Nzo's dedicated Cinema Room build - from gutted ex-lounge

nzo

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Well, after much reading and research on this forum, I have now commenced my home cinema build.
I have sourced nearly all of the electrical components after reading and discussing on here, so a big thank you to all. I remember cataloging my kitchen build from "back to brick" which makes me wonder why I'm getting involved in such a big job again, but this time it's a room that can have the door closed on it and it doesn't impact on day-to-day life with all the mess etc.
I am lucky enough to have a spare downstairs room (a spare lounge type room) and not only that, a missus who either doesn't understand what I'm doing, or is just very understanding :thumbsup:

Anyway, I'll keep this post updated as things progress.
This may be useful for anyone else embarking on the same type of thing, or for anyone to offer advice (I don't mind changing my mind as I go!)

There's a few difficult options here - partially recessed screen, floating ceiling which have me a little worried - but hey.. some say it's part of the fun :)
 
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Here's where the room is being stripped back.
The main wall plaster was easy enough, but the top part is moulded with horse hair (c1930) and has an awkward curve in it.
All very nice, but I wanted a nice square meeting of wall and ceiling.

My son is here helping me with the plaster removal. I had to keep him away from the window / electrical cables, as he was a bit keen on smashing stuff!
 

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How much dust!!!
That radiator will be removed in case you are wondering!
I was amazed at how much rubble is generated from taking the plaster down.
Always get your kids to help, as they will appreciate the HC room even more :)

Finally, the main plaster is down and no injuries, electrocutions or floods :thumbsup:
 

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Ok, so some frames to put up.
The ceiling will have a floating middle section, with internal LED light tape, hopefully delivering some nice mood lighting when required. The original ceiling had a plaster moulded effect, with stippled centre - all of which will be absorbed and hidden with the new design.
It was decided to use the same positioning as the original feature, as it catered for the offset effect of the chimney stack, so not totally central to the room.
 

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The ropey ceiling meant that the supporting frame was best fastened to the wall, at least on this side.
Notice the horse hair used in this plasterwork.
 

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The fireplace wall joins to a neighbouring house. I plan to place sound proofing into the alcoves and in the ceiling.
Also, this alcove will house the electronics shelves, so will require studding for this.
Still not sure if I want to use shelves or an equipment shelf system which can just be placed here....:rolleyes: I'll have time to think about that though, as sound proofing will still be required.
Already suprised at how much wood is required for all this framework.

Thats it for the moment. More news and pics as things progress!
 

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Looking forward to seeing how this one progresses :smashin:
 
Studding for ceiling and walls nearly finished now. Have decided to back the screen recess with smooth faced 3/4" ply for a variety of reasons.
The joists run the wrong way, I get a paintable surface for somewhere that's hard to get to and it's a good solid vertical mount for the screen. Didn't fancy hanging the screen from the wall, as it would place extra pressure on the mounts.
Also this way, there's almost 100% recess for the screen casing.

The other picture shows the difficulty with the bay window. There's only 1" or so below the new ceiling, and it was felt that there could have been additional problems revealed with the window lintle if the curved plaster face was smashed off.

The side frame section(s) will have standard recessed lighting.

Hopefully tomorrow will see the finish of baton work and a trial mount of screen / PJ before wiring and boarding!
 

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Joiner couldn't stay long tonight, so didn't get the screen and PJ up for a quick check :(
However, noticed the screen had a bloody US plug on it - is this normal? Also, the 10m power lead for the PJ wasn't in any of the boxes, so don't know if I'll do that a different way now or what.

Also, unpacked the Epson PJ to get a feel of it and make sure there's no bits rattling about inside ;) WOW.. big unit! I read somewhere it was big, but heck!

Anyway, should be in a position to start running a few wires about at the weekend, so more pics then.

Electrician due back end of next week - so will be a bit stuck for a few days now, although some of the tricky floating ceiling can be boarded in the mean time.
 
Couple of new pics to upload.
Test fit of the screen and PJ tonight - well impressed with the screen apart from a couple of things:

The power cable coming out the bottom (would have preferred the back or side, 2 prong plug?! but no matter, as the cable will be shortened and re-plugged in the alcove anyway.

Extremely smooth up/down motion and generally very swish! Very happy with the screen so far.
Put the PJ up for testing etc, but didn't get around to it tonight, however, it doesn't look so massive once it's up there out the way.

May as well start running a few cables now and clean up a bit!
 

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Coming along, nice to see someone who dares rip the plaster off the wall.

Im loving the ceiling idea, i did the same but opposite way round. Bet i put up more stud work than you though
hehe :p
 
Coming along, nice to see someone who dares rip the plaster off the wall.

Im loving the ceiling idea, i did the same but opposite way round. Bet i put up more stud work than you though
hehe :p

Haha! Cheers Rich.
I checked your build thread (seen it before, but looked all the way through this time) and yes, you win on the stud work :)
I have to admit I smiled at the carpet underlay - but did it work? I've still got a load in the skip - so let me know quickly!

Hope the ceiling works - I'm not sure it's "deep" enough yet - I'll have a chance to experiment when the lights get here and maybe lower the island a bit?
I like the stuff you did with the remote power - have to ask you a bit more about that later, but I don't mind having the HTPC in the room. Anyway, you give me a heads up on the DB sound board just in time - will get some if I can find it..
 
Powered up the PJ and had a quick check with a BR disc - amazing, even in daylight and minimal tweaking! Bugger it, didn't take any pics of it though :(
Now it's time to take the PJ and screen down for now and get on with the work.

Here's a few more pics of where things are at.

There's a shot of the spare 3/4" ply for shelf fixing in the alcoves. This will not be kit shelving, going to get a AV rack of some sort I think.

Also, the "kingspan type" insulation for the alcoves - will hopefully board over with sound board if I can find it..

Also a shot of the light gutter (as I have christened it) which is getting boarded out for some tricky plastering. If it doesn't work out plastered, then it can be ripped off and try some MDF (or something!?) We'll see..

There's also a pic of a speaker placement problem :facepalm:
Looking at the various solutions to this, I'll most likely reverse the door, as I can't see any other way. I'll need to make a decision quick, as I wanted to run the speaker wires soon.
Handsome looking fronts though :thumbsup:
 

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Haha! Cheers Rich.
I checked your build thread (seen it before, but looked all the way through this time) and yes, you win on the stud work :)
I have to admit I smiled at the carpet underlay - but did it work? I've still got a load in the skip - so let me know quickly!

Hope the ceiling works - I'm not sure it's "deep" enough yet - I'll have a chance to experiment when the lights get here and maybe lower the island a bit?
I like the stuff you did with the remote power - have to ask you a bit more about that later, but I don't mind having the HTPC in the room. Anyway, you give me a heads up on the DB sound board just in time - will get some if I can find it..

The neighbour hears nothing now. In the end of the day it was free, recycled, and cheaper than neoprene rubber (which was what i wanted). Might not be as dense but still the added material adds more deflection through the plaster.

The actual DB's reduced i aint got a clue and no way to actually test the reduction properties. Bear in mind i have 2x 15mm accoustic sheets and 12mm standard sheet already. Its not scientifically proven to reduce x number of DB's but it was no stress to add it and rubber does reduce sound frequency, so me, everybit helps.

I found sitting the plasterboard "inside the rubber" helps isolate the board from its surrounding edges. Once screwed in place use a "sharp" knife to slice it clean. I found it slightly used blade tends to tear the "old" rubber.

If you dont have enough rubber to do a complete neighbours wall then i wouldnt bother.

You only do your living room to this degree once and you cant go back!!

As for the PC (or HTPC) im a avid PC gamer and need oodles of power which i cant cram into a HTPC PC case. Having children means i lost my office so this was the only solution to keep the PC and the added bonus is now family/friend sessions for picture/camcorder viewing etc

Beats passing around a laptop.
Plus you cant beat games on a 46" plasma.
Also passes as music system and Media centre.

You can also RDP into the PC from a laptop if the misses is watching eastenders. :p

As for ceiling depth that is only something you can decide, mine was dropped more than yours because i wanted to create a "lip" to hide the light units.

Enjoy....lookin good though.
 
Cheers Rich.
Have decided against it now (the soundboard) and will trust the kingspan / rockwool enough for neighbour protection.
Mostly, it's because I can't afford to lose that much space in either the alcoves or the ceiling and the ceiling is complicated enough :)
 
I knew this would happen.

I originally envisaged this as a Cinema Only room, just blu-ray source - nothing else.

However, the mrs has started looking in at the project and was not happy that GRAND DESIGNS or CELEBRITY JUICE'D isn't going to be allowed to waste PJ bulb time!! :suicide: so, now it's all change - I need to put a decent sized TV in there. Not just a TV, but I'll need a recorder, and may as well make it an HD one and blah blah blah.. another load of work (changes too for the work done so far) not to mention a load more ££....

But... it's for the best I think.
I had a last decision point tonight when the electrician came round and bit the bullet.

I've plumped (rather swiftly) for the LG 47LV550T, as it would need to be:

Big enough (47")
Slim enough so as not to bugger up the aesthetics
LED

Seems a lot better bang for the money that the samsung, but I took a bit of a punt on this TV and hope it's up to scratch!

Here's a question:
The TV wall is going to be dot/dab - Can I mount the wall mount on the brick and "cut out" the plasterboard around it, so as to get a snugger overall fit to the wall?

The TV is only 28mm thick, but the wall mount would be at least another 30mm, even the low-profile ones.
Would this cause a ventilation problem?

and no, I'm not (probably) going to start a floating wall effort for it ;)

Cheapest place I could find for this TV

Also, I won't be needing the 7x sets of 3D glasses that come with this non-3D TV :smashin: (scroll down the listing description to see) I may be posting in the classifieds if they somehow got shipped!

[edit] Hang on.. is it a 3D TV?
From the description.. "TruMotion 100Hz also helps produce the sharpest of 3D pictures.." Yet, no mention of 3D anywhere else..
I think the techspecs have been copied from the 47LW550T
 
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Well, electrician has been and at least the lighting wiring has been done, so boarding can commence shortly.

As usual, we find that there's some dodgy electrics, where the power sockets are done with lighting flex and had to go a long way under the floor to find proper places to wire from.

What you don't see here is that the floor was up for central heating pipes and looking for where the mains cables were :)

At least now the light feeds are in and 90% of the AV wiring is done.
Damn! I was 2m short of speaker cable, but it's not gonna hold things up (any more than anything else!)

Easter is going to delay things, then I'm off on holiday for 2 weeks, so things will be a bit slow.
Still, got to wait for a couple of weeks for Hong Kong deliveries and out of stock items.

Here's some shots regarding the wiring - rear speaker points, lights and termination for projector and AV rack.
 

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Well, Holidays are done and a bit of work carried on when I was away, but not much.
The TV being out of stock / not available until 06/06 has caused a significant delay to proceedings. The main problem is I can't find out 100% what the power connector is so I can run a mains cable in the new wall.

In the mean time, the new fireplace has been shaped and some boarding and some plastering, but very slow progress.

At least all the LED stuff has arrived from HK, but that won't go in for a while yet. Have got the varilight controls and the rest of the room lighting.

Stuck now until 06/06 or even longer :(
 

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and.. the TV is still not in stock. Hope to hear tomorrow - fingers crossed!
Just thought I'd post a couple more photos while I'm waiting...
The LED light strips I got for the ceiling and a picture of the rapidly increasing pile of stuff that needs to be installed and is getting in the way!
 

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Well, finally got all of the plastering complete. I had to get a new plasterer to finish the room off and he has done a very good job.
Spent a while cleaning up today, preparing for painting to start tomorrow.

Got a new door on (the right way around now!)

Hopefully painting finished this coming week, with main lights and sockets in.
Next, radiator and gas fire.. need to start looking for some fat floating shelves for the alcoves now.
 

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hi did the 47LV550T arrive? how are you finding it?

i just ordered one today, got to wait for delivery though which will be middle of next week
 
hi did the 47LV550T arrive? how are you finding it?

Hi, yes it did and I am generally impressed with it on the whole, but have a few niggles which I hope will be fixed up in firmware.
There were about 3 firmware updates within a week, but the only thing I notice change was the mouse cursor in the web browser!
I wish they would embed flash player 10 in the kernel instead of version 7 (I think) as you can't use you-tube etc. natively and have to use the actual application (which isn't brilliant).
I would highly recommend the smart remote though - although it doesn't work on iPlayer annoyingly.
Interestingly, there's some good hacks I've found (like placing a custom hosts file on a USB stick to hijack the application's DNS)
I like the picture wizard and the zoom options so far (have to play with it a bit more I think)
I haven't scanned for HD channels (or anything) with it yet, as I'm operating it through a SD PVR temporarily.
 
hi thanks for the reply, glad to hear you are liking it and yes i have also heard about the flash issues which i guess is not a major issue but could do with easily being sorted by LG i guess

and that smart remote sure does look cool, will get it eventually i think, temporarily though i will use the android app to control the TV
 
Well, things are moving quite well now. Got several layers of paint on, diluted white emulsion x2, then white emulsion and finally silk finish x2. The silk finish is partially applied - this is where I've lost control of the project :rolleyes: when it comes to colour - although when I picked up a tub of black paint in b&q I was told in no uncertain terms that "you've got no chance of that".

However, a darker colour will be used on the feature wall - that's as much as I could get sanctioned...Still.. I did see some rather nice black fresco wallpaper :devil:
 

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