HT Room update, questions, and pics.

[mpompey]

I mistakenly posted my previous work in progress pictures in the gallery forum, before I realized that was for completed rooms. Sorry folks.

My purpose with this room to get a working media/HT room for watching movies and gaming (PC and Xbox 360 or PS3); then save up for the next year or so, and then gut the room completely with new walls, doors, carpet, etc. to make my dream room.

Questions:
How do you guys get power to your ceiling mounted projector? My room doesn't have a ceiling outlet box. Do they sell portable outlet boxes you can mount then connect to regular outlet via ext cable or something? Should I call in an electrician to mount one for me?

Here are some updated pics from Week 4 of my project. Highlights of the last two weeks:
Installed screen and presence speaker mounts
Built projector mount for ceiling joists
Mounted projector and tested via laptop and ext cord. Still waiting for Estucheon plate to dress up the hole.

Next phase:
The next phase is fishing/pulling the in wall speaker wire to the various locations. I'm not looking forward to that at all. My plan is to have wall panels with banana plugs at each location, rather than a hole with wire coming out. That way I connect the receiver up to a wall panel, then speakers to their panels to make everything look nice and neat. For the fronts, center and sub I was going to use a double gang with 3 bananas on one side and a set of RCA's on the other.

Although I know this phase will make everything look really nice in the long run. However, I'm not looking forward to it at all. I've had to fish/pull Cat5 cable at my last house and it was aggravating to say the least, but once I got the one pull done that was it. Everything hit the switches and routers from then on. But I'm going to be fishing for 7 locations, not counting sub.

Hey, anybody want to come to Philly and fish speaker wire behind paneling? If you don't know we make pretty good sandwiches here.

 

[evilkat]

Hey Philly ain't too far from MD! Too bad I don't know anything about fishing cables Looks like ur HT room is shaping up to be one heluva setup!!

 

[mpompey]

Funny I was in MD not to long ago. Went to the Riverwalk area, visited the aquarium, pretty impressive area. How are the schools down there? I stayed in Landover for a week on vacation to the DC area. I truly enjoyed it.

MD to Philly is just a bit too long of a commute for me. But I know folks that do it. Crazy!

Thanks for the encouragement for the room. Its all I can do some days not to just drape wires all over the floor and say the heck with it. You can't see them when the lights are off!

 

[evilkat]

Funny I was in MD not to long ago. Went to the Riverwalk area, visited the aquarium, pretty impressive area. How are the schools down there? I stayed in Landover for a week on vacation to the DC area. I truly enjoyed it.

MD to Philly is just a bit too long of a commute for me. But I know folks that do it. Crazy!

Thanks for the encouragement for the room. Its all I can do some days not to just drape wires all over the floor and say the heck with it. You can't see them when the lights are off!

ROFL, but u'll trip on them when the lights are off! As for schools, well UMD is a great place to study at! Pretty decent school. I hate DC, the land of mysterious one way streets and impossible navigation!

But there are lots of nice areas in MD! I totally hear you about the crazies who commute from Philly! I think they be nuts!

Can you not run the speaker cables along the bottom of the wall skirting? You can get one of those wire casings (I can't remember the name for it now!) and hide the wires completely from view...the casing should blend rather well with the skirting.

 

[mpompey]

That would have been my first choice, but as the walls in the basement don't have any baseboard. I figured it would be more work cutting those in, than my original idea fishing the speaker cable.

Oh well, I think I have all the parts ready to be orderd in my shopping cart at Parts Express. I'll post pictures throughout that progress.

Still no joy on how to power the AV projector and still be within code.