A Little More...

I'm getting close to finishing the rough framing. All I have left is a small column to cover the unused shower drain and the projector screen false wall. Here are a few more photos.

This is the cover for the main drain stack and a telepost. It was kind of annoying having those two pretty much in the middle of the home theatre room. I contemplated other options like complete walls but I didn't want to carve up the space like that. So I settled for a large column.

This is that same column attached to the framing that covers the main HVAC ducts. Those horizontal spars are about 4 feet long. Attaching them by myself was tricky. I made myself a little hook with some scrap lumber. I'd slip it around one of those "ladder" like structures and hang one end of the spar on it and screw in the other end. Then I'd move around to the other side, slide the hook out of the way and screw in that end.




I had to frame a new ceiling for the washroom because of that black pipe that sits below the upstairs floor joists. I amazed myself by constructing a perfectly level ceiling!

That'll pretty much be it for the rough framing photos. Pictures don't quite capture how much work has been done but I'll have one more photo of the false wall that I'll be building to support the projector screen. After that, I'll be getting into the plumbing and electrical.

Home Theatre Equipment

For the past few months while doing the construction, I've been researching and purchasing the various components for the home theatre system. I've been lucky enough to get some deals too.

The heart of the system is the home theatre personal computer (HTPC). This system is a basic PC with a high-definition (HD) video card, good quality on-board audio and 2000GB (2TB) of storage capacity. With hard disks currently available, I can upgrade it to 8TB. All of the movies that will be viewed with this home theatre will be stored on the HTPC. I'll also be installing a TV tuner card so I can watch TV on the big screen if I want to. If needed I'll upgrade the card to be able to pull in the video output from a Shaw HD terminal whenever I get around to subscribing to HD service. I'm in no rush for that right now. Eventually, when the price drops enough, I'll install a Blu-ray reader in the HTPC.

When a movie plays, the audio data will be transmitted to a Pioneer VSX-9120TXH receiver where the data is processed and output to the surround sound speaker set. The speakers consist of 4 Polk Audio RM101 surround speakers, a RM202 center channel and a PSW10 subwoofer. I'm sticking with a 5.1 system for now because there really isn't a huge benefit to going to 6.1 or 7.1 when most movies are 5.1. A handful of movies are 6.1 and the receiver can create a virtual back channel if needed. If I ever want to upgrade to a full 7.1 system, I can do that later. One of the reasons why I got this receiver is that it has an interface port that would allow me to command the receiver directly from the HTPC.

The video output from the HTPC is connected directly to a Sanyo PLV-2000 HD projector with resolution of 1920x1080. All of my movies are standard definition right now but the video card in the HTPC will upconvert to 1080. The projector also has an interface port that will allow command and control from the HTPC. The projector will be ceiling mounted and will project the image on to a 92" x 51.75" (106" diagonal) acoustically transparent screen. This will allow me to put the center channel speaker behind the screen so dialogue will appear to come right from the screen. This projector/screen setup is 1.78:1 aspect ratio (or 16:9), which means that the width is 1.78 times longer than the height. This is standard HDTV aspect ratio so all the new plasma and LCD TVs out there are 1.78:1. Most movies are recorded in 2.35:1 aspect ratio so I'll still get horizontal black bars above and below the image when watching those movies. I looked into what I'd need to do to modify the system to do 2.35:1, thus eliminating the black bars, and discovered it would be a little bit over my budget -- we're talking thousands!

The HTPC and receiver will be installed in the utility room. The projector and speakers will be installed in the home theatre room with long cables bringing the signals over. This eliminates any kind of noise from the HTPC interfering with the movie watching enjoyment. By the way, one of the reasons why I chose that particular projector is that it has an exceptionally quiet cooling fan.

Movies will be played using custom software that I will be writing. This will let me have a single piece of software that will play the movie, control the receiver and control the projector. For a user interface, I'll be writing a controller program that will reside on a PDA which will communicate with the HTPC over WiFi or Bluetooth. I could also write an interface that displays on the big screen but I want to be able to select a movie without turning on the projector to save lamp life. The software will take care of turning on the projector after I've selected the movie I want to watch. And since the HTPC is on the same network as the home automation system, the sky's the limit on how the theatre is controlled: schedule, motion controlled, voice command, whatever... I can have the software designed so that if someone gets up during the movie, the lights will be brought up a little so no one stubs their toes or walks into a wall on their way to the washroom. Or, the system can automatically pause the movie if the phone rings.

So there's the guts of the home theatre. I'm still in the middle of designing and writing all the software. It's lots to do but it'll be worth it when it's done!

Construction...

The washroom with Dricore on the floor. The drain stubs for the toilet, shower and sink were put in by the builders. I won't be putting in a shower (on the left) so I'll be covering that up.

This is a view from the bar looking towards the stairs. The washroom is on the right that's at the end of a short hallway. You can also see the door way to the home theatre where I'll put in a set of double-doors.

Neighbour's cat watching me work.

To date, I've completed the primary walls and am in the process of building soffits and chases around pipes, poles and ductwork. I'll post pictures of those soon.

Building Codes

Since I've never done this kind of construction before, I needed to figure out exactly how to get started. I could have just started nailing boards and running wires but I wanted to make sure I did it right. The City of Winnipeg provides easy to understand brochures that describe framing, electrical and plumbing. For example, because of the potential for basement floors to shift, it's required to leave at least a 19mm gap above or below partition walls. It's easier to leave the gap on top because otherwise, I'd have to hang the partition walls from the joists. There are requirements for doors, the number of outlets and light fixtures on an electrical circuit and it's necessary to install an exhaust fan in the washroom because the only thing separating you from various noxious sewer gases is a little puddle of water in the bottom of the toilet bowl!

Armed with this information, I was able to set out with a real plan of building my basement. Coming up next .... pictures of some of the framing including the finished Dricore installation.

A Word About Dricore

When I started planning my basement, I was concerned with having the flooring sitting right on top of cold concrete. Even with an underpad, you'd still feel the rock-like hardness underneath your feet. I decided then that I would build a subfloor. The standard way of building a subfloor involves laying pressure treated 2x4's on the concrete and screwing floorboards on top. Flooring material like carpet can then be installed on top. However, this means that I'd lose over 2 inches of vertical height.

I then started looking into alternative solutions. You can get a dimpled plastic material that's rolled out on to the concrete and then cover with 5/8" plywood floor boards. I was considering using that when I discovered Dricore. Dricore is a 24"x24" tile that's 7/8" high. On the bottom is a plastic layer with a waffle-like pattern that allows air to circulate and on top is random wafer board. The tiles are simply floated on top of the concrete floor and attach to each other in tongue-and-groove fashion. I was able to install the entire basement in two weekends.

"Before" Pictures

The first photo is the back corner where the bar will be. You can see stacks of Dricore which will be used to build the subfloor. The second photo is where the home theatre will be. And the third photo is of where the exercise room will be. The house is a bi-level so it allows it to have a big front window.

The Floor Plan

Here's the basic plan for the basement. The home theatre has the projection screen on one end and a wet bar on the other. (Click to enlarge.)

What Am I Doing?

Ok, so what am I doing? I bought the house in 1999 and I knew that I wanted a home theatre and to design a home automation system. The home automation system is a way of centralizing control of lights, heating and cooling, door locks, audio and video and whatever else I can think of. I became aware of the idea of computerized control probably around 15 years ago and at the time, the technology wasn't readily available and what was available, wasn't very mature. Now, there's a growing industry in home automation. Professional installers are charging big bucks (we're talking tens of thousands) to install customized systems but I know I can do it myself for a lot less and produce a solution that fits my needs.

Why am I doing this? For the most part, it's just for the plain fun of designing something like that. Yes, I find stuff like that fun. I'm a nerd, big deal! But how cool would it be? Sure, I could get timers to turn on the porch light before I get home from work in the winter or turn down the heat when I leave for work in the morning, but the timers won't know that it's a holiday or that I just decided to take a day off and stay home. My system will know.

So what does all that have to do with the basement? Well, I'm building the basement so I can have the home theatre to watch movies. The thing is, is that I don't want to have a bunch of stand-alone components just for that. I want it integrated into the home automation system. So that would give me the ability, for example, to pick a movie I want to watch, maybe while making dinner in the kitchen, and then after dinner simply going downstairs and tapping a single keypad. This will trigger the lights to dim, projector to power up and the movie to start playing. No futzing about turning this on and that on, digging through shelves of DVDs, etc... Or maybe someday just using a voice command.

So over the course of this year, I plan to have the basement finished with the home theatre installed, plus have much of the core home automation system designed and installed. I've been doing all of the construction myself but will get the carpet and bar installed professionally. For a lot of it, I'm learning as I go. I've made a few mistakes here and there but I can live with them. All of the home theatre and home automation software, I'm writing myself.

Introduction

I've decided to start a blog to document the process I've been going through in renovating my basement. I've had a lot of people asking about it so I thought a blog would be a good way to answer some questions.

I plan to post floor plans and photos of the construction process and I'll also describe all the 'stuff" that's going into my basement and the rest of the house, in particular, the home automation system and the home theatre system.