Home Theater door and trim painted.

Everything in the theater is flat paint. Flat Behr paint is more like eggshell because of the good quality.

Solid core HT door

Back wall where the AV rack will be.

HT Pano 1

HT Pano 2

Painting in the home theater continues

Home theater door on

Looking into home theater

Looking out of home theater

Custom door installation has begun

These are 1 3/4" solid core 3 foot doors with 4 1/2" ball bearing hinges. Acoustic seals from Pemko will be used.

Studio door

10 inch door jambs

Acoustic threshold

Black paint home theater ceiling

Bohemian Black by Behr

Painting started

Concrete staining and sealing

Some photos of the concrete finish before the last coat of sealer goes on. The official color of choice was "saddlebag" but the concentration was increased to give more of a rust color. Great job www.concretethinking.net !

Concrete floor cleaned

Concrete floor cleaned, ready to be stained and sealed.

Subfloor finished

The subfloor is in. Getting the holes in the concrete dust free was quite a task.

Subfloor on HT riser.

Little helper.

Subfloor work has begun

I'm using Advantech OSB subfloor which seems to have maximum moisture repelling properties. Drilling the tapcons into the board is more difficult than it should be. The concrete dust has 2 1/4" of material to come up through, which it usually doesn't, even with a vacuum.

HT Riser finished

The Home Theater riser has been bolted to the ground using Red head concrete bolts:

Then I filled the spaces with Roxul insulation to prevent it from becoming a boom box:

HT Riser mostly built

The riser is 7' x 12' x 6". Would like it higher, but the bulkhead prevents this (I would be constantly hitting my head stepping onto the platform). The riser doesn't go all the way to the left wall, as I will be putting a large equipment rack there.

More drywall photos

The drywall guys did a great job installing how I wanted it done. See the photo gallery for 12 photos of the drywall job. Green glue was used between each drywall layer, and acoustic caulking (brown or grey) was used to fill the gaps and seams between each wall. As the guys installed the drywall, I was already able to hear the sound reduction.

Next: Installing XPS foam, and then subfloor in the two rooms.

Drywall photos

A couple of 180 degree panoramas of the drywall work...

Main living area

Home theater

Final photos before drywall

Drywalling is about to start. I've added some last photos to the gallery showing the insulation that was added to the soundproof rooms. I used a mixture of Rock wool and standard fiberglass insulation.

Cable testing

Before the walls are sealed up, I am testing HDMI and RG6 cables with well priced cable testers from monoprice.com. Also finalizing all wiring, including some water detectors for places where I have had leaks before. These will eventually be connected to a Sensaphone WEB600.

HVAC Baffle Box design is available

My HVAC Baffle Box design is now available in the Google Sketchup library (note: each baffle box was unique and this is just one of the larger ones):

Rigid fiberglass duct board

Here is a link to the product I used to line the baffle box: Certainteed Ultra Duct Black Duct Board (1 inch)

HVAC baffle box implementation

All 5 baffle boxes have been built and installed. This took around 35 hours with the help of a friend. If everything went smoothly, it could have taken around 25-30 hours. However, installing these things in tight spaces can take time, and on a couple of occasions we found a problem at the end and had to remove the box and fix the problem.

From Basement

Pictures of various baffles being built can be viewed in the photo album. The basic process was as follows:

1. Cut box pieces out of MDF using dimensions from pre-designed "Google Sketchups".
2. Cut holes in MDF where necessary (I used a jigsaw).
3. Build boxes minus one side so insulation and baffles can be installed. Predrill screw holes to avoid cracking in MDF.
4. Apply acoustic caulk to all interior edges.
5. Cut rigid insulation pieces to size and glue into place with spray adhesive.
6. Paint duct sealant over all edges and exposed fiberglass to ensure no fiberglass will enter the airstream.
7. Install baffle box and attach ducts.
8. Install final face of box and do any last minute sealing.
9. Turn on HVAC system to ensure proper airflow (one of the boxes had weak airflow caused by a duct being bent too sharply. We had to pull the box out and trim the duct connector).

From Basement

In the photo album you will see that the recording studio return baffle box is installed in the room space instead of hidden behind a wall. This is because there was no room to hide the box. The baffle box will be drywalled over.