support frame facing out wards, or on the ceiling panel facing upwards and bouncing off the original ceiling? Just so you know, the ceiling is painted slate grey.

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I've been wrestling with what to do about the centre speaker. Originally I was going to place it on a small floor stand and just drag it out and place it under the screen when watching a film, but I wanted to do something more permanent.
I can't mount it on a shelf behind the screen as it isn't acoustically transparent, and also it is a bit tight for space back there.
Then I thought about mounting it from the ceiling, but I couldn't see any suitable commercial ceiling mounts for centre speakers, so I decided to have a go and make my own.

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Angled so that it points down at the main seating position
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Test fit for the speaker
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The mount will be fitted just in front of the screen and will be painted the same colour as the ceiling. I have ordered some speaker cloth, and I intend to make a small frame that I can cover and then Velcro to the front.
I realise I might have an issue with it balancing with my floor standers being high up (ceiling to floor is 7ft), so I may have to consider changing my fronts to wall mounted bookshelf speakers.
 
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Spent Friday painting the floating ceiling panel and centre speaker housing prior to fitting them to the ceiling.
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Saturday we fitted them, but not before testing the LED's
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Checked to make sure that it held the weight of the speaker. I have also extended the IR lead for the LED's so that I can point the remote towards the screen to operate the lights. (You can just see it in the middle). The black dots are Velcro buttons for attaching the grill I am making.
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Finally, all working
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Ill try and take some better pics when it is fully dark later.
 

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Here we go.

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That's the end of phase 1 now. Phase 2 will consist of doing something with the walls (papering or painting, not sure yet). All curtains, carpet and furniture is to be replaced, and then I will finally transfer my sound system from the living room into here.
That's not likely to happen for a while as I need to build up the finances, but when it does, I'll post more pics.
 
Nice setup dude would love to have a proper home cinema but no room need a bigger house lol
 
Now I do really like that ceiling.

So much so that it may possibly have resolved a problem I have.

How much lower is it sitting from the exiting ceiling?
 
Hi Alps, it is 9mm thick MDF with an 11mm edging strip. From ceiling to bottom edge of the board it is 52mm. The gap is 32mm.
I decided to do a floating ceiling as I had cut a hole in the existing one to gain access, and I felt that I wouldn't have been able to patch the hole to a standard whereby it was unnoticeable. Plus as well I may need to go back into the roof space at some point in the future, so it is fairly easy to remove. I also fitted support cord at each end so I can just lower it so far if I need to repair/replace the LED's

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Thanks mate.

What's your overall floor to original ceiling height?

And would it have been possible to add more drop lights to the floating ceiling?

My dilema is I want spotlights in my room. But I don't want sound leak into the upstairs rooms. So plan is to do something like what you have done except to have the floating ceiling go almost from edge to edge of the ceiling - maybe 60mm from the edge of the room).

Also my floor to ceiling height right now is 2.1m (7ft). So it's already very low.
 

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