New Theater... Day 1.
This weekend we decided it had been long enough without a real theater. Shannon and discussed it and pulled the cord getting the theater back up and running in the new house. I don't have anything really exciting to report as far as the thoughts and plans, most of them are still half-formed, make a decision later plans.
The first project is the screen. I've done a screen before, and we know what wall it is going on, so that was the obvious choice. We went to the old house and picked up all the theater supplies. Projector & mount, speakers & speaker wires, along with all the wire channel. The wire channel tore up the paint coming off, which sucks, but we knew we'd be re-painting the living room anyway. Also took down the false column I had built so I could get the cables that went up to the projector. I'm not really sure if the wire channel will be re-usable. The adhesive has a ton of paint still stuck to it, and we had painted some of the channels green to match the old living room. That will be a project for later.
The screen will be taking up pretty much the entire wall that it is going on. We discussed making a 16x9 screen, since we know we are going to be upgrading the projector. I did some casual looking at new projectors. Our next projector will be 1080p, and they are currently too new and expensive to consider upgrading now. It'll probably be 1-2 years before the come down into our price range. So for now we are going to stick with a 4x3 screen to match our current projector, but I am preparing the entire wall, so that should be fine. When we upgrade we'll just put up a new 16x9 frame, and paint the area that used to be screen that isn't used with the new projector flat black to match the area around it and call it good.
The screen will be done in the following stages:
Stage 1: Move outlet.
Stage 2: Putty holes, first sanding pass
Stage 3: Mask/plastic off everything except screen wall
Stage 4: Roll on primer, second sanding pass
Stage 5: Spray on primer, third sanding pass
Stage 6: Spray on top coat, final sanding
Stage 7: Roll on flat black around screen area
Stage 8: Mount & align projector
Stage 9: Mount frame around screen area
Every paint stage will consist of multiple coats. Our last screen ended up being a total of 22 separate coats, all sprayed on. I'm hoping to cut that down by rolling on the first few primer coats, because I think they'll be a little thicker than sprayed on coats.
I'm still considering what "top coat" means. Last time it was a basic light grey. I believe it was Behr "Silverscreen" with any non-black tint left out of the recipe. There are many different recipe for DIY screens recommended at www.avsforum.com. We were very happy with our last screen, and it should perform even better since our new theater will be basically 100% light controlled, unlike our last one. Still, there are recipes that people claim perform better, so I'm researching and considering.
The first project is the screen. I've done a screen before, and we know what wall it is going on, so that was the obvious choice. We went to the old house and picked up all the theater supplies. Projector & mount, speakers & speaker wires, along with all the wire channel. The wire channel tore up the paint coming off, which sucks, but we knew we'd be re-painting the living room anyway. Also took down the false column I had built so I could get the cables that went up to the projector. I'm not really sure if the wire channel will be re-usable. The adhesive has a ton of paint still stuck to it, and we had painted some of the channels green to match the old living room. That will be a project for later.
The screen will be taking up pretty much the entire wall that it is going on. We discussed making a 16x9 screen, since we know we are going to be upgrading the projector. I did some casual looking at new projectors. Our next projector will be 1080p, and they are currently too new and expensive to consider upgrading now. It'll probably be 1-2 years before the come down into our price range. So for now we are going to stick with a 4x3 screen to match our current projector, but I am preparing the entire wall, so that should be fine. When we upgrade we'll just put up a new 16x9 frame, and paint the area that used to be screen that isn't used with the new projector flat black to match the area around it and call it good.
The screen will be done in the following stages:
Stage 1: Move outlet.
Stage 2: Putty holes, first sanding pass
Stage 3: Mask/plastic off everything except screen wall
Stage 4: Roll on primer, second sanding pass
Stage 5: Spray on primer, third sanding pass
Stage 6: Spray on top coat, final sanding
Stage 7: Roll on flat black around screen area
Stage 8: Mount & align projector
Stage 9: Mount frame around screen area
Every paint stage will consist of multiple coats. Our last screen ended up being a total of 22 separate coats, all sprayed on. I'm hoping to cut that down by rolling on the first few primer coats, because I think they'll be a little thicker than sprayed on coats.
I'm still considering what "top coat" means. Last time it was a basic light grey. I believe it was Behr "Silverscreen" with any non-black tint left out of the recipe. There are many different recipe for DIY screens recommended at www.avsforum.com. We were very happy with our last screen, and it should perform even better since our new theater will be basically 100% light controlled, unlike our last one. Still, there are recipes that people claim perform better, so I'm researching and considering.