Home Theater #4 - Lighting Plan

I put together a lighting plan for the theater room, shown below. I am not 100% sure that this is what we will do yet, but it's a starting point.

There are 4 lighting zones:
1. Lights across the entry to the room. We will like put a game table in this area.
2. Perimeter lights in the back of the room. These will be the ones that are typically on.
3. Perimeter lights in the front of the room. These will likely be on, but a very low setting.
4. Two conventional lights for fully lighting the room, to keep the space multipurpose. These are already in place.


After looking at a few options and the costs, I decided to go with simple recessed lighting and dimmer controls for each zone. These will be build into soffits that I will add, which will give a tray ceiling effect to the room.

I found a good site for home theater information: DIY Home Theater Design. It has quite a bit of technical content and is fairly comprehensive.

Home Theater #3 - Lighting Design

After a number of hours searching the web, I found very few resources on home theater lighting. I visited all kinds of sights that gave a trivial amount of information, but few with a lot of actual content. Unfortunately, most of them had a couple of paragraphs and wads of ads. I guess I will need to spend the next week or two doing some additional research...

Home Theater #2 - Framing Pictures

Here are a few pictures of before and after the framing...



The pictures above and below show the soffit that forms the entry to the theater room. This soffit holds the HVAC ducts and a 20" gluelam beam that supports part of the garage and kitchen above. Obviously, we are not going to move or modify it. We don't really like the look of it - the framing in the pictures below is meant to turn it into an entry.

The wood post shown was wrapped in sheetrock, and looked very 70's. Also, the entire area is a mess in this photo.



Here is a picture of the framing. These are built to accept bookshelves. The post was kept in place has now become part of the wall along the stairs.



Finally, here is the framing from the backside. This is the storage area for the wood pellets (see last post).



Now it's on to designing the lighting scheme for the room...

Home Theater #1 - Floor Plan

We decided to do most of the basement remodel at one time, so we only get a huge mess one time, and part of the remodel is the home theater.

The 500 sq ft space under our garage is finished and is currently being used as our theater room. This consists of a projector, inexpensive home theater receiver (the DVD player on it is broken) and some cables strung along the walls. We don't have a screen yet, so we project directly on the wall. The space is wide open to the rest of the basement, so sound is somewhat of a problem. All this being said, it still makes a great place for watching movies and sports.

The first phase is to some additional framing to close the theater area in a bit. In general, we want to keep the house as open and multi-purpose as possible, but this area is currently too open. Here is the before layout:



The after layout shows the change to the walls (in orange). These two "boxes" create a doorway to the theater room and allow for a lot storage. They will also block a lot of the sound that travels up the stairs when the TV volume is loud, some of the light that comes from the back of the house.



This floor plan gives a 19 x 28 foot space, allowing for a full three rows of seating if we want.

Hallway Remodel #1

The most unfortunate feature of our house is (now was) the long, dark hallways. The one in the basement is 3 feet wide, 27 feet long, with a 7' 4" ceiling height. The main air ducts run right above the ceiling, and the outer wall is a central load-bearing one - so there is no changing this.


As the diagram shows, we are getting rid of as much of the hallway as possible and turning it into storage closets.

Here is a picture of the hall before the remodeling started. Its about as claustrophobic as you can get as still meet code (at least in the 1970's)


Before doing any drywall removal, I like to draw the full layout on the wall with a sharpie. I mark all the existing studs, as well as the new positions. This gives me the chance to make sure everything is going to land where it should. In this case, I moved the closet door 2 inches toward the bedroom door to maximize the room for the bed. A little extra time saves a lot of work later...


I have learned the hard way, do not just start cutting into the wall. I like the reciprocating saw as much as the next guy, but there is pain involved in cutting things you don't want cut. I took my hammer and knocked a channel on the sheetrock, so I could inspect what's in there.


If everything was perfect, there would be no electical wires where I want to put the door (fat chance). In this case, there were two wires, both part of the same circuit. All I had to do was move it over one stud bay. Anything more than this, and I would have had to peel a good deal of the wall back to reroute the circuit correctly.



Here is the framing in place - not a lot of work.

Book Table Finished

My DW finished painting the book table I made for her. She chose a black semi-gloss paint, and the finish turned out well as shown in the picture.


Here is the inspiration piece I used to desgin this table (sold by Ballard Designs)




Obviously this piece is much larger and open. I used the "X" pattern and edge details, on a smaller scale. I decided to make the sides solid, since the tipped-back shelf was not at the same angle as the "X", and wouldn't have looked good.

[Link to previous post]

Victorian Christmas

The following set of pictures are from my parents' home. They live in a true victorian, inside and out (hunting dogs and all). It's all a bit busy for me, but they do a very nice job of putting it all together. I appreciate what they have done over the years. One thing a victorian is good for: Christmas decoration.

Building Bookshelves #3

I was able to get the first set of bookshelves trimmed out today. It wasn't difficult, just a lot of detail work - but as the picture shows, it was rewarding - I really like the look of them.

I would definitely not want these shelves to be adjustable. This ended up being a nice architectural feature, and having random shelf heights would take that away.

The MDF makes a nice surface for painting. It took about three hours to mill the pieces for this and the other two sets I will install later. After that it took another three hours to install the ones here.

Previously, I installed two 4" can lights as accents. These will help highlight the bookshelf.

Here are the shelf fronts, all cut over-length by about 3 inches. I decided to install the long vertical pieces first, then scribe and cut each of these horizontal ones to fit. I made a little 3/16" offset template for the verticals.

I numbered each one of these, then marked them for the cut. Once they were all marked, I cut everything at once - this is way more efficient that moving back and forth for each piece.

Here is a tip to make really accurate cuts: Put a scrap piece of the same thickness next to the fence, tack it in place (or clamp it), then cut it off. This will give the exact position of where the blade cuts. Line up the pieces you want to cut at this edge, and they will be right on.

The outside face frames are even with the sheetrock (with an 1/8") all the way around. I will trim this out the same as I would a door frame, with a 1/4" reveal.

I filled the nail holes, sanded, then filled them again with thinned down filler. Once primed, they should be invsible.

Good Site for Inspiration Pictures

The Maple Forest Cottage is a fairly popular house plan, with a lot of really neat features. I found a site that has a number of photos of it, and a lot of others as well: architecturalhouseplans.com.


I really like these support pieces, and I want to include something like this when we get to the exterior part of the remodel...

Table Saw Set Up

Like most shops, my table saw is the heart of most of the activity. Someday, hopefully soon, I will be building a shop so I can have a fixed setup for all my tools - but for now I share space in the garage. To make this work, I built a moble base for the saw.


The photo above shows the saw (yup, it's messy) rolled out into the driveway. As much as possible, I like to work outside - more room, less dust, and less noise.

This diagram shows the basic layout of the base (42" x 42"). It has shelves around three sides, and dust collection on the center. I put a plastic bin in the bottom so its easy to get the dust out. The top of the base forms a deck to hold my fence and other tools. This who thing sits on five 3" locking casters - 4 in the corners and once in the center for support.

This is made from two sheets of 3/4" OSB, with furring strip edging. I kept the edging one inch proud to give me places to put clamps.


I installed power outlets on both sides of the base, which come in really handy. When the saw is plugged in, the outlets are live. It also has a shopvac dust collection point that comes in from the back.

I built a small outfeed table as part of the base. This gives me just enough extra support to for my two-foot deep cross-cut box, to keep from falling off the back. I left an opening in the back allow access to the motor, and provide airflow around it.


Here is a picture of the saw and my workbench together. The workbench is build in the same style, and has an integrated router table. It sits 1/2" lower than the saw to allow easy outfeed. Again, this has power incorporated. I plug the bench into the saw, so I have power all the way around the setup.



I have had this for about 7 years, its it has really served me well. I have some things that I would like to improve: a few more outlets, side support tables for cross-cutting longer boards, better clamp storage.

Treehouse

Since the weather was so nice yesterday, I spent a few minutes outside taking pictures. Here is the kids' treehouse. We built this over the past couple of summers. This is not a "story book" treehouse, but more of a "tree fort", which is what we called them as kids.

The first story has an easy-access ladder so that almost all kids, no matter how small, can get up there and have fun. The second story has a rope ladder that goes up to it, and is more challenging to get into.

Building Bookshelves #2

We had great weather in Portland, so I was able to get the beadboard bookshelves built and installed today (and get the Christmas lights up). The following photo set shows the process.

Here are the routed uprights:

Shelves attached to the first side:


I glued and stapled these in place.

I put in two screws to hold the shelves in tight during assembly:

I flipped it over to it's other side:

And put the other upright on:

Here is my son helping out a bit:

Here are two of the shelving units standing upright, after I glued and stapled the beadboard plywood to the backs:

Close-up shot of the shelves:

The installation of the four units went really well. I shimmed the right side plumb, and went from there. I put a few shims in a the back against the studs, but mainly sprayed expanding insulation foam back there.

Each unit has a 3/8" spacer (extra beadboard) between it and the next. This allows for easy adjustment. It makes the units has as through they were hinged, so they can be aligned.

Now I need to put the faceframe pieces on, then trim it out.

Building Bookshelves #1

I started building the built-in bookshelves that go into basement. The diagram here shows where the first set will go.


The unit will be 7 feet tall and 8 feet wide. There will also be two more units of hte same design at the other end of the basement. These will each be about 3 1/2 feet wide. Here is the concept from the computer model of the house:


I was cut the uprights out of 1/2 prefinshed (on one side) plywood that was left over from our kitchen cabinets I built. We are painting these, so I turned the finished side outwards. The shelves are out of 3/4 hardwood plywood.

I used a one foot speed square to lay out the lines for the shelves. I always make an X mark on the side of the line where the shelf goes, so I don't get confused later on.


I decided to route 1/8" deep dadoes into the uprights to make assebly easy. My initial plan was to just glue and screw the shelves together, which would give plenty of support. The downside of this is that I would have to hold each shelf exactly square. Dados provide easy alignment, so it was worth the extra effort.

Here is the jig I built to simplify the routing...


The jig works with my trim router. Sincne these dadoes are only 1/8" deep, it cuts them easily. Whenever possible, I use the trim router instead of a larger one, since it's light and easy to handle with one hand. Also, this one cost me $20 at Harbor Freight on sale (been going strong for 3 years), and it's the one I want to use up.


Here is a completed upright. Now on to mounting the shelves...