Home Theater/Game Room Thread

Man I'm the opposite. I built a plex box that my Roku/AppleTV/Smart TV can acccess, and the roku runs a slew of software that automates movies. Other than that I have a few streaming services (Netflix, Disney+, Hulu w HBO), and I haven't put a bluray or DVD in my player in over 2 years

BrutulTM said:

Yeah, it might be different if I actually had broadband internet. When you're on satellite internet, buying a bluray is the only way to watch a movie on demand with decent resolution.

I still think ripping blu rays is more trouble than it's worth though. Not that hard to just stick the disk in the player if you already own it.

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Oh shit you're on satellite? How is that anyway? My parents had Hughes net back like 13-14 years ago. It was terrible, but I think they had some wiring issues unrelated.

^^^ So I currently have a stage for my home theater, and all my speakers just sit on it, and all my electronics are in a rack in the back. I'm sick of it. I'm thinking of having something like these built. Basically have an area for the 120" screen, then I was thinking put the front speakers in the tall cabinets on the side, then have custom doors with speaker fabric on them. Then put subs under the main speakers in large cabinets with speaker grill cloth, and then I could have doors for shelving for the theater equipment / plex box. So it would hid everything in the theater. The only exposed things would be the surround speakers in the back of the room. Like a mixture of picture #2, 3, and 5.

So I've finally settled on a look for the theater. I'm going with this style. I'm having my guy basically copy this exactly, except on the sides there will not be curtains, but instead wood panels (like those further out than the curtains in this pic), with basically like a secret door to access all the gear. The gear will all be on one side (receiver, bluray, media player things (roku/appletv), and then my plex box.)

I think this will look amazing. Just basically you see a screen, and that's it. No speaker, no gear. It's all hidden and stealth. My whole room is painted black, so I'm going to have it all repainted back to normal colors like the rest of my house. I'm debating having the theater wall be painted a dark color like this versus the normal white my rest of the house is painted in. Basically the theater room is fucking pitch black right now and it's like a dungeon. I want it to be welcoming and basically feel like another living room, so I'm getting away from black everything. I'm getting rid of my theater seating and everything else. I want to go with a nice light color leather sectional. Put some legit furniture in there too.

I'm debating what to do with all these sound panels I have in there. I have like 10-12 2"x4" sound panels all covered in black. I ordered some material samples and am thinking about having them covered in something similar to what the walls will be painted so they are light colored, so they look great and still do their job. I also have 4 same size panels hanging from the ceiling, the previous installer hung them by hooks so they hang about 6" from the ceiling, my contractor suggested recovering them and attaching them directly to the ceiling so they can still work but they don't really intrude on the room.

Holy hell. Day 1, contractor was able to remove the entire bookcase from the wall. I put my old screen in there to get an idea of what it's going to look like. I think it's going to look great when done. Also I'm getting rid of everything being black. I tried priming the walls. I'm guessing its ok if primer looks like this at first? I think it may take three coats of primer to really get the black out before I apply the color (Benjamin Moore Paper White for walls and Simply White for trim.)

I hope the contractor can get the stage part blocked out Monday. I'm noticing the plugs will need to be moved, etc. There's always something.

Izo said:

Interesting. But wouldn’t black be better for the cinema experience?

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Yes absolutely! I had the entire room black. Ceiling, trim, carpet, furniture. I had this huge window shade on the one window, and I taped that to the window trim, then had thick ass pleated theater curtains in black in front of the window. The room was completely pitch black. It's weird how black is, the walls were flat black so light wouldn't even bounce off them. So if you looked in a corner the corner would disappear.

BUT, it felt like a dungeon, and it's a whole room in my house that's useless if not watching a movie. It had a huge stage and the speakers were everywhere, it looked just frumpy. So my goal is to get it all cleaned up and make the theater just look like a piece of furniture in the room. The speakers will all be hidden except for the rear surrounds which I will mount up high out of the way. And I'm going to recover some of the sound panels in a white fabric, and get rid of the rest. I think I will add some built in book cases, etc. So what I want it to be is like a den, or a second sitting room, where it's beautiful, well decorated, and happens to have a great theater in it. The sound quality will go down some with the loss of the sound panels and thick curtains, but man, at this point, I think I want the usefulness of the room over a perfect home theater.

Today my guy got the whole room mudded. All that crap on the back wall is mudded and sanded, all the holes I had made for sound panels, etc, on the ceiling are filled, old holes I made elsewhere are filled, and he had to move the electrical outlet on the right to be closer to the theater wall so I could plug in my shit. Hopefully start real construction tomorrow!

Some progress! Side cabinets are in, and they are finishing up the stage part for the speakers. Super solid. So the screen will hang from that top part and rest against the bottom part. It needs to be all faced out. Discussing trim, etc. It's going to be badass.

Edit: The plan is to face out the cabinets now, and there's a certain type of inset door my mom "designed" that my guy is going to copy here. The bottom will be faced out too, with a trim inlay. Same for the top. The boxes on the top corners will be dead space, as there will be crown in front of it. He talked me into slide out shelves for the side cabinets where all my gear will go instead of just putting my media rack in there. We are going to do the chair rail wainscotting with trim squares above and below the chair rail (I'm sure theres some name for this) and some built-in bookshelves on the opposite walls. The room should look really elegant when it's all said and done. Trying to figure out a couch, think I'm going to do a sectional.

Today's progress

Today's update!

So, the cavity that you are seeing is where the speakers will be. The front speakers, centers, and hopefully subs will sit in there. All the equipment will be to the right in a cabinet with a nice panel door that should just blend in. The screen is 120" 16:9, and will hang in front of that cavity. It will cover/overlap the cavity by like 6-8 inches or something in each direction. So the cavity is a lot smaller than the screensize.

And it has to be all trimmed out, the doors, the crown and baseboard, etc. Theres going to be pilasters on each side of the screen separating the screen from the cabinets, and a huge top piece that will extend out like three inches. It's going to be a beast.