Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Maybe I should start a v4.0 build thread somewhere

I thought that before the weekend (oh wait, it is 1:42 am on Saturday - Christmas Eve) that I would post a quick update.

Today I worked on finishing up securing all of the 2x4 blocking with both liquid nails and regular framing nails. I hope that they are strong enough. They should be, I was able to hang from one of them, and I am no small guy...

Anyway, I got them in place as mentioned, and then it was the task of marking the line on the boards as to where I needed to screw the clips. A chalk line would have worked nicely, but I was home by myself. So a couple of screws and a string helped to get that done (albeit with a lot of overhead marking. Then I used my super duper screws (#10 of some brand that is supposed to be awesome instead of #8 as the minimum needed per the instructions). It took a while, and my neck was sore from looking straight up for a couple of hours. I also used some plastic vapor barrier to cover up the wall between the game room and the storage room. I am trying to keep as much dust out of that area as possible.

Next week, after we get back home from visiting family, I will be ready to cut the hat channel and put it in place. I then need to put some more of the plastic vapor barrier wrap up over 1 more exposed area of the basement as well as seal off the stairway for when I start drywalling, which is next after that. Fun times are coming!

I've gotten a few PMs about the blocking, so I thought that I would post one of the diagrams sent to me by the Soundproofing Company. There is a much more detailed one with measurements, etc that they give you end you buy their products, but since these are their diagrams, I don't want to post more than this without their permission, which I can understand them maybe not wanting to give out for the detailed ones. The diagram below gives 4 elements of soundproofing. Decoupling with the clips/channel, absorption with the insulation, added mass with the 2 layers of drywall, and dampening with the layer of Green Glue in the middle. The guys at The Soundproofing Company have been SUPER great to work with. Ted online, and John over the phone. I would recommend them to anyone!

I would love to hear some feedback on the sound isolation that you're doing (including green glue). I know you can't do a A/B comparison, but would love to hear your feedback after the green glue dries/settles in. I read that it takes a week or more to cure and to become (more?) effective.

If I ever my the condo below me, I would seriously considering turning the basement into a HT (with sound isolation).

I will definitely provide some feedback on the soundproofing.

So we are back home from being out of town the Christmas. I managed to get a drywall lift picked up tonight too, so tomorrow (Wednesday), I am going to get the hat channel up in the home theater room, and with any luck get the first lay of drywall on the ceiling in the home theater. I also have another project that I need to finish. In another thread, I posted about my 12 year old getting a chameleon for Christmas. Well, I need to build a stand for the cage, and get a few other items for that. So I will have to factor that in too. Then, I will get back to drywalling and see if I can get any more of the ceiling done in the basement. I would love to have all of the ceilings (which include a lot of soffits around ductwork) done by the weekend. IF I had some help, I could probably cruise through a bunch of it, but trying to do most of it by myself will take some time for sure.

Man, I thought I saved a lot of money by running all my cables throughout my house! It completely pales in comparison to what you're doing. The way I see it, you banked enough savings to buy an 80" tv and then some!!

Got some stuff done today. As usual, not as much as I wanted, but that was partially because I forgot about a key element, and also because my 12 year old gets her Christmas chameleon tomorrow and there were all sorts of "Dad, can you help with this?" kind of stuff, including building a 19"x19"x30" (LxWxH) stand for the cage... That and the fact that I completely forgot about the projector mount (that is what I was eluding to before) it took a chunk of my day. I had to drive an unexpected total of about 2 hours in the 2 trips to the home improvement stores to get everything, plus the time at the stores, again, because I was brain dead and didn't get the mount stuff while I was at least at one of them and had to make the return trip).

Anyway, what I did get done tonight:
Shortened the projector cable conduit since the projector will be further back.
Relocated the projector cable box.
Relocated the projector power box.
Cut two notches in the framing for the recessed outlet for the star ceiling so that the hat channel would fit correctly in one of the rows.
Put the projector mount up (the part that goes into the ceiling, not the part that attaches to the projector) - See pictures below.
Put all of the insulation up in the theater ceiling.
Put the last piece of insulation up on the theater wall.
Put up all of the hat channel after needing to cut them down to 128" in length.
Took down all of the panels that made up the bottom of the soffits.
Put acoustical caulk on the bottom of all of the backer boxes for the can lights that will be in the soffits.
Put all of the soffit bottom panels back up.
caulked all of the seams and joints on the soffits.

The only thing left before I can start drywalling the theater is I need to put some putty on the back of the projector cable and power boxes. I was about to do it, but decided that the crap that fell into my eyes, even though I was wearing my safety glasses, had been bugging me enough and I needed to come upstairs.

Anyway, here are some quick photos of the projector mounting "plate"...
The top of the 2x6 board that the mounting plate connects to. I used some cool little "washers" that had a square hole and little teeth (sort of like T-Nuts, but just a square hole).




Here is the 1.5" floor flange (didn't know what they were called before. These are found in the plumbing section by the way.) bolted on. Nice long bolts with lock nuts.



After cutting off the long bolts...


Up and in place. Recessed enough to not touch where the final ceiling height will be. I grabbed a 6" long pipe for it as well. Hopefully it will be long enough, but if not it was only like $4 and I still have the UPC sticker on it. The next longest size was like 18"... This will at least let me get the drywall cut out and lined up.


Alright. Off to take a shower and go to bed. Have to go get a chameleon in the morning.

How many times have we all said this one?

It's chameleon day at the Ubol's house! Pix, pix, pix! OK, you can leave out the pizza thing. Maybe pose him/her on top of a frosted cake. Peppermint frosting. Ha! Let's see the little sucker pull off THOSE colors!

Gives "Lizard Lick" a whole new viusal.

I liked lizards until the day that I was at an indoor miniature golf where they had animals in cages spaced out around the course. There was this rather large iguana in a cage that I was looking at, rather close. He lunged for my face and was fortunately stopped by the wire fence around the cage. If that hadn't been there, I'd hate to think what might have happened. I'll never look at a lizard the same way again.

Keep in mind that chameleons are meant to blend in, and different ones CAN get pretty dynamic colors. Those tend to be the larger Panther chameleons. But if you are expecting something like this:


You will be greatly disappointed.

Here is the kind that she is getting (female Jackson's chameleon):


It will mainly turn different shades of green, brown, yellow, and black. It can create spots and rough stripes, but that is about it.

The most colorful ones are Panthers (as mentioned above). Here is an example: