The future Theater/Media Room...

[2Fast4You]

Nice

[draggin50]

Very nice!!! Huge difference there!

[Maximus]

Very cool!

[Walter]

Looks killer!!!

[k062693w]

Looks Great Chad !!!

[Rick93coupe]

That looks really cool Chad, nice work!

[NXcoupe]

Sweet! Looks great

[redfirepearlgt]

Thanks guys. Already tried to put an 8ft 1x2 through the ceiling but thankfully nothing got hurt.

Went out this morning to Watson Pools and ordered up this 3 chair theater seating piece. Big sale going on there.


Found the carpet I want to put in as well at McSwain.


Then came home and started working on the annoying stair well side again. Had to do a little tweaking on the stair alignment and left side partial wall. Its close now and I can trim in any slight out of parallel problem between the two. The floor joist that the stairs tie into is cupped and twisted so it doesn't get much better than that.


Used structural adhesive and some #6 anchors and screws to adhere some 1x4 furring strip to the wall near the top of the stairs so I can finish out the bead board run on the I-beam and then trim it all into the plaster stairwell with 4" base board and some cove trim.


Somebody slightest less masochistic would have just sold the house and bought a new one with a media room in it.......sounds like what I do when I when more power from a car these days. LOL!

[redfirepearlgt]

baseboards all in


last of bead board complete. enclosing the I-beam underneath was the final.


finish work on bead board at top of steps.


Added the top cap to the partial wall. Ready for painting.


Ceiling Atmos speakers are in place. Still have open ceiling at the bottom of the steps to close in, and then its mostly trim work and painting. The redo on the step treads and closing that in will be near last. Starting to take shape.

[draggin50]

Turning out real nice.

Whats the plans for the floor?

[redfirepearlgt]

carpeting wall to wall for the acoustical advantages. I was going to do the Dri-core subfloor system but changes my mind due to height restrictions. It adds 3/4" which costs me in ceiling clearance overall. Going to put in a b/u sump pump system to protect everything.

[draggin50]

Awesome! Id rather have carpet too. My last basement was really dry but the one before that stayed damp. Always have the back up sump pump! Several times I wasn't aware that mine quit working and walked down to several inches of water. And a battery back up is nice too.

[redfirepearlgt]

Yes. Doing the battery backup. It only runs when we get a good rain which is good. So thankfully its not like we are sitting on a natural spring or below water level next to a stream in the basement.

[Pops Fun]

Looking good

[redfirepearlgt]

Thanks Steve. Been a long journey and still some miles to go yet. Trying hard not to start rushing things as I see the end getting near, though the punch list items left are more tedious. I need to source some high grade 2x12 to cut down and swap out the existing temp treads with. I thought about going with oak but man that is some cost and it would add 1/2" to the rise as they are 1" thick vice the 2x12 material which is 1 1/2" thick. Would also make the bottom step shorter by that amount. Plus I am not certain code woudl support using a 1.1" oak step at 34" without a center support stringer.

[draggin50]

Thanks Steve. Been a long journey and still some miles to go yet. Trying hard not to start rushing things as I see the end getting near, though the punch list items left are more tedious. I need to source some high grade 2x12 to cut down and swap out the existing temp treads with. I thought about going with oak but man that is some cost and it would add 1/2" to the rise as they are 1" thick vice the 2x12 material which is 1 1/2" thick. Would also make the bottom step shorter by that amount. Plus I am not certain code woudl support using a 1.1" oak step at 34" without a center support stringer.

I would think a 1.1" oak would be twice as strong as a 1.5" pine board. But oak sure gets expensive!

[redfirepearlgt]

I would think a 1.1" oak would be twice as strong as a 1.5" pine board. But oak sure gets expensive!

Oh heck yeah. Oak is way stronger. Hard to work with as well. It does not like nails very well. I've tried working with it in the past using hammer and nails and it is very tough to keep from bending nails. The step treads I found at HD last night are 36" long pine of some sort. They look laminated in some manner and they are tough. I stood on one with the ends barely captured and it hardly flexed at all. I was surprised. The oak I found ($25 a tread...uh like no way at 10 treads) was even less giving. Way more dense and much heavier at the same thickness. I have no idea how craftsman work with teak and other words even harder than oak. It's truly a skill. I plan on using the 36" pine treads at $10 a piece and shimming them. I found 7/16" x 1.5" wide lattice wood that will make perfect shims between the tread runner and stringer for a great result. I will pocket the back side of the tread as well so it will go deeper into the stringer than the run length. This will allow me to then use a more conventional method of closing them in while still providing maximum footing depth for safety. These old houses with 84" ceiling basements and short run stairwells were not designed for rooms being placed in the basement. I can get close to code (9" minimum run) but It is impossible to hit it and still have clearance at the bottom with regard to the stairwell wall face. IT BE WHAT IT BE.

Carpet is on order as well so I have to get this done before they call to schedule it to be installed. May be done by New Years or close to it but realistically it will likely be February before the system is in and working. Plenty of audio calibration and speaker placement left to get through as well as connections and ethernet for the devices to be linked to the network through a switch to the router.

[IWRBB]

carpeting wall to wall for the acoustical advantages. I was going to do the Dri-core subfloor system but changes my mind due to height restrictions. It adds 3/4" which costs me in ceiling clearance overall. Going to put in a b/u sump pump system to protect everything.

What are you planning on? Nearly every packaged back-up pump system available is nothing but an extremely overpriced plastic boat bilge pump and crappy float switch that cannot be relied upon whatsoever.

Even if you DO get good pumps and switches- you can still have issues if you have no redundancy. If the backup pump float switch doesn't activate like it should for whatever reason, the backup is NFG whatsoever.


After years of minor upgrades to mine after experiencing various failure modes- I've settled on this setup in my basement:

My sump is open with a pedestal style pumps.
I use a 1/3 HP pump as my AC powered pump. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Superior...2301/206471980 1/2 HP pump was too big for the inverter to start (see below).

I run it through this inverter/UPS, which will still power the AC pump from the battery if the backup pump fails to turn on for some reason. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007NOUBA/ It auto switches if the power goes out, then switches back once the power comes back.

The backup pump is this: https://www.zoellerpumps.com/en-us/p...ed/aquanot-585 It pumps just as fast as the main AC pump. They have a submersible style as well.

I use the battery charger that came with the AquaNot pump to charge the battery. I use the biggest lead acid Everstart Maxx battery that Walmart has in stock.

The two pumps each have clear quiet check valve installed ( https://www.zoellerpumps.com/en-us/p...k-valves/quiet) and they Y-together into a single discharge line. One of these days I'll split the lines to eliminate the possibility of a check valve failing and one pump just pumping back into the sump through the failed check in the other pump.

The Aquanot also comes with an (loud!) alarm to let you know it's running- which is nice if the main pump fails. You can turn it off if you want.

[redfirepearlgt]

^^^ Man I appreciate the input. I have contemplated everything from the simple bulldog battery backup to trying an eductor-jet style setup that relies on water pressure through a venturi to create a draw and pull water from the sump jar when a mechanical float switch activates it. The ones I have found however are made of plastic as you mention and many have cracked on the water supply side according to reviews which as you know causes bigger problems even faster as well as a huge bill at the end of the month. My father made an eductor-jet out of SS pipe and fittings to syphon a huge tank at work empty once. He gave it to me when he retired and I have thought about trying to plump it in but here again the float switches available I have found are again plastic and known to crank on the water pressure supply side. I have looked at the Zoeller package at Lowes that is available. The setup originally had 2 Zoeller units in it but after several failures after we moved in, I replaced them with a Rigid and that unit lasted 15+ years before I had my first issue with it. I replaced it with a 1/2 HP unit. The lift is less than 8 ft through a 1.5" line so it is more than efficient enough.

I have looked at using a UPS just to provide backup to a second unit sitting in the pump in the event of a failure. But I have not found a UPS large enough to provide any real backup for any length of time on a smaller 1/3 or 1/4 HP pump not to mention pricing. But now that I have investment in the basement aside from using it for off floor storage it is def time to revisit this option.

Thank you for the valuable information. I have this on my list to resolve and have started looking at it. May have the cart in front of the horse a bit being I have not addressed this yet, but if need be I will just buy the Zoeller or Bulldog unit (Wayne makes one as well as I recall) to get me buy until I can create something more reliable that involves a UPS unit like you are running.

[redfirepearlgt]

More trim work done on the short wall tonight and some trim painting. Took some time to cope the cove trim into the half round in the top corner.


My first attempt at building a door frame. It is out 1/8" top to bottom (side to side) but is square in the corners and plumb in all planes. Got it trimmed out tonight. Found a guy in Sharonville that can make me a custom door to fit it as the door height is only 73" due to where wifey wanted it placed (which made sense aside from height) right under the furnace supply duct. Can't find a doot at a reasonable price at Lowes or HD that I can cut down from 80" to 73" to use.


The eyesore of the whole project is the jacking post that has been out of plumb since the house was built in 1940. It's out 2.5" in both planes. Its not an adjustable that you could shore up next to pull out and reset either. It is simply a piece of 4.5"i.d. pipe cut to height, set in concrete on s small pad and done. IT apparently slipped during the curing process and no builder saw it or they just did not care. I may paint it in camouflage grays just to offset the lean.