Possible new H/T room questions...

Grimster74

So, how are my fellow polkies doing today? Here is my question. The better half and I just finished refinancing our home and we took out some extra funds to complete our basement and to do a few other things around the house. Here is my problem. The unfinished part of the basement is 14'x24', at first she wanted to turn it into a game room for the pool table we just bought, but then she and I discussed turning the unfinished part of the basement into my "media" room due to the fact that the unfinised part of the basement is not directly under the kids room so that way when I watch movies or television late at night I will not disturb the kids. What would you guys suggest.

"If" I decided to convert the unfinised room into my media room that would mean I would be able to insulated the entire room from the rest of the basement due to the fact that the unfinised part of the basement has a door sealing it away from the rest of the basement. My one and onlt concern would be, how would it affect the resale of the house if I decide to sell. I mean I'm looking to do stadium seating, built in media storage, lighting effects, dedicated circuits, I mean you name it, I want to do it. Any help would be greatly appreciated guys.

PolkThug

For the stadium seating carpet the floor normally, then build a riser for your second row, you can cover the riser with same kind of carpet. The riser can be disassembled when you move. Lighting a sconces would be no big deal as long as you plan on leaving them there. The thing that will require the most thought will be the media racks/shelves. You've got a fairly long room, so I would build a false wall with built-in shelves and design it so it looks good without any equipment in it at all.

bknauss

Do a little browsing on the "home theater builder" forum on www.avsforum.com. There was a thread I was looking at last night that has pictures of a dedicated home theater from start to almost finished, and a lot of threads have things like that going on.

I would think a finished basement pre-wired for home theater applications would raise the value of the property. I could be completely wrong on that one though. I've seen many places that you should keep track of all money put into improvements of the house for pricing purposes when you sell, so I would think the home theater would be classified as an improvement.

Willow

if anything it maybe a selling point, the owners will think it's done we don't have to do it and then you have just increased your finished living sqft.

Early B.

The value would be in the additional square footage for finishing the basement. Any other amenities would basically be a selling point, as Willow mentioned. So if you plan to hold onto the house for a while, look at the media room's HT applications as something for you and your wife, but not as an investment. That's cool, too. Looking forward to seeing the pics of the renovation in progress. Any new gear in the budget?

unc2701

Adding the finished space & the HT will add to the value, BUT you probably won't get your money out as an investment if you're not careful. Let say you drop $10,000 on the project- ask yourself if you live in the sort of neighborhood where someone would pay $10,000 for a HT. See my point? It's like putting in hardwood floors when all your neighbors have linoleum- it looks great, but you outprice what the nieghborhood can support when you go to sell. Also, you might want to run 12 guage bi-wire in the walls to all the speakers & surrounds... but will it be worth the 5-10 times the cost vs a single 16 guage line to the next buyer? Probably not.

On the other hand, you also gotta figure in the value to you, never mind the resale. It might only add $5k to the selling price, so in the next 10 years you live there you'll get $5k worth of use out of it.

wallstreet

You'll only get more money related to the additional finished square footage. Not due to the fact the you have dedicated circuit breakers, wire for a 7.1 surround sound, or special lights. You may get more money for stadium seating. But that limits the new buyers from deciding that they would really like a pool room instead of a HT.

Grimster74

Thanks for all the responces so far guys. What I had planned to do is finish it off just as you would a normal room other than the fact of having all the room prewired for surround and of course the built in media/bookcase. As far as the stadium seating, I was going to do just like PolkThug said, I'm going to carpet the room normally then I'm going to cover the risers with the same carpet down the road so that way if and when I decide to move, the riser can be removed.

To answer your question Early B. So many things have gone threw my head as to what my next new equipment purchase would be.:D I think the first thing I will be replacing will be all my monster cables with all signal cables. It's something I've been wanting to do for quit some time just haven't gotten around to doing so. The next thing will be buying the new Denon 3910. And finally, I've been thing seriously about selling my SVS PB12-Plus/2 and buying a Piano Gloss Black SVS PB12-Ultra/2. That or just adding another PB12-Plus/2:eek: I have so many thing I want to do, but first I'm going to have to see what finishing the room will cost me.

unc2701

One thing about the risers- if you lay a board upright across your carpet, it's gonna leave a dent and it might just stain the carpet... make sure you put something between the wood and the wall-to-wall carpet and maybe lay a 2x6 flat, so the pressure is spread across 5.5 inches instead of just the edge of the board. Plan B: put your risers on "legs", and lag the whole thing the the walls to keep it from wiggling.

Yeah, when I was in college we put some risers in an apartment and the carpet was NOT ok when we took them back out... but it wasn't like we were getting that deposit back anyway.

Grimster74

So, I'm sitting at working just thinking about this new room of mine trying to plan in advance what I would like to do and now the questions begin. I've started a list of things I would like to do but I figured I'd let some of my fellow forum members give me some ideas. Here is a list of a few things I've been thinking about doing so fell free to give your thoughts and recommendations. Oh yeah, all this talk and I've never giving what my budget is, I basically have $10,000 to do what ever with. I'm not looking to spend all of it in the new room though.

Here is my list...

1) A dedicated outlet for television and equipment.

2) Sound proofing in walls and ceiling.

3) Riser for theater seating.

4) Built in Oak media shelf on back wall for movies and music.

5) Wiring for all speakers and possibly a projector some time down the road. Don't know enough about projectors yet, DLP vs. LCD, etc. You know, which is better, which is worse.

6) Wire for theater lighting like sconces, etc. I'd also like to add some soft lighting to the media shelf so instead of having to cut on all the lights to change out a movie, I can just use a little light to find the next movie.

So many ideas, just not sure what else I should think about in advance. Come on guys, give me some help.

unc2701

Go ahead and put in a clean 20 amp line for a power amp and a 15 amp line for everything else. A serious power amp can suck all the current out of a 15 amp line no problem... A bryston 9b, for example, puts out 200 watts per channel into 5 channels at 4 ohms =1000 watts out. But it uses 2295 watts to get that/ 115 volts= ~20amps. On a 15amp line you'd blow the fuse everytime you cranked it. If you have a serious amp on your subwoofer, you might even run a line for it, too. It's cheap to do now and you can never have too many power outlets. The only drawback is if you're equiptment is on different circuits you might be more likely to get ground loop.

Also might want to get some of these:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=41985&item=5953110235&rd=1

It's a wall receptacle with surge protection built in... always nice to have that extra layer of protection.

Oh if you put the wall scones on a dimmer, move the breaker in your breaker box for that circuit as far as possible from the breakers for your HT equiptment.

Early B.

Just a suggestion in response to your original concern about resale value --

I personally would limit the spending on stuff like sconces, risers, built-in media shelves, etc. and focus more on the renovation costs and acquiring audio/video gear. I'd do this for a couple of reasons:

1. There's no return on investment for the media room's amenities. From a financial perspective, funds acquired from refinancing should be used primarily for investment purposes. Finishing a basement is probably a good investment. The add-ons aren't.
2. Such amenities are nice, but can quickly increase your budget substantially
3. The room should allow for flexibility in the future (you may decide to use the room for another purpose in a few years)
4. You can't take this stuff with you when you move

I'd start at the beginning by getting at least three estimates for finishing your basement (unless you plan to do it yourself). Then you can decide on a budget for the amenities, a budget for furniture, and a budget for new gear.

PolkThug

If you're planning on a projector in the future, wire your component/HDMI through the ceiling now while you've got access. Then just put in a wall plate in the ceiling for future access. Also think about how the cross beams are situated, you might need to put in a couple extra 2x4's to give something solid for the projector mounting.

wallstreet

Originally posted by Grimster74
...

Here is my list...

1) A dedicated outlet for television and equipment.

Not a bad idea. Fairly inexpensive too.

2) Sound proofing in walls and ceiling.

I wish I had done this too. In reality though, my receiver has a midnight mode and my kids are still at an age where they can sleep through a Texas thunderstorm.

3) Riser for theater seating.

Definitely gives more space for seating. Two rows of four can almost eat half of your budget though.

4) Built in Oak media shelf on back wall for movies and music.

Have you checked out Boltz racks? They can mount right on the wall.

5) Wiring for all speakers and possibly a projector some time down the road. Don't know enough about projectors yet, DLP vs. LCD, etc. You know, which is better, which is worse.

Now you're talking. Drop wires for any and everything. DVI, Component, CATV, HDMI, composite, and VGA.

6) Wire for theater lighting like sconces, etc. I'd also like to add some soft lighting to the media shelf so instead of having to cut on all the lights to change out a movie, I can just use a little light to find the next movie.

Sconces are nice. You may want to put the front pair on a different dimmer than the back pair. This allows you to dim the fronts and leave the backs a little higher. Although in FP, totally dark is the best. And don't even think about not getting a projector. You've got a dedicated room now. What better than to throw a 8ft. image in hidef glory. And of course, where's the home run for all the wiring? Media closet? Built in wall rack?

So many ideas, just not sure what else I should think about in advance. Come on guys, give me some help.