Earlier this year, my wife and I moved to a new home from our condo.  In the condo, I built a home theater in the garage because the cars wouldn’t fit.  It was built in such a way that it could be disassembled if and when we ever moved.  Well it happened and I dismantled v1.x of the theater and brought the pieces with us, including the HD projector, the 10′ self-retracting screen, sound absorption pads, curtains, multi-level seating, and the brains of the system.

So after settling into the new home, I began work on v2.0 of the theater using a 12 x 15 ft bedroom in our finished basement and a lot of help from my family & friends.  While I won’t go into all the details of the work done, here is a summary:

• 3 custom columns were built with to house sconces run on a remote control dimmer using the existing overhead light mounting box.
• acoustic sound tiles installed and painted on the ceiling to absorb sound so that it doesn’t disturb the baby’s room directly above.
• high frequency absorbing sound pads installed/fitted on the walls.
• window shades replaced with black out curtains along with a full window treatment.
• seating platform reduced to 1 level and extended to fit across the entire rear of the room.
• suspended “cloud deck” cut, painted, and hung to add flare to the room and to house lighting, conceal cables and ventilation.
• Air conditioner duct work added in the ceiling to provide cool air from the air conditioner unit in the next room.
• an entertainment cabinet converted to be a concession stand with mini-frig, and water cooler.
• front of room framed out for the screen, speakers, etc.
• columns and front face equipped with shelves to display models and movie/tv statues
• theater equipped with 1080p HD projector, 5.1 surround sound, capable of playing almost any modern media as well as playing PC games on the big screen.

There was a lot of work put into this theater to make it awesome room it is.  Unlike its predecessor, this build is permanent to the room.  What took me several years on the original theater to complete, took 2 months to complete, and I want to thank Andrea and Terry Atwood for helping with construction and later decorating, my wife Charla for putting up with me during the build, and my friend Conrad Flynn for the help and ideas he provided.

Check out these photos from the build and the final result: