Garden room for Cinema and gym from Vivid Green

We are about to start on a garden room. Unfortunately not going to be a dedicated room as needs to be used for a couple of different purposes so ultimately going to have a lot of different compromises, but effectively going to be used as a family film room, and space for some gym equipment and a music / hang out room.

We already have a garden room and side shed but this is very old now and we don't get to use it so the idea is to knock that one down, start again and get a space we are actually happy to be going in and using.

I looked at doing some work myself to save money, but in the end we have gone to a dedicated company as I am not good enough to put the sort of spec and finish on it that we were looking for and dont have the time to do it even if I could. IT is going to end up being very expensive, a lot more than I was hoping to spend, but a lot of that is due to increasing the spec of the build.

We went to 4 different companies for a quote - Green retreats, Vivid Green, Garden Spaces and London Garden room. Obviously people will have differing experiences, but for us the 2 that were coign out on top were Vivid Green and Garden Spaces - Green retreats (for us) appeared to be very formula driven which was not helpful and the initial quote from London Garden Rooms was a lot more. We were very happy with the design aspects and service from the final 2 but in the end we have gone with Vivid green for the pricing.

The idea of this thread is to keep as a showcase but to also get a lot of the questions out there that I am already struggling with! There are a number of these companies that build dedicated rooms so hopefully will provide a bit of an insight into my experience with one of them.
 
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So this is the design we have ended up with
Vivd Green Front.png

WE are splitting the room into 2, with a larger main area that is about 4m wide and 5m depth, and then a separate side room (with its own entrance - shown on the right) of about 2m width that will be used for storage (mainly cycles). We have a 2m decking out in front and are putting full length bifolds across the main room.

The walls are SIPS - pre fabricated insulated panels that are constructed off site and then put together on site.

As well as some gym bits we will be putting a drum kit in the room so have upgraded the walls floor and ceiling to have increased sound insulation - for us this includes differing levels of acoustic plasterboard over a genie clip and furring system.
 
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To give a bit of context this is the current garden room / shed we have that is going (and yes, will make no apologies for the state of the inside - we are already sorting things out so is a complete state at the moment)
Outside.jpg
Outside 2.jpg
Inside 1.jpg
inside 2.jpg
 
First job is to demolish the existing - I have already removed the trampoline and taken the opportunity to do some pretty extensive tree surgery to anything that was overhanging the room - didn't not want to be fretting about a branch falling on the new room.

Vivid green were very good about the demo work, but int eh end I got it a lot cheaper through a local contractor, so they will come in and do that first in and then just deliver a clear site to Vivid Green. I was surprised to hear they will probably not be using a full concrete slab under the build, and using piling for the foundations of it, which will help keep costs down but might also mean I have to remove a slab under the current if there is on there!
 
Am starting this thread now as just getting to the point of designing the inside of the room and getting my cabling sorted. WAs expected to have to have done everything offsite with the SIPS panels, but as long as all cabling is on site on day 1 I have been told they can install it then.

I currently have an old 5.1 system with some games consoles, and a projector and for me I am going to go down the route of installing what I have and then try and get away with upgrading over time (basically to see what I can get away with without it looking like I am spending loads of additional cash on things that "apparently" are not needed....... will see about that).

Main cabling point are to ensure I have enough set up for a future 5.1.2 system, and to cable the projector. Because of the acoustic upgrades, ceiling speakers and not possible so going to be wiring for the atoms heights to be high up on the walls at the front, basically above the front wide speakers. Was thinking about putting the cable in for them to match the fronts so that I can put an upward firing directional speaker on top of the wides, but think I will be putting the wiring in at ceiling height instead.

Am also thinking about placement of the receiver in the room. If I put it close to the seating section my run to the projector would only be about 5m, so can probably get away with a premium certified HDMI cable and not have to go for Fibre or Baluns. Will put an ethernet cable in there though just to be on the safe side.

Was probably not going to bother trying to rig up a trigger from projector to screen though, then again, even writting that I know I should do so. Think it is normally just a mono male / male cable for that but cant see any long ones advertised so will have to find one of those.
 
Basic layout thoughts......... Main issue to resolve at the moment is AV equipment placement, will have to be either at AV 1 on the below, OR AV 2, but in which case would have to be a low sitting unit to ensure it does not block the view, but also conscious of having anything there that is going to cause reflections from the screen. Problem with AV is that it will limit the sofa space - that wall is 465cm, and need about 160 cm for the drum space. Was looking at some leaning shelves of about 66cm which will only leave about 2.3m for a sofa and really wanted to maximise this if possible to make sure 2 adults and 2 kids can get on it - probably not going to happen at 2.3m though.......

Really need to make the decision though as it will determine a lot of other things on the build such as cable runs and speaker placement. Was hoping to not place a unit under the screen by if needs must that would possibly be the 3rd option.

Oh, and hats off to anyone that can manage sketch up! I wasted some time on that then reverted to excel!!!
Layout Screen shot.png
 
OK, so a few decisions down and a few more to come, and getting to the more exciting parts......

Have decided to put a cabinet under the screen so will maximise sofa space, but that leads to my next question - where to wire for the rear surrounds. Was originally thinking to wire to each one individually directly to some wall mounted rears. To give some more flexibility though, would it be better to have the wiring end at floor level and then use stands for the rears - it would mean I did not have to choose now exactly where I wanted the rears to be positioned. And if so, I am tempted to to just have the wiring coming out of the wall in one place (which will be behind the sofa) and then just run the wiring up the stands from there.

My old system was just some small Tannoy SFX satellites, so wall mounting made them easy, but I am looking at the Q 3010i going forward, and think they might look a little large wall mounting rears very close to the sofa. I know rears should really be slightly above MLP though, so would a stand be OK or should I still be looking to wall mount the rears (which prob means wiring directly to the speaker position up the wall)
 
Think I will treat myself to a 5.1 3010i set, and looking at a pair of Cambridge Minx 12 to act as ceiling height atmos speakers. Going to upgrade the receiver but nothing too expensive so going for the sonly DN1080 - appears to come out the best at my price point and has 2 HDMI out which will be useful for me.

Don't want to go overboard with wiring but also want to not sell myself short so going to go for some van damme blue 2.5mm - will need about 40m I think. 50m is about £120. Yes, I could spend less, but currently use a shotgun cable that is horrible to look at so wanted something that I don't have to think about going forward for the sake of £80 ish
 
The run from receiver to projector will be about 6m. Have decided to try to keep to passive HDMI leads, but getting a premium certified at 7.5m is not straight forward. There were a couple on Amazon that were not expensive though, so have taken the decision to go for 2 slightly cheaper cables rather than 1 more expensive 1! Will obviously test before installation but will run both of them in case 1 fails. Will also run an ethernet as a further back up. Yes, sounds an odd way of doing it, but after looking into the midfield of longer cables, I didn't feel comfortable with any of the potentials so have gone for 2 that said they are premium certified but will see.......
 
Updating (with some more interesting AV stuff)

- So planned to get a bit of an upgrade to a 3010i 5.1 system, but no surprises I ended up upgrading.......
speakers.jpg

To be fair it ended up being a bit of a no-brainer........ the 3010i were about £800 for the 5.1 system but noticed an offer on line for the 3050i set reduced from £1400 to £999. Spoke to RS and they price matched (+ a bit more!). The difference is just the fronts being replaced by the floor standers but should be quite a big upgrade.
Still went for the minx 12 for the atmos though - am sure they will be good enough for that.
To answer my own question as well, Will have to be wall mounts for the rears, the stands are just going to be too low......
 
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Also time to get rid of the old place........ Almost looked a shame with it all cleared up it actually looked really good from the outside, but still needed something better on the inside -

Old shed at night.jpg


But amazing what 3 blokes can do in 2 days with some power tools......


Demo.jpg




And now all cleared and ready to go..... Still got to wait another couple of weeks for the main build to get underway, but feels very real now


Update 2.jpg
 
Great thread to follow, thanks for documenting.

I've been in the same boat at looking into Garden rooms, in fact of the companies listed I also looked at a few of them (didn't come across Vivid Green) and also got Green Retreats in and as much as I liked them I agree with your comments and found them quite pricey. Not that any are exactly cheap!

Anyway, work doesn't start on mine until the end of May so very interested in following how things go for you.
 
Hi

have just put octane seats in my room, sitting on plywood with lots of castors, can then move them into optimum position for viewing. Might be route for you to be flexible on seating, rather than permanent sofa.

Also I would think long and hard on having screen across room. If you went down length you could get rears further back and you could add ceiling atmos as seating could be say 2/3 down length.

Could the treadmill live in storage area? Perhaps put tv / sound system in there!

kevin
 
Nice project, congrats.


How did you come up with the layout for the room? A 4m x 5m would suit a cinema better if orientated the other way. You could put the screen on the top wall (below), with the treadmill and drums behind the sofa (similar position to now) where they wouldn't interfere with the cinema at all.


 
Also I would think long and hard on having screen across room. If you went down length you could get rears further back and you could add ceiling atmos as seating could be say 2/3 down length.
Agreed.

Could the treadmill live in storage area? Perhaps put tv / sound system in there!
I imagine it would be good in the storage area if you never wanted to use it :) To use it and enjoy the garden through the new glass doors though, you can just have it roughly where it is, behind the seats.
 
Thanks guys

In terms of layout, just to be clear, the storage area shown is actually a separate room, with a separate entrance at the front and no access between the 2 rooms, so the screen will actually be on the wall (the dividing wall) - also not going to have a chance of putting the treadmill in there! To save money it is not going to be finished to the same standard, and will just have a wooden door - the main room has full length bi-folds opening onto the garden.

It also means using the orientation I have - we (well, one of us) wanted to look out whilst using the treadmill, and didn't want either the sofa or the screen in front of the bifold, so have to go east wet with the cinema layout as opposed to north south.

Some bad news today in that start has been pushed back, but only a week, so start is now on the 26th......

@Mr X who have you gone with in the end?
 
Should also say it amazing the detail I have needed to look into that I wasn't expecting....

Wanted to mount the projector but found out that the ceiling is actually not flat, so needed a different mount that can accommodate the slope, and then actually finding a 10m mono trigger cable was a nightmare! Ended up using a shop that does custom cables and made one for me pretty cheap. Easy to get stereo cables but nobody does long trigger cables.......
 
It also means using the orientation I have - we (well, one of us) wanted to look out whilst using the treadmill, and didn't want either the sofa or the screen in front of the bifold, so have to go east wet with the cinema layout as opposed to north south.
Mmm, not sure I'd agree with 'have to'. Your room is 5m deep. You could have the back of the sofa 2m from the bifolds, 3m from the top wall. You could still have the treadmil as planned.

How many people would you like to accommodate for the cinema?
 
Yes, thats an option, but think it would effectively mean I would have a sofa close to the middle of the room, with a fair bit of dead space between it and the bifold (with the treadmill only taking a part of the room) then looking into the room I would be looking at the back of the sofa........ not much benefit in my eyes. Only really going to be 4 of us (2+2) so as long as I get a big enough sofa we should be fine. Probably going to get a double chaise long u-shape thing.

Have spent quite a bit of time on it and think this is going to work best for me - I think the main point is that this is not going to be a dedicated cinema room, its going to be much more of a multi use room that we use for cinema as well, so seating cant be in the middle of it and be too much of the focus....

Always worth thinking about it more though, especially as nothing set in stone yet (until the speaker wiring goes in on day 1, so appreciate the thoughts.
 
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Hi

you could solve the settee problem by putting it on castors then move it it to centre when watch a movie! Move it to side when used for casual use. You could even move treadmill to centre if roll away type then throw up your running route onto screen if you have BT type.
In terms of setup I think room orientation would be critical if you moved to atmos setup. See below suggestion from Dolby:


1617953448922.png



note image on left!


It’s worth putting the wiring in for ceiling speakers now, you can add speakers later, makes a major difference and atmos processors are dropping in price if you go for a last years model.

Kevin
 
Thanks, I know it would be much better to have some space behind the sofa for the rears especially, but I am not going to be moving the furniture around to watch a film, so I think I am pretty much set for the layout.

In terms of ceiling speakers, after speaking to the builders putting anything in ceiling is going to have a pretty detrimental impact on the soundproofing we are using -they didn't even want to use in ceiling spot light (but we are), so I am going to sacrifice the full atmos experience, so much so that I am not even going to be putting the cabling in for future. I do want to go for Atmos but doing that via some front height cube speakers above the front surrounds so I can at least get some of the effect, but I think anything more will be very marginal gains as again, would be sacrificing too much elsewhere so happy with that.

Went for ceiling height cube speakers rather than up-firing mainly for aesthetics (!) but after reading around I think they should give me the level I am hoping for. Have already bought some Cambridge Audio Minx 12 to use with the 3050i 5.1 system to give me 5.1.2
 
Just an idea on your ceiling speaker issue. I used some suspending wires designed for holding a light fitting, screwed into timber just above suspended ceiling then attached to speakers that hang from wires. May work for you!

LED Panel Hanging Wires Fittings... Amazon product ASIN B01CLH72UA
almost look designer so pass the SWMBO test!

would run the speaker wires though as pain to retrofit.

kevin
 

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