Flat renovation and home cinema build

Hi all, purchased a run down flat in east London on my limited budget last year and have been doing it up on my weekends since. I'm 28 and a project manager in the construction industry but I used to to be a furniture maker/carpenter so I've been able to do the majority of the works Myself. Just thought I'd post some before and mid project photos for anyone who might be intrested in diy or have any suggestions. I'm currently trying to wire up the living room speaker cables. I'm aiming for a 5.1.2 atoms system running through a denon avr-x2300w with a BK sub and 5 Q acoustic speakers. I also have a 65" Panasonic dx902, ub700, nvidia shield and PS4 pro.
If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them!

This was the living where the av unit will be






This is the current kitchen/bathroom (there rally was a toilet and shower in the kitchen....I've turned into the bathroom, just a bathroom

 

This is the dining room I've changed into the kitchen. The oven will go into the cutout on the right hand side. I'm also building a concrete worktop for the section on the left of the oven and large concrete island in the centre of the kitchen. One side will be a breakfast bar with a hob and sink On the other side . I'm also making all the taps and showers in the property out of copper pipes

 

Very impressive work there mate.

 

Thank you. cant wait for it to be over! very much looking forward to getting a break. I keep buying myself av equipment to try and motivate myself to finish it all haha.

 

Looking great, look forward to seeing it finished with all the av kit in place

 

Thanks fella. Much appreciated. I can't wait. Have you got any photos of your setup?

 

These were my fabrication drawings for the kitchen and living room

 

Was thinking of putting some up over the next couple of weeks, very small scale compared to your plans but very pleased with it after a few upgrades this year! Have you got your eye on a receiver to go with your other kit?

 

put some photos up! Would love to see it. I'm going to purchase the denon avr-x2300w as it is 4k hdr and Dolby atmos compatible

 

I'll put some pics up at the weekend, only small fry but does us in a small semi. I do seem to be taking over the spare bedroom with my av stuff aswell much to the wife's dismay but son's delight

 

Impressive so far! You should be proud - looks like you're working hard.

 

Thank you! much appreciated. looks like youre a fellow dx902 owner. I havent had a chance to hook mine up yet. how are you getting on with yours?

 

Very well - I am lucky and haven't had any issues with it at all. A few people have been seeing a multitude of tiny annoyances and changing theirs in the 902 owners thread. Conversely, there are of course a lot of people happy with it too.

I have used the settings from the AVForums review / youtube calibration of our TV and it looks brilliant. Just use Pro 1 and Pro 2 settings and use one for night and the other for daytime viewing.

I had to play around with the local dimming setting etc to find which I preferred more, as is with everything, personal preference always differs. You will love it when you have tweaked it to your liking.

 

The ship I brought it from were ice enough to let me test the screen out in store and run a few tests before I purchased it. I had last years 802 but had to return 2 of them due to DSE and banding and didn't want to have to go through that ordeal again. Have you got any 4k HDR compatible devices and if so are you running them directly to the tv or through an av receiver?

 

I have just received a Panasonic UB400EBK 4k HDR bluray player. I watched The Revenant as my first movie with it and was nothing short of impressed all the way through. This is going through my receiver and kit in my signature.

Got the bluray player on Prime day for a really good price so super chuffed!

 

They chucked in a free ub700 blue ray player so I can't complain! I assume your av receiver is 4k compatible then? I'm planning on getting mine calibrated once I've run it in for a bit

 

Nice...

Yes my AVR is all good and passes through the 4k / HDR signal fine. I believe only 2 of the HDMI ports do this but it's all good as the BD input is the only one that will be used for the purpose.

You are talking about the calibration of the TV right? Out the box it is pretty accurate. So only small tweaks are needed to be honest. I work for a DI film facility in London and calibration and colour are super important for all our equipment and I was more than happy with the values and difference the AV forums recommended tweaks made.

 

Hi all, thought I'd post a few new photos of the progress. Just doing the decorating at the moment. I've put in the cornice (note to self, pay someone else to do this next time) and skirting. I thought I could do the 2 rooms in 2 days but it took closer to 4. I've run speaker cable through the ceiling and connected them to 2 q acoustic ceiling speakers for the high rears and I've also run cable under the floorboards so I can have 2 low rears for Dolby atmos. Ive also bought myself a BK sub which is just phenomenal. Unfortunelty the floorboards in my flat are so thin you could hear my neighbour fart. I'm not sure he's going to be too happy....

 

All very impressive, I’ll look forward to the 902 set in place

 

Thanks for the heads up in the 902 thread mate, it looks like an amazing job you've done here. Well done!

I always envy people who can do all this stuff themselves, makes me regret being a pen pusher my whole life!

 

Thank you, that's very kind of you to say. You'd be surprised what you could achieve with a bit of training

 

Looks excellent, nice work.

 

Thanks Eddy. Looking forward to going through the manual you've put together for the 902!

 

Looking great so far. You should be proud!

 

Looking forward to more pics! I struggle putting up shelves! Don't know how you can do all that !

 

Looking good so far. The Denon's are a great receiver, I have the 4300. The flat looks quite big, or maybe your photo angles? Are you using any soundproofing? As a BK owner I can imagine your neighbour below won't be too impressed lol. Anyway, good luck and subscribed[emoji106]

 

Hi guys, I finally got around to making the concrete worktop for my kitchen. I've never done one before so was a bit worried but it's turned out really nicely! Apart from me and the missus put our handprints in the back whilst it was setting and somehow theyve come through on the smaller worktop! What an idiot. In retrospect not my brightest idea. I watched a few YouTube videos but did it slightly differently by adding steel filings rather than reinforcement bars and I also had the concrete mixed to a specific RAL code.

 

cherrs fella. Flats actually not very big so have had to utilise as much space as possible. I don't have any soundproofing unfortunately. Any recommendations?

 

If you are in a flat and you are running a home cinema I'd seriously recommend that you soundproof it as much as possible. It'll save massive headaches in the long run.

My flat in is in a basement with a neighbour on each side, and I have a Denon AVRX4200 setup with a Triad mini 8" sub and the noise from the system travelled through basically the whole building before I soundproofed some key sections. Basically you will be compelled by environmental health to turn the system off if you don't think about soundproofing. It never got that far with me as as soon as my flat refurb was done, I knew I'd made a mistake and ripped down two walls I'd just built to sound proof them, and I made changes to where speakers were mounted and swapped to solid internal doors with good seals. There is much of the flat that I can't soundproof due to the shape of it, and the work I'd already done over the space of nearly two years, which I'm not willing to destroy, but the bits I have done have made it much better. I'm also in a weird situation, in that there is a nightclub in the basement of the building that joins onto mine, and I've worked with the nightclub owner to soundproof the wall on his side, which means that we have basically soundproofed the basement of both our buildings. So I am only ever annoying two people with my noise, not the whole building. I never have my system cranked up when my neighbours are in.

Do you have neighbours on all sides , or just below you? If its just below it'll be fairly easy to make a big difference.

My advice is seriously, sound proof it now, or else you'll never be able to enjoy your home cinema setup. It's not hard to do really at the renovation stage, it's soul destroying to have to do it when you've finished!

Looking great by the way.