mrpaseo
Agent
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2009
- Messages
- 41
- Real Name
- Ray
I have been home for about six weeks and the HT is coming along just great. Since I started my research on this site I figured it only fare to give an update of our progress.
The beginning: My old system is between 10-15 years old to include the TV, audio system, DVD player and speakers. In this time, I did little to NO research so I came to this site blind of all knowledge on the HT experience. Over the past two years I have been away from home (Actually out of Country for most of those two years) and during this time I thought about updating our "Computer/ storage room" into a home theater room. Originally I planned on dropping $5,000 into the room but with little research and lots of recommendations I learned that it's better to do lots of research before I purchase anything... Sage advice indeed; that said, I decided to build the HT over the next year doing the research and they purchasing one item at a time. Here is our progress.
__________________________________________________ ________________________________________
First the canvas; we started with a finished (rather small) room, so we are unable and unwilling to build new walls to hide wire etc. Here are the dimensions of the room.
As you can see, there is a closet in the room with one window and one door. I have a few ideas as to how to cover the doorway and window that I will cover below.
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
Our first set up looks like this: DONE 10 MAR 09
This is our current set up. We have a desk in the closet that includes our network (Computer and router) and will be the future location of our DVD/Blue ray library a well as our home network. The floor is a low quality rug so we threw down a throw rug to bring the seating and the system together. The far wall holds our current entertainment system and the odd squares and circles in the middle are our misc seating. The only upgrade we did at this point is a Denon receiver, this being the “Hub” in the HT system (Meaning most componants route through the receiver at some point) we thought this would be a nice place to start, we found a great deal on the Denon 2809CI.
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
Our next step:
Projected finish date: 25 MAR 09
Seating: Installed 16 MAR 09
BO Curtain: 23 MAR 09 (Backordered)
This photo depicts items currently ordered and will be the next upgrade. The blackout curtain should arrive by the end of the month (Backordered).
SEATING: For seating we decided on duel (Independent) reclining HT seating. We looked into powered seating but figured there would be fewer issues with manual and the price difference was HUGE. We also looked into the shakers and again this brought the price above what I was will into spend at the moment so we will upgrade this in the future. This seating requires only 4" of wall clearance which is great in our rather small room.
Here are the specs:
“2 Seater Row: 70.5"(W) x 32"(D) x 39"(H)
Seat: 23"(W) x 19"(D) x 19.25"(H)
Arm width: 8"
Armrest height: 23"
Reclined clearance: 60.5"(D) fully reclined
Requires 4" wall clearance to fully recline
Requires 24.5" front clearance to fully recline
Material: Leather/Leather Match on the back.”
The seating was easy to assemble right out of the box. The cardboard that they were shipped in looked a bit beat up but the inner package was ample enough to stave off any mars in the leather. Upon opening the seating I noticed one spot (About three inch diameter) that apprears to have been "Re-stained" black. I noticed no scuffs and since the spot is under the upper seat padding (The seat arrives in two pieces, you simplyplace the back on the seat and push down and it is together) when I put the top on the bottom, the spot was hidden.
After I set up the seating I gave it a test run and found that the button release did not operate. I got out the tool box and pulled the cup holder out to look into the seating. I pulled the button and noticed that the wire was moving properly. It took me about 3 minutes to realize the seating was sinking to much into the rug for the gravity system to work. I places a 1X3 under the front of the seating and they work perfectly now. I can not call this a flaw of the seating though it is good info to know. I will eventually place a piece of plywood under the whole seating to level the seating. As of right now, the wood is not that noticable, when I place the playwook under, I will paint it black or apply some tight short rug around the rug to accent the seating.
CURTAIN: Prior to doing research I never heard of "Blackout curtains". Needles to say we needed a curtain to block out the lighting of the one window and we decide on the "Tristan Eclipse Black-out Coordinates" that we saw in JCPenney. We took the info and went home to do some research on line and found them on sale (On line) add a $10 dollar coupon that I found on line and we got them below half price. While researching the curtain we were toying with the idea of completing the room in curtains for a few reasons. First the whole theater effect, second since we are working with a finished room we will have to figure out a way to hide the wiring. Wall curtains will fix this issue. However, this is an expensive avenue to hide a few cables. I estimate the total wall covering will cost about $400. We decided to purchase one set up to cover our window, if we like how it looks we will continue around the room covering all the walls. This will cover the closet, window and door, plus buying on line and installing myself will save about 50% (Half of 800 is the 400 mentioned above).
JCPenney : Tristan Eclipse Black-out Coordinates
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
Our next step should look like this:
Projected finish date: TBD (We need to verify the above ordered curtain will cover the wall from ceiling to floor)
Hopefully the walls will be covered; we plan on breaking up the brown with four vertical lines (Curtains) of a tan color. The curtain we chose will not reach the ceiling but we are hoping that the top valance will be able to be moved up to cover the top part of the wall. If not, we are probably going to paint behind the curtain. We also need to figure out if we are going to paint the ceiling. Currently it a popcorn white (I really dislike popcorn ceilings).
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
There will be a few more steps (See list below) before we are done but here is our final plan:
As you can see, we will turn the room around. There are many reasons for this but the most obvious is our current set up sits 24” off the wall. When we reverse the room, we will remove the entertainment cabinet (See below) and mount the TV/Projector on the wall. We plan on mounting the curtain a few inches off the wall so we can mount the HDTV behind it, and the valance an inch or two in front of that so the projector screen can drop out from behind it. If we can keep the set up about 12” off the wall it will fit and should look pretty good. When the curtain is closed, you will not see the TV or the screen.
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
Here is a list of items we have installed:
IR Dimmer: We located a dimmer at The Home Depot for about $40. I do not intend to install lighting on the walls so we are going to upgrade the ceiling light cover and install a dimmer, this should set a mood.
UPDATE: The dimmer has been installed and it works exactly as planned. This dimmer has a preset that we use to get everyone quiet as a warning that the movie is about to begin. It was very simple to install and took only about 10 mintes.
Ceiling light cover:We had the basic cheapie that home builders install.
UPDATE: We picked up a ceiling light at Home Depot for $50 and intalled it with the dimmer.
Rug:We ordered a new rug for the living room last night so the rug that is in the HT will stay.
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
Here is a list of other items I am researching in about the order we will be adding them to our HT:
Wall curtains:Once we verify the blackout curtains fit the wall from ceiling to floor, we will install. If they do not work, we will come up with another plan.
Projector:I have a few in mind, I am looking at the $1,500-$2,500 area.
Projector Screen:We were originally planning on painting this on the wall (Still on the table).
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
Here are a few pictures of the setup that I started with:
The beginning, the receiver will be the only thing staying, everything else will get replaced over time.
Our current layout as of 21 MAR 09.
__________________________________________________ ____________________________________________
COST:
1) Receiver: Denon 2809CI
$875.92
Overhead Dome Light:
$54.72
IR Dimmer:
$43.79
Seating:
$710.00
Rug: 7'-10" X 10"-10" (And a runner for the hallway leading into the HT room)
$259.82
Surge protector/Power conditioner: Home Theater PowerCenter™ HTS 2000 MKII with Clean Power™ Stage 2 v.2.0
$170.90
Speakers
SCS-01M-7.0-black Model SCS-01M 7.0 Set with SCS-01M Surrounds Black
*includes three pair SCS-01(M) speakers and one SCS-01 center.
SUB PC12-NSD w/SUB CABLE: IC-5 BetterCables Silver Serpent Interconnect 5m
Speaker mounting brackets (3 pr)
$2,067.13
Base Shaker (2ea)Not installed yet, also 12 Gage wire and connectors.
$149.70
PS3:From what I am reading, this is the best choice for a Blue Ray system.
$465.05 (Plus extra paddle and a game)
HDTV:Panasonic TH-58PZ800U w/wall mount and warranty
$3,355.57 (Delivered)
Speaker tuner
$52.21
TOTAL: $8,204.81
The beginning: My old system is between 10-15 years old to include the TV, audio system, DVD player and speakers. In this time, I did little to NO research so I came to this site blind of all knowledge on the HT experience. Over the past two years I have been away from home (Actually out of Country for most of those two years) and during this time I thought about updating our "Computer/ storage room" into a home theater room. Originally I planned on dropping $5,000 into the room but with little research and lots of recommendations I learned that it's better to do lots of research before I purchase anything... Sage advice indeed; that said, I decided to build the HT over the next year doing the research and they purchasing one item at a time. Here is our progress.
__________________________________________________ ________________________________________
First the canvas; we started with a finished (rather small) room, so we are unable and unwilling to build new walls to hide wire etc. Here are the dimensions of the room.
As you can see, there is a closet in the room with one window and one door. I have a few ideas as to how to cover the doorway and window that I will cover below.
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
Our first set up looks like this: DONE 10 MAR 09
This is our current set up. We have a desk in the closet that includes our network (Computer and router) and will be the future location of our DVD/Blue ray library a well as our home network. The floor is a low quality rug so we threw down a throw rug to bring the seating and the system together. The far wall holds our current entertainment system and the odd squares and circles in the middle are our misc seating. The only upgrade we did at this point is a Denon receiver, this being the “Hub” in the HT system (Meaning most componants route through the receiver at some point) we thought this would be a nice place to start, we found a great deal on the Denon 2809CI.
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
Our next step:
Projected finish date: 25 MAR 09
Seating: Installed 16 MAR 09
BO Curtain: 23 MAR 09 (Backordered)
This photo depicts items currently ordered and will be the next upgrade. The blackout curtain should arrive by the end of the month (Backordered).
SEATING: For seating we decided on duel (Independent) reclining HT seating. We looked into powered seating but figured there would be fewer issues with manual and the price difference was HUGE. We also looked into the shakers and again this brought the price above what I was will into spend at the moment so we will upgrade this in the future. This seating requires only 4" of wall clearance which is great in our rather small room.
Here are the specs:
“2 Seater Row: 70.5"(W) x 32"(D) x 39"(H)
Seat: 23"(W) x 19"(D) x 19.25"(H)
Arm width: 8"
Armrest height: 23"
Reclined clearance: 60.5"(D) fully reclined
Requires 4" wall clearance to fully recline
Requires 24.5" front clearance to fully recline
Material: Leather/Leather Match on the back.”
The seating was easy to assemble right out of the box. The cardboard that they were shipped in looked a bit beat up but the inner package was ample enough to stave off any mars in the leather. Upon opening the seating I noticed one spot (About three inch diameter) that apprears to have been "Re-stained" black. I noticed no scuffs and since the spot is under the upper seat padding (The seat arrives in two pieces, you simplyplace the back on the seat and push down and it is together) when I put the top on the bottom, the spot was hidden.
After I set up the seating I gave it a test run and found that the button release did not operate. I got out the tool box and pulled the cup holder out to look into the seating. I pulled the button and noticed that the wire was moving properly. It took me about 3 minutes to realize the seating was sinking to much into the rug for the gravity system to work. I places a 1X3 under the front of the seating and they work perfectly now. I can not call this a flaw of the seating though it is good info to know. I will eventually place a piece of plywood under the whole seating to level the seating. As of right now, the wood is not that noticable, when I place the playwook under, I will paint it black or apply some tight short rug around the rug to accent the seating.
CURTAIN: Prior to doing research I never heard of "Blackout curtains". Needles to say we needed a curtain to block out the lighting of the one window and we decide on the "Tristan Eclipse Black-out Coordinates" that we saw in JCPenney. We took the info and went home to do some research on line and found them on sale (On line) add a $10 dollar coupon that I found on line and we got them below half price. While researching the curtain we were toying with the idea of completing the room in curtains for a few reasons. First the whole theater effect, second since we are working with a finished room we will have to figure out a way to hide the wiring. Wall curtains will fix this issue. However, this is an expensive avenue to hide a few cables. I estimate the total wall covering will cost about $400. We decided to purchase one set up to cover our window, if we like how it looks we will continue around the room covering all the walls. This will cover the closet, window and door, plus buying on line and installing myself will save about 50% (Half of 800 is the 400 mentioned above).
JCPenney : Tristan Eclipse Black-out Coordinates
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
Our next step should look like this:
Projected finish date: TBD (We need to verify the above ordered curtain will cover the wall from ceiling to floor)
Hopefully the walls will be covered; we plan on breaking up the brown with four vertical lines (Curtains) of a tan color. The curtain we chose will not reach the ceiling but we are hoping that the top valance will be able to be moved up to cover the top part of the wall. If not, we are probably going to paint behind the curtain. We also need to figure out if we are going to paint the ceiling. Currently it a popcorn white (I really dislike popcorn ceilings).
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
There will be a few more steps (See list below) before we are done but here is our final plan:
As you can see, we will turn the room around. There are many reasons for this but the most obvious is our current set up sits 24” off the wall. When we reverse the room, we will remove the entertainment cabinet (See below) and mount the TV/Projector on the wall. We plan on mounting the curtain a few inches off the wall so we can mount the HDTV behind it, and the valance an inch or two in front of that so the projector screen can drop out from behind it. If we can keep the set up about 12” off the wall it will fit and should look pretty good. When the curtain is closed, you will not see the TV or the screen.
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
Here is a list of items we have installed:
IR Dimmer: We located a dimmer at The Home Depot for about $40. I do not intend to install lighting on the walls so we are going to upgrade the ceiling light cover and install a dimmer, this should set a mood.
UPDATE: The dimmer has been installed and it works exactly as planned. This dimmer has a preset that we use to get everyone quiet as a warning that the movie is about to begin. It was very simple to install and took only about 10 mintes.
Ceiling light cover:We had the basic cheapie that home builders install.
UPDATE: We picked up a ceiling light at Home Depot for $50 and intalled it with the dimmer.
Rug:We ordered a new rug for the living room last night so the rug that is in the HT will stay.
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
Here is a list of other items I am researching in about the order we will be adding them to our HT:
Wall curtains:Once we verify the blackout curtains fit the wall from ceiling to floor, we will install. If they do not work, we will come up with another plan.
Projector:I have a few in mind, I am looking at the $1,500-$2,500 area.
Projector Screen:We were originally planning on painting this on the wall (Still on the table).
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
Here are a few pictures of the setup that I started with:
The beginning, the receiver will be the only thing staying, everything else will get replaced over time.
Our current layout as of 21 MAR 09.
__________________________________________________ ____________________________________________
COST:
1) Receiver: Denon 2809CI
$875.92
Overhead Dome Light:
$54.72
IR Dimmer:
$43.79
Seating:
$710.00
Rug: 7'-10" X 10"-10" (And a runner for the hallway leading into the HT room)
$259.82
Surge protector/Power conditioner: Home Theater PowerCenter™ HTS 2000 MKII with Clean Power™ Stage 2 v.2.0
$170.90
Speakers
SCS-01M-7.0-black Model SCS-01M 7.0 Set with SCS-01M Surrounds Black
*includes three pair SCS-01(M) speakers and one SCS-01 center.
SUB PC12-NSD w/SUB CABLE: IC-5 BetterCables Silver Serpent Interconnect 5m
Speaker mounting brackets (3 pr)
$2,067.13
Base Shaker (2ea)Not installed yet, also 12 Gage wire and connectors.
$149.70
PS3:From what I am reading, this is the best choice for a Blue Ray system.
$465.05 (Plus extra paddle and a game)
HDTV:Panasonic TH-58PZ800U w/wall mount and warranty
$3,355.57 (Delivered)
Speaker tuner
$52.21
TOTAL: $8,204.81