Jon's Home Theater

I started this project 2 years ago, and it finally nearly complete. The first mistake I made was getting all the equipment functional before finishing all the detail work. If you ever want to create a serious time waster, a home theater is a great project. I spend more time enjoying it than I do finishing the project, but it is getting very close. I'll put the final shots up at some point, but here are some construction photos for now.

Step one was take half of my first floor, fix all the drywall and paint everything into dark colors. This cannot be done without supervision, so Xena is helping.

Step two was build a riser so the second row can see over the first row. Again, supervision was required so Dolly is helping. The riser is actually far more complicated that it would seem. Viewing angles, seated heights, screen heights, etc must all be taken into account. As usual, it is dramatically over engineered. It is basically constructed like a deck made from 2x8s and covered in two layers of 3/4" plywood. In between the plywood layers is a viscoelastic dampening compound (green glue) that is designed to eliminate vibration and echoes. The entire platform is also filled with fiberglass insulation. There are power outlets built in for the seating, and low voltage lighting runs throughout to provide floor lighting.

The riser platform weights about 1500 pounds. Someone will hate me for this when I move.

The seats are Berkline 088s in leather with power recline.

Here's the nearly finished seating area, being supervised by Belle.

More to come later....