witheygull's theater room

[witheygull]

After finally selling our old house about 6 weeks ago, I had some cash to throw at new gear. I patiently waited to see if there would be some sales over Memorial Day weekend, there were, and the last of the new stuff was just delivered.



Now I've got to do the installation, but I wanted to post a quick pic while catching my breath after the unpacking. I'll get a better picture up once things are in place, but that's 3 new tower speakers for the front (2 of which have an Atmos speaker built into the cabinet), a new subwoofer, and a new receiver to power everything.

[witheygull]

As I was hooking everything up I found an amusing detail on the new subwoofer:



And here's how everything looks behind the screen now:



I ran through the basic Audyssey setup last night, but I didn't have time to actually sit down and watch something.

[witheygull]

I finished all the calibrations and now have a 5.2.4 setup I'm pleased with.

Here's how the room's looking now:



And the reverse view:



The first thing I tried was this:



Going from the 2 Atmos speakers I had to the 4 that are now in place definitely made a difference in the overall immersiveness. Hopefully wifey will concur that it was money well spent when she gets to check it out this evening.

[witheygull]

The time has come for me to build another disc storage rack; so the next several posts here from me may be of lesser general interest, but could prove helpful to anyone who is learning or thinking about getting into carpentry. I'll use spoiler tags for the work in progress images.

If I could work on it full time I could probably bang out a rack in two days, but the oppressive Georgia summer and my other responsibilities mean I can only spend an hour or two in the mornings on the project. Right now I'm into it for about four hours spread over three days.

Day 1 was moving stuff around in my shop space, getting the material for this project organized, and then measuring and cutting the two vertical side pieces to length.

Day 2 was marking out where the shelves will go on the verticals, tacking the verticals together, and cutting dados (channels) for the top and bottom horizontal boards.

[Show spoiler]

To cut the dados I use a router (the upended tool in the upper right corner of the above picture) with a ¾" straight bit, and then widen the channel just a little bit (like 1/32 of an inch) with a circular saw. Even though the boards that will be going into the dados have a nominal thickness of ¾", I want the slot to be just slightly wider to accommodate variations in the shelf boards.

If you have never used a router in woodworking before, know that it is a good tool to learn but it requires extreme caution while operating. The router is the most dangerous tool I've used; the high RPM of the cutting bit coupled with the fact that you can drop it or have it slip from your grasp puts you at much greater risk of injury than using something like a miter saw or table saw.

Day 3 was today and I finished cutting all the dados.

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Here's a closeup showing how a shelf board will fit in a dado:

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[witheygull]

With some able assistance from wifey, I got all of the shelves cut today and was able to check the fit with the vertical pieces.

[Show spoiler]

When making numerous cuts that need to have identical lengths (such as the 11 horizontal boards I cut today), it's very handy to have a miter saw stand with adjustable arms where you can raise the support up to serve as a stop and ensure you get the same cut repeatedly. In my previous post, the second spoiler-tagged image shows my miter saw and its stand in the upper left corner of the picture.

[SlayersCouncil]

Friggin' beautiful.

[witheygull]

Yesterday morning I spent about two hours sanding the individual pieces, and then moving everything inside and prepping for painting. I started painting this morning and am now giving the pieces some drying time before flipping them to paint the other side. Here's where it's at now:

[Show spoiler]

Painting or staining is my least favorite step in any carpentry project, so I'm looking forward to being done with it.

[witheygull]

Now we're rockin':

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Next up is cutting, painting, and affixing the back piece.

[tbizzle]

Nice work! Love your HT room, looks like a cozy little space with kickass setup

[witheygull]

Originally Posted by tbizzle

Nice work! Love your HT room, looks like a cozy little space with kickass setup

Thanks. Your gallery pics show you're definitely making the most of the space you've got. And I did not know about the Pink Floyd back catalog image before seeing your poster, so I'm more enlightened now.

[witheygull]

Back piece is done on the new rack, so now all that's left to do is the front trim and some touch up. I probably won't be able to get to it until the weekend though.

If anyone is building something similar, you want to double check the squareness of the overall piece prior to installing the back; you want to end up with a nice rectangle rather than a parallelogram. To check the square, measure from one top corner to the diagonal bottom corner and then measure the opposite diagonal (so your two measurements would form an X). If both measurements are the same, you're very good or very lucky; otherwise you'll need to finagle the piece around until you can get it square.

Another thing that may help:

[Show spoiler]

After nailing in the top and one side of the back piece, find the nail holes on the side pieces, mark the back piece at each edge to show where the end of each shelf is, then draw a line connecting the two end points. This will give you a line corresponding to the shelf so you can easily see where it's safe to nail on the back.

[witheygull]

This bad boy is done:



Here's a closeup showing the trim detail:

[Show spoiler]

I'll work on actually installing it with its brethren tomorrow.

[witheygull]

Racky goodness:



Tomorrow's task is to shelve these 2500+ discs in their new home.

[CtrlCtrlFast]

Originally Posted by witheygull

Racky goodness:

[Show spoiler]

Tomorrow's task is to shelve these 2500+ discs in their new home.

nice shelves but what is that swing like thing......

[witheygull]

Originally Posted by CtrlCtrlFast

nice shelves but what is that swing like thing......

That is a hammock chair. I frequently use it when I've got a few minutes to wait on something while prepping dinner; it's nice to gently swing and gaze upon the movie collection.

[witheygull]

The final result:

[roar]

That looks amazing, nice work! Also like the idea of peacefully swinging in a hammock while admiring your collection. Right now I just stand and stare at mine in the room under the stairs. I'm jealous

[witheygull]

Originally Posted by roar

That looks amazing, nice work! Also like the idea of peacefully swinging in a hammock while admiring your collection. Right now I just stand and stare at mine in the room under the stairs. I'm jealous

Thanks. It looks like you've got a nice theater room yourself; I dig the floating projection screen.

[witheygull]

After acquiring these wide box sets:





I decided to build a floating shelf in the theater room to display them and some of the other odd size sets I've got.

Here's the first few work in progress pics:

Front piece

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Back piece

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There are spacer blocks that go between the front and back pieces and then thin plywood on the top and bottom.

[witheygull]

Back pieces with spacer blocks attached to the wall:

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Front pieces installed:

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Next up is cutting, painting, and installing the plywood top and bottom, but that ain't happening today.