Carl's Theater

Build History

Here is a panormaic picture of the movie theater as it looks today.

The black rectangular area on the wall is the component cabinet we built into the wall to hold all of the electronics.
There are 2 rows of seats, with 4 seats per row. The middle 2 seats are together, and the outer 2 angle inward towards the center of the screen.
The Electrohome Marquee 8500 projector can be seen above the front row of seats.
You can see the Terminator 2 pinball machine behind the rear row, as well as the custom arcade machine I built at the far right.

This is a panoramic view of the theater as it was originally finished. This was stiched together from 7 different images.

Update January 14, 2009

As a solution to improve the acoustics of the room, acoustic panels have been added to the walls and ceiling to reduce the 1st reflection points from all speakers as much as possible. The stereo separation has been dramatically improved, and surround effects in movies are far better as well.

Here is an example of 1st reflection points marked with blue painters tape, along with the 2ft. by 4ft. bounding rectangle of the acoustic panel that will go there.

The left wall had many 1st reflection points, so 4 panels are being added there. You can see the 2" thick blocks of wood that the panels will mount to in order to create a 2" air gap.

And here is the left wall with the panels in place. Also notice the new black light switches between two of the panels.

There are 4 panels in the ceiling between the screen and projector.

Update November, 2008

The entire theater has been repainted. Now the front wall and ceiling are flat black, while the side and back walls are a very nice, dark blue. The theater has also been converted from an 8.1 (6.1 plus 2 effects speakers in front) setup to a 7.1 setup. The front effects speakers were moved to the surround back speakers, and the rear center speaker was removed. There are also several bass traps in the room now, with accoustic panels on the way shortly.

Update January 20, 2004

After 6 more weeks, the theater is finally coming together. Here is a picture showing the two rows of seats:

We built a component cabinet in the wall (going into attic space). Speaker wires still need to be run through the ceiling.

This shows the screen and front speakers. There are 6 speakers in front, left main, center, right main, left effect (upper corner), right effect (upper corner) and 15" subwoofer (below the center channel). There are 3 more speakers in the rear (left, center and right).

Update December 15, 2003

The riser was completed at the end of last week. It looks awesome. You can also see the new velvet drapes in the back of the room, and the final placement of the pinball and arcade machines.

The stair lighting has been added, and it looks great. All lights are controlled by X-10 switches, are dimmable and remote controllable.

The next steps will be to build the component cabinet in the wall, mount the screen and projector, install the seats, and then lots of other small detail things.

Here's a before shot. The railing at the left was from the original loft structure. There is now a wall there that encloses the room. The ceiling fan/lights have been removed and are being replaced by 3 pairs of small recessed lights.

This shows the base coat on the walls (sunkissed yellow) and the ceiling (burnt sienna).

This is the final wall faux finish (burnt sienna glaze colorwashed over the sunkissed yellow). The little tv will go away to be replaced by a 106" diagonal screen fixed to the wall, which is about 3 times the screen area of the 60" tv in the picture. This is the new wall that was built to enclose the room. The room is now so warm and inviting. The baseboard is going to be painted black. The burnt sienna just doesn't work. All trim items will be black as well.

The carpet will eventually be replaced by something more appropriate, but I'm not sure what yet.

The windows will be covered by some heavy velvet drapes to block out light.

We are thinking about building a component cabinet into the side of the room, so the components are totally out of view. There is attic space on the other side of the right wall, so this should be easy to do and very cool.

We are building a riser in the back of the room to allow for 2 rows of 4 seats each. The center two will be in a love seat format (no arm rest between them). The outer two will be angled slightly inward.