Hey
Thought I’d share how I built my latest home cinema. We moved house and decided to build a double story extension on the back of the house. This was going to have a home cinema room upstairs instead of an extra bedroom.
May builder friend Steve, owner of Your Local Builders in Creswell, Notts, started but after a couple of days digging to find the original house footings it was becoming clear things were going to be difficult! The house foundations were 3.2m deep. We had to have two machines digging out due to the depth. This would have meant very deep footings and lots of concrete. The ground was falling in all over so this wasn’t looking good. Then one of the guys said ‘why don’t you just have a basement’! I immediately said yes, dig it all out and have an underground cinema! We got on with changing the planning permission but also carried in with the build. We took out 220 tonnes of soil, a lot of which had to be moved by wheel barrows from the back of the house to the front to dispose of. As you can see from the photos the house was exposed completely on one side!
The builders did an amazing job getting the one foot thick reinforced concrete walls in place, such a relief when done for everyone.
The builders carried on with the single story extension on top for the living room. With the brick shell and floor in place then we had a new problem, the pandemic lockdown!
we literally had just finished completing our kitchen as we had been living for a month in the bedroom and we had a small living area in it but we had no garden and an unfinished extension! Luckily for us the kitchen fitter, Tom, was extremely handy and agreed to work for us during the lockdown, he had been with us for five weeks beforehand. I laboured for him so between us we managed to get the cinema floor in, tank all the walls, fit doors, additional stud walls, the electrics and wiring, and the drainage system with pumps. We had two pumps submerged in the outside stairwell, one run on electric and another on top from a battery back up system. Expensive but essential. They were supplied by Pumps and Sumps Limited. They gave us the right advice and equipment. We fitted the thermal plasterboard and then I put in the aluminium trunking to house the led strip lights in the wall and ceiling. Luckily Toms dad was a great plasterer and agreed to complete that. We fitted in the window and spiral staircase and Tom made the curved wall for the living room access to the stairs. I got on with painting and carpets and completed the setup of the system housing the amp etc in a data cabinet with fans to keep the amp from overheating. I built in the shelving for my UHD collection and Hot toys and then was ready for the grand opening!!
I can’t thank the guys who helped enough for helping my dream come true. It truly Is amazing, 133 inch UHD visuals with 7.1.2 Dolby Atmos/DTS:X sounds.
Equipment list:
Marantz SR7012 AV receiver
Optoma UHD60 projector
Samsung UBD-K8500
Zappiti Duo 4K HDR media player
Logitech Harmony Elite remote controller
133 in Duronic Fixed frame screen
Kef T-series 101
Thought I’d share how I built my latest home cinema. We moved house and decided to build a double story extension on the back of the house. This was going to have a home cinema room upstairs instead of an extra bedroom.
May builder friend Steve, owner of Your Local Builders in Creswell, Notts, started but after a couple of days digging to find the original house footings it was becoming clear things were going to be difficult! The house foundations were 3.2m deep. We had to have two machines digging out due to the depth. This would have meant very deep footings and lots of concrete. The ground was falling in all over so this wasn’t looking good. Then one of the guys said ‘why don’t you just have a basement’! I immediately said yes, dig it all out and have an underground cinema! We got on with changing the planning permission but also carried in with the build. We took out 220 tonnes of soil, a lot of which had to be moved by wheel barrows from the back of the house to the front to dispose of. As you can see from the photos the house was exposed completely on one side!
The builders did an amazing job getting the one foot thick reinforced concrete walls in place, such a relief when done for everyone.
The builders carried on with the single story extension on top for the living room. With the brick shell and floor in place then we had a new problem, the pandemic lockdown!
we literally had just finished completing our kitchen as we had been living for a month in the bedroom and we had a small living area in it but we had no garden and an unfinished extension! Luckily for us the kitchen fitter, Tom, was extremely handy and agreed to work for us during the lockdown, he had been with us for five weeks beforehand. I laboured for him so between us we managed to get the cinema floor in, tank all the walls, fit doors, additional stud walls, the electrics and wiring, and the drainage system with pumps. We had two pumps submerged in the outside stairwell, one run on electric and another on top from a battery back up system. Expensive but essential. They were supplied by Pumps and Sumps Limited. They gave us the right advice and equipment. We fitted the thermal plasterboard and then I put in the aluminium trunking to house the led strip lights in the wall and ceiling. Luckily Toms dad was a great plasterer and agreed to complete that. We fitted in the window and spiral staircase and Tom made the curved wall for the living room access to the stairs. I got on with painting and carpets and completed the setup of the system housing the amp etc in a data cabinet with fans to keep the amp from overheating. I built in the shelving for my UHD collection and Hot toys and then was ready for the grand opening!!
I can’t thank the guys who helped enough for helping my dream come true. It truly Is amazing, 133 inch UHD visuals with 7.1.2 Dolby Atmos/DTS:X sounds.
Equipment list:
Marantz SR7012 AV receiver
Optoma UHD60 projector
Samsung UBD-K8500
Zappiti Duo 4K HDR media player
Logitech Harmony Elite remote controller
133 in Duronic Fixed frame screen
Kef T-series 101