# Home Theater The Hard Way ;)



## Cruiser (Nov 3, 2012)

OK, so I'm new to the forum and this is my first post. We (my wife and I) decided we (I) would build a home theater in a reclaimed attic space room upstairs. I thought great! a place to watch great movies on a BIG screen. :clap: And.... almost 8 months later, it's finally usable and all but completed.

To begin with, the space is 15' wide and 20' long with the front 12' at the upstairs floor level and the back 8' raised 12" due to vaulted ceiling in the downstairs living room. So far so good, 2 level seating, reasonable space, and..... oops.... the wall where the screen should be is only 5' high, (due to the slope of the roof) and that just isn't going to work. OK, I say, we can either elevate the rest of the floor and loose the 2 level seating turn the room making it wider than long and put the screen on the other wall, or...... I can raise the roof. And to my surprise, the boss says, OK, Lets raise the roof. :gulp:

I spent 4 days figuring out how to do this, and 2 days preparing. I do have pictures, and will post some when time allows. Basically, 3' down from the peak of the roof is a seam in the roof sheathing. From there it's another 21' to the eave, so I have a 16' by 21' section of the roof to raise. I had to leave 1 foot left behind a wall for heat and air duct-work for the downstairs. The pitch of the roof was 10 in 12 (almost a 45 deg) and I discovered that I could reduce it to as little as 3 in 12 and still be safe for asphalt shingles.

I made some specialized hinges out of some big (about 7" OD) ball bearings. Cut the bearings and welded them to some steel strap so they could be bolted to the 8 roof joists at that sheathing seam. Used my recip-saw with a long blade and cut through all the nails holding the lower section of the roof to the house. Then with 8, 12" throw hydraulic cylinders out near the eave.... raised the roof. I had to do it in 12" steps due to the hydraulics length, but... went up a total of 5 1/2 feet at the eave. I designed the hinge bearings so that the center of rotation would be 5/8 inch above the bottom of the sheathing so the bend occurred AT the shingle, so no new shingles, just replace some flashing.

New wall sheathing, siding, trim, etc, etc..... and the wall that was 5 feet high, is now almost 8 feet. I opted to move the wall out some bringing the height down to 7 feet, but gaining a little length in the room.

I'm gonna try uploading a couple of current pics, first is from the back seated in the center, and second is from the front looking toward the projector.


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## Wardsweb (Apr 2, 2010)

Wow that is serious! Congratulations on surviving your own build and on your new home theater. That is sweet.


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## Tonto (Jun 30, 2007)

Congradulations on finishing, I don't think I would have ever attempted raising the roof! Looks like it worked out great though. What kind of screen are you using? It looks like it could be a bit wider.


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## Dale Rasco (Apr 11, 2009)

Great job, clever solution to what would normally be a showstopper!


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## hjones4841 (Jan 21, 2009)

First, a big welcome to Home Theater Shack! Please visit us often.

And congrats on completing the new HT. I am sure you are enjoying it very much


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## Prof. (Oct 20, 2006)

Nice work on the construction..It came up well..:T


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## phillihp23 (Mar 14, 2012)

Impressive move...raising the roof. What kinda speakers you using....didnt see any in the room.


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## Cruiser (Nov 3, 2012)

Wardsweb, thanks, and I will post a few pics of the "raise the roof" part too.

Tonto, I noticed in the posted pic it looks narrower than in real life. Must have fudged the aspect ratio when I shrunk the pic so it would post. The screen is home-brew 122" diagonal 16:9 ratio which makes the active screen area 60.5" high by 107" wide. I used some white fabric from JoAnn 94% cotton 6% spandex. It works reasonably, but I will probably swap the fabric out with some Seymour Center Stage XD at some point.

Thanks Dale, hjones, and prof.

Phillihp, The speakers are Klipsh in a 7.1 system. The center and left/right front are behind the screen. The side surrounds are recessed into the wall. I plan to decorate with some old movie posters printed on fabric over frames that will hang over the side speakers so they will be invisible too.

The wall covering is just like some made by CrossPoint. It took 3 cases (24 tubes/case) of liquid nails to put it all up. A place I used to work had about a dozen 150 yard rolls left over after a big job and I got one roll from him just for the asking. The roll is just under 6 feet wide so it didn't take anywhere near the whole roll to do the walls. I suppose I could make a large panel of the stuff on the ceiling and poke fiber optics through it for a star field.

If anyone is interested in some of the fabric he has, I could probably get it for a bunch less than what CrossPoint sells it for. I notice they want $545 for a 24 yard bolt that is 54" wide. All the rolls are the same maroon like color.

Here is a shot of the front wall without the screen in place and before I put up the trim near the ceiling. You can see the left/right front speakers standing in the corner. The speaker alcoves are painted flat black now too. The fabric seam just to the left of the center speaker alcove is the first seam I did. The others look better, and this one is behind the screen so it doesn't show.


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## Cruiser (Nov 3, 2012)

Here are the pics from the roof raise...
1 and 2 are the hinge pieces.
3 and 4 are how they were attached to the roof joists with the joists cut.
5 and 6 are the hydraulic cylinders and the actuator (yes, the cordless drill raised the roof)
7 and 8 are raise in progress, and final. It got dark on me at the final raise
9 how the hinge worked
10 closing it in.

The 2 X 6's leaning against the house were used to support the roof while I reset the hydraulics as I could only raise it 12" at a time. There were 4 actuators each of which drove 2 lift cylinders.

Dale... If I posted this in the wrong part of the forum, please feel free to move it.


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## Tonto (Jun 30, 2007)

Wow, that is even more impressive with the pics. Nicely done!


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## dguarnaccia (Jul 17, 2008)

Holy cow! That is amazing. Well done sir!


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## Dale Rasco (Apr 11, 2009)

Ditto! That is awesome!


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## devildog1679 (Aug 3, 2012)

Great job. Is the roof now supported according to code?


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## Prof. (Oct 20, 2006)

That is a very clever piece of engineering..Well done! :T :clap:


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## Cruiser (Nov 3, 2012)

Devildog,

Yes it's code inspected. The city inspector said I overdid it some. He wouldn't believe me when I told him I didn't have any help doing it till I showed him the pics. :hsd:

It's not nailed together, I used exterior grade screws. 

The last big project at the house here was expanding the laundry room. Took out an adjoining closet and in the process... anchor bolted angle iron to the slab against the studs and bolted the studs to the angle iron. Doubled up on the studs in all the walls (8" centers rather than 16") and put a layer of cement backer-board behind the drywall. So it's a VERY solid little room near the middle of the house. Since we live in tornado country, I figured why not.

Thanks all for the kind words. 

Not sure I would tackle it again the same way, but.... if anyone wants... 

I still have all the stuff I used to do it.


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## devildog1679 (Aug 3, 2012)

Cruiser said:


> Devildog,
> 
> Yes it's code inspected. The city inspector said I overdid it some. He wouldn't believe me when I told him I didn't have any help doing it till I showed him the pics. :hsd:
> 
> ...


I think your engineering skills over shadowed the HT  Just genius.


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## Picture_Shooter (Dec 23, 2007)

WOW!!! That is so cool!! 

If i ever did this even with help, I bet I loose my roof-top !!

Great job!! Outstanding!!


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## BD55 (Oct 18, 2011)

That's impressive! I really liked your BB hinge solution :T


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## jd371 (Feb 24, 2012)

Amazing! Well done sir. Imaginative solution to your roof problem. Someone like you would be very handy in zombie apocalypse...I'd want you on my team.


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## Owen Bartley (Oct 18, 2006)

What?? Hinged roof extension to make room for the HT? I think that has to be a first around here! Very well done, Cruiser! The room looks great, and I'm totally confused by the roof raising pics, but it looks like you knew what you were doing. Great job.


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## JQueen (Jan 11, 2012)

Awesome job ..my wife wont even let me put Christmas lights on the roof..enjoy your new HT


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