Puffys' Garage to Cinema Conversion

puffy5

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It has always been a dream of mine to have a dedicated cinema room.

A few years ago when we were unable to sell our current home we decided to take our house off the market and extend instead.

Luckily for me my wife agreed that part of the extension would include a cinema room. However, due to all the other things that needed to be included in the extension such as a downstairs toilet and utility room, the cinema room would end up being quite small. But at least I would have one and I would make the best of the space I had.

The other proviso would be that the room could be used by all the family, including small children, so natural daylight was needed during the day and the colours couldn’t be too dark so as to make the room depressing during the daytime.

The build thread that follows shows the conversion from beginning to present day. The room isn’t finished yet but is a work in progress when funds allow (nursery school fees are a killer!). Please feel free to comment and critique and I hope it makes an interesting read.

This is a photo of the garage from the back garden before the work began:



Work began in Feb’12 with the emptying of the garage:

From this:



To this:



Then the builders got stuck in and removed the garage door and started on stripping the ceiling boards and cutting up the concrete garage floor:





Our builder said he’d never come across a floor like it – solid as a rock would be a severe understatement!

But they got the better of the 30 year old beast in the end and the result was:



Hole for soil pipe going in:



As we were having a vaulted ceiling in the cinema room to give an extra sense of space two concrete slaps were made to the required depth at this point in order to support the RSJ supports:



The start of the brick wall that would form the new garage back wall and front utility wall was built:



And then the damp proof course, insulation and concrete sandwich was laid. You can also see the battening for the walls taking shape:

 
At the same time as the floor was being laid/drying the pitched roof was made a start on. The pitched roof would form a loft over the new garage and utility:







Here you can see the steels in place supporting the pitched roof:



Photo showing the viewpoint from the cinema room looking back to the utility room. On the right is the new downstairs toilet:



The builder and electrician put some battening up to help with mounting my plasma along with an aerial cable and power:



It is around this point normally that you’d think I would have run speaker and HDMI cables to save the hassle in the future. However, due to the budget and not knowing exactly how the cinema room was going to turn out I decided not to do this.

New window opening:



All boarded up and a bit of plasterwork going on:





Plaster on and drying:

 


New window in and radiator mounted and piped up:



Photo showing utility room:



Plaster all dry here and cupboard door on. This cupboard was built to provide a bit of extra storage for any bits and bobs that I wanted to store away yet keep to hand. It would also be very easy in the future to mount a projector in here ;-). The smoke detector was a building regs stipulation.



Here you can see the up lighters turned on in the alcoves and some tester paint on the walls.



Well thats all i've got time for tonight. I'll upload some more photos soon. What follows is what i would call 'the fun bit'.

Puffy.
 
hi mate thats going to be a sweet room. Ilike the coolr choice it similar to my choice of colours once i start.
 
The fun part begins:

I decided on a grey paint scheme in the end. B&Q Soft Black on the TV wall and Grey Slate for the rest of the side walls. Both were matt to absorb some of the light for daytime viewing. The ceiling was just white emulsion.



After reading recommendations on this forum I opted for Cloud 9 underlay. I went for a grey carpet to compliment the paint scheme.



It was now time to start filling the room with electronics:



The cabinet was bought new off EBay and the coloured doors I specified were a good match to the wall paint. Plenty of room for cd’s and dvd’s as well as the xbox and blu-ray player.

Both my wife and I felt that something was needed to fill the space above the TV in the alcove. Therefore as I’m a bit of a Bat fan I made a bat symbol out of some left over mdf:



I wanted a distressed look for the symbol so opted for a gold base coat and crackle effect top coat. Then I used a scouring pad to rub up some of the edges to make it look worn (not shown in the photo above).

I wanted to inject some colour into the room so I bought a Visual Chillout LED kit and here you can see the kit ¾ of the way to being installed round the TV:



My old Onkyo bit the dust and was replaced with a TX-NR515.

Over the months I’ve added a few bits and bobs and was lucky enough to be given a Marantz cd player which now sits next to the AV amp. Here are some photos as it stands now:







 
This is one of my favourite garage conversions as its more suited to us with not so much of a big budget.
Great room well done hope mine ends up like this.
 
Thanks for the good comments guys much appreciated.
 
Looks really nice :smashin:
What size is the room?
 
Due to the width of the room and the position of the door I struggled to find some seating that would fit in the space. I wanted something comfortable and ideally that reclined. Eventually my wife found the below reclining two seater sofa at the range and it was just the right size – perfect!



This shows the sofa in the reclining positions:



Another issue I had due to the relatively small size of the room was where to put the rear speakers. There was no space behind the seating position or to the sides (due to the door opening into the space where they would need to go). Eventually I settled on what you can see below. Not ideal positioning but it works quite well.

 
I'm liking the recliners, how much and where from if you dont mind me asking?
 
A few weeks ago my father-in-law upgraded his rear speakers and no longer needed his B&Ws. He asked if I wanted them – I jumped at the chance. The added weight these speakers give me over my old satellites is very impressive. I’m a bit of a bass-a-holic and with these being rear ported they can kick out some serious bass (considering their small size) – I’m very pleased with them. Also, I can now listen to music with the amp in pure direct mode because the B&W’s have enough bass weight to make music without the sub on (the amp cuts the sub output in pure direct) enjoyable.


I know ideally you’re supposed to keep the speakers in the front soundstage all of the same make so that there is no tonal shift between the speakers, but so far I haven’t noticed this happening.
 
What a great transformation and the higher ceiling really works well making it seem more spacious too. :thumbsup: I like the colour on the walls, which looks similar to what I fancy doing for my screen wall as a change from chocolate brown (done 5 years ago). Is that the grey slate colour behind your seats?
 
Looks amazing, love the lighting! It's dark but light...:smashin:
 
I do like the vaulted ceiling, makes the room different.

Sitting in my converted garage, loving it

Enjoy

DrH
 
Hi, love the treads, great job. What visual kit did you buy and was it easy to fit. Thanks Richard
 

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