Major renovation project - lots of questions

[stjoe]

Well, I can't sell my house, so I am going to add a three-story addition. Top level will be a bedroom, main level a sunroom, and below that a den/home theater room. I have an architect, and I am just getting started with the planning.

I have attached a drawing of the den/HT area. The total space is going to be around 23' by 22'. After a 6' by 23' area is taken for a bath, spiral staircase, kitchenette and storage, I will be left with a 16' by 22' area for my home theater, plus a couple of pinball machines, a jukebox, and a card table. It will not have theater seating. Obviously it won't be dedicated to HT, but should be a fairly nice place to hang out. I hope to have 9' ceilings, but we are having to excavate a bit, and the engineer will have to approve.

I want to do some soundproofing. I have train tracks within a hundred yards of my house. I've been reading about options for the walls, but does it do any good if you are going to have 2-3 windows, a door and a spiral staircase?

I have lots of questions about setup. I want to have a projector and screen in the new den/HT. We watch pretty much everything. Lots of sports and movies. Blu ray and DirecTV. I also want to be able to be able to just chill to my old vinyl LPs as well as current music. We have 3-year old twins, and they will have their own needs as time goes on. I already have a 7.2 system, but it will need to be upgraded. I currently have two DTV receivers on the main level...one supplying a 60" LCD HDTV in the living room, and the other piping a signal back through the 18-yr old coax to the rest of the house. I envision three zones: one for the new den/HT, one for the living room, and one for the rest of the house. I know DirecTV has JUST changed their technology. Here are some questions:

I want to have the bulk of the equipment in the new den/HT.....Receiver, Blu Ray, DirecTV receivers, turntable, etc. Fundamentally, how do I set this up? Will I have to (or want to) rewire my whole house? Should I plan to utilize the DTV "receiver for each room" option? Is there a good up-to-date primer somewhere online where I can get up to speed on multi-room setups?

Also, I've been reading a lot of threads about light and choices of projectors and screens. If I will have ambient light from 2-3 windows + a door, each with blinds plus an open spiral staircase, am I going to be happy with the picture from, say, an Epson 7350? Will it be important to enclose the staircase? Should I invest in a gray or white screen?

Sorry to bombard with so many questions, but this project isn't off the ground yet and my head is swimming!

 

[BMXTRIX]

A lot of this depends on your budget and what you want to do.

A whole house remodel may be a prime time to get in and fully update the wiring for the entire home and add separate speaker zones and a true central distribution point for all your audio and video for the home and take that time to go to a RF remote control and hard wired system which allows for easy one touch use throughout your home.

Some of this may be able to be done relatively easily with the home renovation, but it depends on the level of effort going into everything.

I've got a number of things written in the FAQs over at Big Screen Forums, but the bottom line in a theater is that dark rules. So, I wouldn't use 'blinds', I would go with blackout shades. I would recommend choosing very dark paint colors on the walls AND ceiling AND dark carpet! Then add lights! Lots of lights. Lots of ZONED lights. This can remove the 'cavelike' feel of a dark room and really open it up. Combined with the windows, during the daytime, it can be quite enjoyable.

Now, whether it will be good enough for projection, especially during the day, will truly depend on your light control. I personally went with all dark colors in my basement, and blackout shades, but quite often I just watch the 52" LCD I have down there for 'casual' viewing, and then I drop a motorized 106" screen in front of the LCD for Blu-ray movie viewing and some HDTV.

The rest of your home demands as much focus I would say as you want to really consider how long you will live there and how much integration with your home you would like your system to have. A central rack location with all your HD receivers in them, and perhaps a HDMI matrix switcher can allow for 'any source to any room' versatility. It can be expensive, but once in place is very nice to actually use. Our 4 & 6 year old kids have no problem turning things on in any room of the house because of the ease of use. Of course - it comes at a cost. $10K-$20K isn't an unreasonable amount to spend on a nicely integrated system with most of the hardware and programming in place.

On the far lesser side, would be just doing each room individually and putting gear into those rooms as you would like. You don't get the flexibility, but you save some coin.

CONDUIT IS YOUR FRIEND!

Running some conduit between critical locations is a really good idea - I'll leave it at that.

My recommendation, as a minimum to each TV... THREE pieces of CAT-5/6 and 2 pieces of COAX.

CAT-5/6 is incredibly versatile and can carry Ethernet, HDMI, component video, analog audio, digital audio... all sorts of things. Since most TVs, DirecTV boxes, and Blu-ray players are Internet enabled, having a Ethernet connection behind each TV location is a must.

Also, FIND A HEAD END! This one location is the central distribution point of your DirecTV/Cable/Fios/Etc. connection, your home phone lines, and your A/V gear. Try to find a storage room that it can all go into and won't get hot and won't get disturbed.

If you are planning wi-fi in the house, then I would find a closet or something on a centrally located floor that you can put the antenna in. A nicely centered wi-fi location can really help with the reliability of a wi-fi network.

Anyway, there is like 10 billion considerations, well beyond the theater that I would be looking at and considering well before construction begins.

The projector matters, but will be one of the last purchases made so you can find a 'best one' for the room at that point and time, though consideration for location needs to happen during construction. The Epson 8700UB is where I would be recomending you look.

 

[stjoe]

Wow. What an informative response!

Thank you.

I'm learning as fast as I can. I think I'm going to have drawings with $$ by next week. The bank says they will take about a month to approve the construction loan. Then construction can either start just before, or more likely, after Christmas. I've got to get something done this year, just to take advantage of the $1500 energy tax credit!

I don't think I have $20K to spend, but there will be something already in my budget for wiring. Since 90% or greater of the TV/music watching/listening will take place in 3-4 areas that are close to each other, I may want to concentrate on those areas, especially if a lot of the cost involves going back and rewiring the existing home. Whatever I do, I'll follow your advice and make sure I run plenty of cable to the areas I do address.

I'll also follow your advice on the shades and lighting. My wife wants french doors leading out to a new patio, and I'll have to figure out how to darken that. I don't like the aesthetics of painting everything dark or enclosing the spiral staircase.....I need to find an elegant way to accomplish the lighting needs without making the area seem gloomy. I'll take a look around the web and see if others have been able to color everything dark and still make it look good for the other playroom activities.

Another question or two: I was planning on having built-in cabinets on the 16-ft wall surrounding the screen. Is that a reasonable place for the electronics? Or is it a must to try to build a closet somewhere? Knowing that I am trying to keep seven feet or so behind seating for card table, pinballs, etc., is there any reason to not put the screen within a foot or so of the wall?

I wasn't aware of Big Screen Forums. I'll try to take a look around there today.

 

[jostenmeat]

I laud you for trying to understand as much as you can. However, with the various needs and compromises, covering multiple rooms, throw in sound proofing issues into the equation, rewiring for all of this, I would consider hiring a true AV professional designer if only for blueprint plans.

I do not know how much Dennis Erskine charges these days for a layout, including everything like wiring and HVAC, but people used to say it's a bargain (my guess is 1-2k a few years ago, but I really can't remember). He has designed a lot of very high end systems at AVS forums. Worst case scenario that I can see, you're out a couple of grand. Best case scenario, he gets you the best allocation of your budget towards various needs, with the best design possible, so that you don't lose money in the future to backtrack on any errors or other overlooked things. I don't know, I'd think about it though.

For the closet on the front wall, it naturally can limit the size of your screen. So how deep into the 16' wall will they go? Let's say 3' each side, 11' left. Subtract about another foot for screen border and whatever wiggle room, now 10'. That's a pretty good sized screen. Yeah you got space. You can have your screen "shadow-boxed" too. Just consider both heat issues, and light control of the components. Anyways, you gotta do what you gotta do, and if that's the best place, then it's the best place.

For the last question, I don't understand what you are asking.

 

[stjoe]

I scheduled a meeting at my place with a professional av designer..

That will be Friday evening. In the meantime, I've been reading like mad.

We'll see how that goes, and I'll report back.