Magslad
Established Member
Well the moment I've been waiting for since moving into our house (four and a half years ago) is getting close to starting. I've been following other people's excellent projects on here, and finally get the chance to start my own. I made a deal with my wife that once I'd got the rest of the house sorted for her, the loft was mine for a combined home cinema/games room/study. So after much redecorating, new kitchen/bathroom/central heating/windows, the serious work begins!
The plans/building approval are all sorted, and I'm due 3 quotes by early next week (which I'm sure will be a shock - as well as converting the loft we're doing a single storey downstairs extension to move the integral garage and create a utility room behind it, replacing the cloakroom, replacing a large flat roof and installing a roof light for the kitchen, moving walls for 3 of the 4 bedrooms upstairs so they are a better size & shape, building a laundry chute from the bathroom to the utility room, and creating an ensuite shower room for the main bedroom, plus redoing ceilings plus plastering/painting/decorating for 6 rooms). Planning to move out for a couple of months whilst all the work takes place.
Anyway, the most interesting bit (as far as I'm concerned) is the loft conversion. We're lucky enough to have a steeply pitched roof, so can get a good size room without needing dormers (will just be 3 large velux windows - obviously with blackout blinds for the home cinema). The room will be about 7m x 4m (22ft x 14ft), and the plans are below.
I'm no graphic designer, but the 2nd plan shows roughly how the room will be laid out. One end of the room will have the home cinema, and the other end will have my study plus a reading/chill-out area. The sofabed will be on castors so it can be rolled to one side when I want to use the room for games (e.g. putting up my son's Scalextric).
The picture below shows the end wall on which the plasma screen will go. There will be a plastered wall built in front of the chimney breasts, but there is a natural recess of about 2ft between the 2 chimney breasts - this will have a built-in alcove just above floor level, which will be designed to house all of the AV kit.
The final picture shows a view of the loft as it is now, before work has started.
I'm sure I'll have lots of questions for people as I start to get further into the process, especially as I go through choosing all of the kit (cannot wait to start doing this - although I'm sure it will get expensive pretty quickly as I don't have particularly cheap tastes generally ).
One initial question though for anyone that knows their stuff or has been through this before - when I'm designing the home cinema setup (especially speaker types and positioning), what if anything do I need to be aware of given that the room will have a pitched ceiling? And of course, any other little nuggets of wisdom from anyone that's done a loft home cinema will be very welcome
Anyway, that's enough rambling on for now, I'll keep the thread updated as things start to progress.
The plans/building approval are all sorted, and I'm due 3 quotes by early next week (which I'm sure will be a shock - as well as converting the loft we're doing a single storey downstairs extension to move the integral garage and create a utility room behind it, replacing the cloakroom, replacing a large flat roof and installing a roof light for the kitchen, moving walls for 3 of the 4 bedrooms upstairs so they are a better size & shape, building a laundry chute from the bathroom to the utility room, and creating an ensuite shower room for the main bedroom, plus redoing ceilings plus plastering/painting/decorating for 6 rooms). Planning to move out for a couple of months whilst all the work takes place.
Anyway, the most interesting bit (as far as I'm concerned) is the loft conversion. We're lucky enough to have a steeply pitched roof, so can get a good size room without needing dormers (will just be 3 large velux windows - obviously with blackout blinds for the home cinema). The room will be about 7m x 4m (22ft x 14ft), and the plans are below.
I'm no graphic designer, but the 2nd plan shows roughly how the room will be laid out. One end of the room will have the home cinema, and the other end will have my study plus a reading/chill-out area. The sofabed will be on castors so it can be rolled to one side when I want to use the room for games (e.g. putting up my son's Scalextric).
The picture below shows the end wall on which the plasma screen will go. There will be a plastered wall built in front of the chimney breasts, but there is a natural recess of about 2ft between the 2 chimney breasts - this will have a built-in alcove just above floor level, which will be designed to house all of the AV kit.
The final picture shows a view of the loft as it is now, before work has started.
I'm sure I'll have lots of questions for people as I start to get further into the process, especially as I go through choosing all of the kit (cannot wait to start doing this - although I'm sure it will get expensive pretty quickly as I don't have particularly cheap tastes generally ).
One initial question though for anyone that knows their stuff or has been through this before - when I'm designing the home cinema setup (especially speaker types and positioning), what if anything do I need to be aware of given that the room will have a pitched ceiling? And of course, any other little nuggets of wisdom from anyone that's done a loft home cinema will be very welcome
Anyway, that's enough rambling on for now, I'll keep the thread updated as things start to progress.