Basement Cinema / Office

[mswarren]

I'm finally about to start building my (semi) dedicated cinema room. I need the room to be my home office too, so there needs to be some considerations for that, but otherwise it's all cinema.

The room is 3.5m X 4.8m, an it's in the basement of our townhouse so it's pretty dark already, and underground so no chance of annoying the neighbours. Frankly it's crying out for a dedicated room, so what choice did I have?

Kit List (So Far)

• Optoma HD30 - We have done some dry runs and it seems really very capable.
• Denon AVRX-2000 - I have another in the lounge, and you can't beat it's bang for buck
• Eltax Symphony 6.2 Fronts and Centre - These are my ageing speakers, now in their 4th house currently on duty in the lounge but will be moving here to go for a sleeker look in the lounge
• Monitor Audio Bronze Di-Pole Surrounds.
• BK Monolith
• Pansonic 3D BluRay - BDT130
• XBMC - Probably on another Acer Revo as I've got two others, and they just plain work.
• Sky+HD

Yet to Decide/Buy

• Rear surrounds - Need some in-ceiling rears, likely some Monitor Audios
• Screen - Projector will throw 120" comfortably in this room, so looking for a fixed screen.
• Cables etc

The Plan

I'll be using the room long and narrow to get the best throw for the projector, and better speaker positioning. the sofa will end up almost in the centre of the room.

The rear corner will be for a small desk and wall mounted monitors, and some office storage.

I'm hope to construct a lighting pelmet around the outside of the room for down-lights, LED strips to colour wash the ceiling, rear surrounds, projector mount and cabling.

Decor will be as dark as is acceptable, and a sumptuous carpet.

I'll try to keep the progress updated, and take lots of pictures.

How the room is now:

 

[mswarren]

I've decided to start by making the pelmet. The basement window is close to the ceiling and only an inch and a bit lower than the coving. The pelment underside will need to align with the windows to look right (I think), so the coving needs to go to give me enough wall for battening.

Taking the coving down was a lot easier than I'd hoped, it mostly came down in decent lengths. No special technique, just a Stanley knife, an old chisel, hammer and a large dose of BFI. Very dusty though.

No going back now!

Time to go and buy some timber......

 

[Laudrup1]

Good luck with this. I'm keen to see how it pans out

 

[Jameskatie]

From a bass point of view it won't be ideal with the sofa in the middle of the room. The further back you can get it the better

 

[mswarren]

Jamesvicky - We should be able to push the sofa back for movies, as I won't be using the desk and cinema at the same time, so should be able to get 2/3rds of the way back. The Monolith should help fill the room.... if it doesn't, maybe I'll need two!

 

[Jameskatie]

When I'm on my pc will do a room simulation for you but basically it's the sub at question it's generally in your size room there will be nulls in the bass created by reflections of the walls around the center of the room, pushing it back 3/4 would be great, assuming you run your room calibration in that position