Ex-Dining Room Now Home Theater

[Jim Becker]

We're ringing in the new year with a little rearrangement in our house...the "hardly ever used formal dining room" is now officially the "home theater"! The new sofa arrived today from Somnia and the rest of the day was used to move all the gear and get things set up. We still need to decide on some lighting things, but that will not keep us from breaking in the room. Even better, that new seating is a sleeper, so there is one more place to put folks when my brother and his brood or my sister-in-law and hers (both families have six kids...) come to visit.

This is definitely more cozy than using one end of the great room and it also will provide more privacy for us when guests are (read "the 'rents") are visiting and enjoying the "all westerns, all the time" theme... :D And yes, that blue trim will change color one of these days once we decide on the right color for the design of the room. I also need to make another walnut table to take the position that the sewing cabinet now hangs out (left side of the second picture) as its design is just not in concert with the rest of the furnishings. (Design at work... :) )

The new Shaker-style walnut side table is in its place next to the sofa and my Nakashima-style natural edge coffee table now has a real home. Both compliment the walnut "EC". All of that walnut was harvested on our property back in 2000!

[John Miliunas]

Nice space, Jim! Looks like a great showroom for many of your pieces, as well.:) I do, however, have one question and that is the placement of the rear speakers; Isn't that going to be just a bit lopsided, depending on which end of the couch one is sitting? I don't even have our surround setup in our "new" house, but back at the old place, I had the rears hanging from the ceiling in a more general attitude to the viewing area. Of course, I had the advantage of building the room myself (a downstairs rec area), so I had pre-wired the cabling, but I would still think that elevating the rear channel speakers would give you a more spacial benefit. Just MHO and we know what those are worth!:rolleyes: BTW, the ET really, really looks splendid there! :) :cool:

[Jim Becker]

I don't disagree about the rear speakers, John, but for now, we'll try them there. The system allows for adjustments to balance them when they are closer to the viewer. Mounting them up on the wall and wider will not be a trivial undertaking as those walls are 2' thick stone with a plaster surface! A project for another day... :D

[John Miliunas]

those walls are 2' thick stone with a plaster surface! A project for another day... :D
Wait a minute: You said this used to be the dining room. Sheeeeesh...sounds more like a bomb shelter!:eek: Yah...don't know if I'd want to be trying to snake wiring in through something like that, either! Whew!:) :cool:

[John Weber]

Jim,

Nice room as well, looks like the correct size for TV size. The blue trim is, well interesting, what color are you guys thinking, we just added a similar rug to our "theater". As for speaker placement, most new HT receivers are either 6.1 or 7.1 having two main, center, two back/side speakers, and one (6.1) or two (7.1) rear speakers. Many receivers can also be set up for speaker placement, high, low, ear lever, etc... I guess you just need to add a couple more speakers and a 7.1 receiver and you'll be good to go.

John

P.S. There are still only a few titles that use more then 5.1 soundtracks right now. Star Wars is one that comes to mine...

[Jim Becker]

They built things a bit sturdy back in the mid-1700s, John.... :D

[Jim Becker]

Nice room as well, looks like the correct size for TV size.
Actually, I would have preferred the 37" or 42" LCD, but that was way more bucks than I was willing to put out. I'll upgrade in the future for this room when the cost gets more palatable and move the 30" to the master bed room. The nice thing about these flat LCD (or plasma if that's what you have) is that you can go a lot larger and still be very comfortable viewing from only about 6-7 feet away.

As to the sound, the 5.1 is great as-is. And since I have the optical cable between the digital cable box and the sound system, I have 5.1 on much of the HD programing...especially nice for concerts...feels like you're in the crowd minus some of the, umm..."fragrances"...if you know what I mean. :D Truly makes viewing a pleasure, even for folks like me who are not inclined to watch much TV. It's mostly DVDs from Netflix and some of the HD programming (documentaries and concerts)...other than Norm, of course.

[Tim Morton]

Nice set-up Jim, maybe you could invite Tyler John and Dale over to watch the big game this afternoon. :D

[Jim Becker]

Nice set-up Jim, maybe you could invite Tyler John and Dale over to watch the big game this afternoon.
Tyler already has a standing invitation for when he visits his lovely daughter who is studying hard nearby and John and Dale are certainly welcome to join him for the "ride"...but I suspect the game would have expired before they got here. No game watching here today, anyway...just rearranging furniture in the great room and making a REALLY BIG pile of donation stuff from years of accumulation! Sheesh!