Adding a Media/Game room to my house

[shon]

I bought a house 4 years ago because it had an unfinished basement that I wanted to turn into a media/game room and I think now is the time I get that done. I'm not good with tools so I'm contracting most of the work so it will be expensive but it's something I've always wanted and it will add value to my house. I've got the week off and 2 contractors coming out so I'm trying to shore up my design and thought I'd get y'all's opinion. The room is large at 1100 sqft so I have a lot of room to work with. I will need a separate AC unit since all the duct work is in the attic.

I am going to put all the av equipment under the stair case except for the Xbox one because of the Kinect. I will have a 120" projector screen and have my 65" plasma on a rolling stand for when I want to play games or not use the projector. I like the 'pop' of the plasma screen for gaming over the larger screen. I will have 9.1 surround sound and put my seating on platforms so that I can put transducer speakers under them and really shake the house. I saw some other setup and liked the idea of having a bar on the back for when you are eating.

My first design was one big room but I think that I need the 4ft walls on the back to break it up so I could put a curtain on the back and make the room cozy plus help the sound stage. On the other side of the curtain will be a ping pong table, a wet bar, and the bathroom. I'm nervous and excited at the same time, it will be a lot of money and I hope it's worth it.

In the second pic below I taped out the aprox screen size and the standing weights are how far the back walls will extend out.

[Gotmadskillzson]

Re: Adding a Media/Game room to my house

As Phobia would say, it is more fun and cheaper to do it yourself. If you going to put a bathroom in the basement, make sure you install a back flow valve. If not, if it rains too much, the sewer will back up and come out of that toilet and flood you entire basement. Had it happen at my old house. Not a pretty sight.

Other then that, sounds like it would turn out nice.

[GAMEC0CK2002]

Re: Adding a Media/Game room to my house

I bought a house 4 years ago because it had an unfinished basement that I wanted to turn into a media/game room and I think now is the time I get that done. I'm not good with tools so I'm contracting most of the work so it will be expensive but it's something I've always wanted and it will add value to my house. I've got the week off and 2 contractors coming out so I'm trying to shore up my design and thought I'd get y'all's opinion. The room is large at 1100 sqft so I have a lot of room to work with. I will need a separate AC unit since all the duct work is in the attic.

I am going to put all the av equipment under the stair case except for the Xbox one because of the Kinect. I will have a 120" projector screen and have my 65" plasma on a rolling stand for when I want to play games or not use the projector. I like the 'pop' of the plasma screen for gaming over the larger screen. I will have 9.1 surround sound and put my seating on platforms so that I can put transducer speakers under them and really shake the house. I saw some other setup and liked the idea of having a bar on the back for when you are eating.

My first design was one big room but I think that I need the 4ft walls on the back to break it up so I could put a curtain on the back and make the room cozy plus help the sound stage. On the other side of the curtain will be a ping pong table, a wet bar, and the bathroom. I'm nervous and excited at the same time, it will be a lot of money and I hope it's worth it.

In the second pic below I taped out the aprox screen size and the standing weights are how far the back walls will extend out.

Sweet. You may want to check the Home Theater construction threads/galleries at www.bluray.com and the AVS forums.

I'm going to looking to buy my first home in a few months.

[shon]

Re: Adding a Media/Game room to my house

Sweet. You may want to check the Home Theater construction threads/galleries at www.bluray.com and the AVS forums.

I'm going to looking to buy my first home in a few months.

Thanks and good luck on the house hunt. This is my 3rd home and I finally got the space and room I wanted. The first house was real small so no media room at all. The second I cheaply converted my 2 car garage and made that my media room and it was ok but nothing fancy. It took awhile to find a house with a basement and that usually means the house is on a hill which mine is so mowing is not fun.

[shon]

Re: Adding a Media/Game room to my house

As Phobia would say, it is more fun and cheaper to do it yourself. If you going to put a bathroom in the basement, make sure you install a back flow valve. If not, if it rains too much, the sewer will back up and come out of that toilet and flood you entire basement. Had it happen at my old house. Not a pretty sight.

Other then that, sounds like it would turn out nice.

Thanks for the advice I will definitely make sure the builders put a back flow valve in.

[Scott]

Re: Adding a Media/Game room to my house

Very nice. The house I'm buying on Thursday doesn't have the space for a media room, so I'll be using the living room as the media room, so to say.


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[SuperBowlNachos]

Re: Adding a Media/Game room to my house

Did I see these floor plans on AVS yesterday? If I am going crazy and imagined it you should check out - http://www.avsforum.com/f/19/dedicat...n-construction - Specifically the stickied threads at the top in blue.
I think every person probably here and over there will say to put up that wall.

Do you have all of your equipment picked out yet? Please, keep us updated on the process!

[aukevin]

Re: Adding a Media/Game room to my house

Good luck and have fun.

I have all my TV equipment for my living room TV in a closet under the stairs like your plan, it works perfectly. I love that you can't see the devices in the living room, all you see is my TV on the wall. What kind of a RF remote are you going with? I have a Harmony 900 because I like the feels of a remote rather than a pad. It works pretty good. I've had to reset the thing two times over the past year though because it for some reason forgot how to talk to the IR blasters controlling my receiver and DTV box.

I moved into a house last year that I am doing a game room in. It's on the second floor above the 3-car garage, so it is a very long room. I've got a 65" 3DTV on the wall, a reclining couch with the cup holders and center console for controllers and stuff, a mini fridge, pool table, and an office area. I'm working on shelving now to get my games and movies on the wall and I think I'll be pretty much done. I only put in a 5.1 sound system but it is upgradable to 7.1 if I choose in the future, but I don't think it is needed with my space. Your space is going to be awesome with that.

[shon]

Re: Adding a Media/Game room to my house

Did I see these floor plans on AVS yesterday? If I am going crazy and imagined it you should check out - http://www.avsforum.com/f/19/dedicat...n-construction - Specifically the stickied threads at the top in blue.
I think every person probably here and over there will say to put up that wall.

Do you have all of your equipment picked out yet? Please, keep us updated on the process!

I'm still debating the wall, I had the first contractor come out with about 4 of his subs and an AV guy and they all preferred the open plan. One comment was that if I wanted to change the room later then I'd have to deal with the wall, which is valid. I can still put up a curtain and hang it from the ceiling to split up the room if I wanted it cozy or had sound issues. So much to think about......

I already have most of the AV equipment. I have an older Epson 1080UB projector that a friend is using now and I thought about upgrading to the Epson 5030UB which is quite a bit better and does 3D, I do enjoy watching 3D movies. I have a 100" screen that I'll use to start out with and then once I get the projector see how big a screen I want to go with. Maybe 135"?

All my speakers are Klipsch except for the rear surrounds, I may go with some in-ceiling speakers for those and add a couple more for the A-B speakers for the other part of the room.

I had the second contractor come out today and the final one will be here tomorrow so I should have some bids coming in early next week. Kind of excited and worried, I've been trying to price things out and driving myself crazy. I've budgeted around 20-30k so hopefully it will be in that range.

[SuperBowlNachos]

Re: Adding a Media/Game room to my house

Good point about the wall. I would definitely look into and ask on AVS about a solution to cut room in half with a curtain. I'm sure it's a common problem. That is a massive room to fill if you are concerned about bass. From what I've read over there overhead in-wall speakers should be a last resort. I just got into all of this two months ago so take anything I say with a grain of salt.

[24]

Re: Adding a Media/Game room to my house

I think you should go with a Pool Table instead of Ping Pong but that might just be me. Good luck with the project!

[shon]

Re: Adding a Media/Game room to my house

I think that I'm through with contractor visits so now it's just waiting on the bids to come in early next week.

After researching the net and talking with the subs it's more work than I initially thought. The space is the size of a common house and even though I just have one big room with a full bath it's a ton of work. I've tried to price out the different pieces so I can get an idea of what is a "decent" price would be and it's nerve wracking. The easiest way is to price by square footage and from what I've read the general price is around $20-25 a sqft so that puts me in about the range of what I expected to pay.

I decided against the in-ceiling speakers for the rear back mainly because it makes it harder to tweak and since those speakers can be smaller it really won't make a huge eye sore.

I may get a pool table down the road, but I grew up with one and kind of got burned out and with a ping pong table you can have 4 playing at once instead of having people sit around and wait their turn.

[SuperBowlNachos]

Re: Adding a Media/Game room to my house

I decided against the in-ceiling speakers for the rear back mainly because it makes it harder to tweak and since those speakers can be smaller it really won't make a huge eye sore.

If you are wanting to hide the speakers you could look into making it like an actual theater and have them hidden.

Spoiler

[shon]

Re: Adding a Media/Game room to my house

If you are wanting to hide the speakers you could look into making it like an actual theater and have them hidden.

Spoiler

That does look awesome, problem is the budget.

I got one bid today which was just the final total, I will be getting the breakdown on Monday, that was 35k which is about $30/sqft which is about in range of what I was thinking. That is without the 2 bars and the platform but other than that it's ready to walk-in and start using when they are finished.

I wasn't sure if the contractors had their own Heat and Air guy, they all did, so I had a local HA company come in and just price that part. It was 2.5 ton and 13 seer the total installation was $12k which I thought was outrageous so I'm curious to see what the other bids have for that price.

[p_rushing]

Re: Adding a Media/Game room to my house

yeah the a/c should be around $9K tops, unless prices have jumped a ton in the last 1-2 years ... if you go budget brand then probably less than $5K