# Building a new house, would like some help designing home theater room



## BigBreakfastBob (Aug 15, 2012)

Hi everyone, I'm in the process of building a house, and would like to use the bonus room in my floorplan as a home theater room.
My builder is a custom builder, so they tweaked the floorplan some to accommodate this.
I showed them this thread as my inspiration of what could be done with the space.
http://www.hometheatershack.com/for...truction/49767-mysticaljet-theater-2-0-a.html
They redesigned the room from 18'x12.5' to 18'-9"x17'-3"
The side walls are about 5 to 5.5'
They also flipped the orientation so the door is at the front. Not sure how I feel about this. Concerned it could take up space that would be used for the screen.




















Any advice or suggestions on what direction to take would be most appreciated. I've tried to do a bit of reading on the forums, but I'm still very new to this.

Thanks


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## hjones4841 (Jan 21, 2009)

Looks like this will be a very nice room. I see what you mean about the location of the door. It is in a convenient spot, but that area could be useful for front speakers - main left front or sub woofers.

Also, your rendering is showing wood flooring. I would go with carpet to add acoustic absorption.

Be sure to run plenty of wiring to your equipment location - make that more than plenty of wiring - to try to future proof as much as possible. Full blown systems now can have up to 11 speakers in an Audyssey DSX setup - 3 across the front mains, 2 front widths, 2 front heights, 2 side surrounds and 2 rear surrounds. Even if you have no plans whatsoever to go that elaborate, your plans may change and it is much easier to put speaker wire in during construction.

Likewise, be sure to run at least 2 HDMI cables to the projector mounting area. If he could put in a PVC pipe from the projector to wherever your equipment rack will be, that would allow pulling more or different cables in the future. Go with at least 3" pipe if you can to allow pulling cables with connectors on them.

Actually, putting in PVC pipe to your speaker locations is not a bad idea.

Be sure to have power availble to your recliners for the motors. Also, you may wish to run speaker wires to them in case if you ever want to add some type of tactile motion devices in the chairs.

Dedicated power wiring from the house power box to the equipment rack is also a good idea. You may not know now if you will add external amplifiers, so more than one circuit is desirable.

Run Cat 6 network cables everywhere! More and more electronic devices have network connections now. Wireless is OK for laptops, iPads, etc. but hard wiring is best for high def streaming devices, like WD TV Live, Dune players, Roku, etc. Some folks have good luck with wireless, but hard wired is always the better solution.

Finally, read as much as you can, both here and elsewhere, but mainly here. Ask dozens of questions. Sweating the small stuff now will reap huge benefits later on.

That's all I can think of right now. I am sure others will add their thoughts as well. Have fun!


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## Prof. (Oct 20, 2006)

Definitely not a good idea having a door next to the screen..Even if there is enough room to place speakers either side of the screen it's still not ideal..

If it's not possible to close that door off, then I would re-orientate the room 180 degrees and have your screen on the other wall and close off that door..
That will give you a better speaker set up (acoustically speaking) and better symmetry..


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## BigBreakfastBob (Aug 15, 2012)

thanks for the replies

the wood floor is just the default floor in their rendering program I think
I will definitely have carpet

and I think I will orient the room like Prof says, the door up front is weird

any suggestions on width? I feel like it's too wide, I only need about 2 rows of 2 seats
also, any suggestions on how much I should have built with the house vs doing on my on?
I'd like to save money where I can if there are some areas that easy to do yourself and typically "over" priced
keep in mind I have 0 experience so my ability is limited

thanks again


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## hjones4841 (Jan 21, 2009)

There are room dimension ratios that work best acoustically. I don't remember them, but I suggest checking with bpape on our Home Audio Acoustics forum for suggestions. I do know that you want to avoid making the room square, or even worse, a cube. Also, there should not be dimensions that are multiples of each other, like 8 and 16. This has to do with room "modes" where the room itself has resonances that are clearly audible and very hard to correct after the build.

As to how much to do yourself, only you can answer that depending on your budget, carpentry skills and available time. Some folks do their own electrical wiring, but you had better check with local codes to see if that is allowed. Carpet and drywall are hard to do for most DIYers.

When shopping for cables for your components and speakers, don't fall for the expensive cable hype from some vendors. Monoprice.com offers very good cables for bargain prices. Blue Jeans cables are also very good, but more expensive than Monoprice.

As I said in my earlier post, keep asking questions. You definately want to know what to do before starting.


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## Prof. (Oct 20, 2006)

BigBreakfastBob said:


> any suggestions on width? I feel like it's too wide, I only need about 2 rows of 2 seats


Yes, I would reduce the width to about 15' to make the room more rectangular, which will help to keep standing waves and resonances to a minimum..

If you're planning on having just two seats across, then you will still have sufficient space for walkways..
Also bare in mind that the rear seats need to be at least 2' from the back wall..


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## BigBreakfastBob (Aug 15, 2012)

Prof. said:


> Yes, I would reduce the width to about 15' to make the room more rectangular, which will help to keep standing waves and resonances to a minimum..
> 
> If you're planning on having just two seats across, then you will still have sufficient space for walkways..
> Also bare in mind that the rear seats need to be at least 2' from the back wall..


I've been thinking about the door and the room orientation. It seems the door would be a problem whether the room is in the current orientation or rotated 180 degrees. It's still gonna be in the corner of the room and would affect speaker placement.

I could see about moving the door to the center, but what would you do about a closet? and where would the equipment go?

thanks



edit: for some reason I was thinking the rear speakers would need to go in the back corners, but I guess that isn't necessarily the case

initially, I'll be using my current 5.1 speakers, but eventually would probably like a 7.1 or 7.2 speaker setup


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## hjones4841 (Jan 21, 2009)

For 5.1 the surrounds go on the side walls, up high. Some folks place them just behind the main listening position. You will still need to reserve space on the back wall to go 7.1. Those don't have to be in the corners, but that is a good place for them.

Here is a good article on multi channel speaker locations:
http://www.audyssey.com/audio-technology/audyssey-dsx

and another from Dolby:
http://www.dolby.com/us/en/consumer/setup/connection-guide/home-theater-speaker-guide/index.html

and one from Crutchfield:
http://www.crutchfield.com/S-QxslNXjcyok/learn/learningcenter/home/speaker_placement.html

I don't understand your question about the closet. Why would it need to move from its current location? Or is this related to moving the door?

As for the door, we don't know the layout of the adjacent rooms, or is this the full width of the upstairs?


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## Prof. (Oct 20, 2006)

You have three choices concerning that door on the south wall, in relation to your plan..

1. Close it off completely and lose that small space and put a fixed screen on that wall...or
2. If you have to have that space, then one way of doing that is to have a retractable screen..or
3. Build a screen wall out from the main wall..Set up an AT screen with your speakers behind it, and a removable panel or hidden door to the side of the screen to give you access to that door..
The only downside of doing it that way is that you lose about 2' out of the room..but you should still be able to fit in 2 rows..

As far as a location for your equipment, I would suggest the top right hand corner..


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## BigBreakfastBob (Aug 15, 2012)

Prof. said:


> You have three choices concerning that door on the south wall, in relation to your plan..
> 
> 1. Close it off completely and lose that small space and put a fixed screen on that wall...or
> 2. If you have to have that space, then one way of doing that is to have a retractable screen..or
> ...


I'm thinking number 1 and just put a closet somewhere else for equipment


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## Prof. (Oct 20, 2006)

That would be the way to go..particularly for speaker location and room acoustics..and you still maintain the current length..


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## BigBreakfastBob (Aug 15, 2012)

Prof. said:


> That would be the way to go..particularly for speaker location and room acoustics..and you still maintain the current length..


where would you recommend putting the equipment? remember this is for a home that is still being designed, so I can have it put anywhere

that goes for the whole room, I wanna make the smartest choices I can in regards to room design


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## Prof. (Oct 20, 2006)

Ideally your equipment rack could be built into one of the side walls near the back..but it depends on what's going to be on the other side of the walls..


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## BigBreakfastBob (Aug 15, 2012)

Prof. said:


> Ideally your equipment rack could be built into one of the side walls near the back..but it depends on what's going to be on the other side of the walls..


just attic space I guess, here is a pic of the outside
this room is above the garage
window you see is the same one in the first pic


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## Prof. (Oct 20, 2006)

Ok..Then I would just have an opening in the right hand side wall, big enough to fit in a rack for your gear and have it finished flush to the wall and framed..


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## BigBreakfastBob (Aug 15, 2012)

OK guys, ran into a problem with removing the door on the end wall

from my builder


> As for the video room, you have to have a window because it's not outside the realm of possibility that you or a future buyer may put a kid in there as a bedroom. Or someone may fall asleep in there, etc. So, you have to have a way out. This is a new rule that started in November. Too many people dying in fires where they are sleeping in windowless rooms and dying because fires climb quickly up and trap the person from exiting. So, I drew a code compliant window in the elevation and then was going to put a pocket door over it to close it off. It's a good solution, as the window removal is not an option to pass code....and you have to comply or you can't finance the project. So, it's really a matter of how you skin the cat. My solution is the best I know of. Putting the screen in front of the window would have to be done post construction, as no inspector is going to approve an impeded path to exit. What was in those pictures you sent me is not code compliant. You can get away with that if you do it yourself and there is no code official that has to bless your work, but we don't operate with such luxury. So, if you want us to build a stage, etc., my confidence is high that we'd have no issues if we do it the way I have drawn it. Or we can put the screen on the window wall and hug the pocket door to one side. I think that would work, because the pocket door would simply line up with the door into the room. If the screen will fit on the stair side, then it should fit on the front wall too. But, keep in mind that the pocket door has to slide inside the wall. So, it may prove an impediment to flush wall speakers, etc. it's all stuff we can plan for and make work.


so I could build my own stage later and cover up the door that goes to the window, or they can do it for me, but the door has to remain clear

what do you guys think?



also, it is going to be very difficult to relocate the door going into the room due to the location of the stairs, and therefore, difficult to bring the side walls in to get that rectangular shape

how important that the room is a rectangle? I am not planning to spending a lot on speakers -max about $3000


edit: just came up with a (hopefully) brilliant plan
it involves rearranging my entire upstairs, but it should give me a 19*12-14 ft room with a door on the side of the room and a window at the back that can easily be covered up to keep light out

meeting with the builder tomorrow, will let you know


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