Picture House #3
Phase 2 : Construction
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This view of the garage as seen from the
house. |
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This view of the garage as seen from the bottom
of the garden. |
It was intended from the
start to use the detached garage in our newly purchased house as a home cinema.
It was to be a compromise as I ideally wanted the home cinema attached to the
house in some way. Otherwise there's an often cold and/or wet trek down the
garden to the external home cinema. Plus there are the issues of heating up a
detached building and organising it's security.
But compromise is the path
to a contented life, so work has started 3/2/04.
The internal dimensions
are 19 feet long, 9.5 feet wide at the narrow end (where the big door is), 11
feet wide at the window end and 8 feet high. The fact that the garage tapers is
fortunate since this will improve acoustics. The wall with the big door in it
will need bricking up, and the screen will be located there. The floor requires
an insulating layer and then a new layer of concrete. We decided to locate the
projector on the floor and so a trench has been made in the concrete to supply
it with cabling. The roof is partially raftered but required a trap door and
more rafters to complete the ceiling.
The first work was the
reinforcing of the bowing roof with installation of several large wooden beams
set into new breeze blocks. Once the roof was made 100% safe, the work could
start on the rafters. I employed PMK Building and Joinery based in
Lilleshall, Shropshire 01952 604250. He has recently completed work on my Dad's
new sky light to a high standard, and there's nothing better than a personal
recommendation. Proprietor Phil employed my father's cousin Vin to do much of
the building work. Phil must be in his late 50s and Vin is over 70. Both of
them worked with the strength and speed of men half their age. Their experience
meant the work was completed speedily and to a high standard.
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5/2/04. Here
Dad and Electrician Gilbert are looking at the main
electricity feed into the building. The floor has been
covered with insulation in readiness for concreting.
Since we will need access
to the loft space a hole has been cut in the centre
of the ceiling. |
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6/2/04. Here the new
concrete floor is being laid. The original floor had quite a camber so while
there are 4 inches of concrete in the middle, there are up to 6 or more at the
very edges. |
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Dad's cousin Vin is
laying the floor. We're lucky with the weather.
Many key ideas for
the Picture House #3 have come from
Zebra's Rob Sinden. Rob
is somewhat of an expert and he designed the lighting, the cabling schedule and
the locations of the speakers, the curtains and the slope of the roof near the
screen. |
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Work continues
with the removal of the big door and bricking up of
the doorway. There's a breeze block inner wall and standard
bricked outer wall. |
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cables are supplied by Chord.
A 100 meter drum of Chord Carnival speaker cable will
supply the 7 speakers, all of which will travel from
behind the equipment (located low down on one side of
the room) up behind the plasterboard into the loft space.
From here they travel across the floor of the loft space
and then back down the wall to the point at which they
will pop out of the plasterboard.
We don't know what the
ideal location of the subwoofer will be so 4 Chord phono
to phono LFE cables are used - one to each corner of
the room.
Mains cables are arranged
to provide a total of 8 double power points. And lighting
cables are arranged to feed the 14 lights grouped into
4 circuits. At this point a light was installed in the
loft space and a switch located right next to the access
hole.
That leaves the
electric screen control which will be located near the Lutron lighting
control. |
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Tuesday 16th Feb the
battons go up.
One mistake made
here was that the rafters sloping down from the centre of the ceiling to the
front wall needed to be changed. We need access to the inside of the bulkhead
from above for installation of the screen and speakers. So the rafters had to
have the ends cut away and additional support added to make them secure.
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Wednesday 17th Feb
the new window goes in and the external wall made good.
The old extractor
fan was removed and the hole to the bottom left of the window filled in.
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Thursday 19th Feb
the plasterboard goes up. |
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A couple of photos
here showing the bulkhead. The side facing the audience is angled down so that
the in-wall speakers will point downwards appropriately. |
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Friday 20th Feb and
the plasterboardng and skimming of the ceiling and walls continues.
This photo shows the
front of the room. |
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This photo shows the
rear of the room. Note the 4 white Chord speaker cables protruding from the
side and rear walls. |
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23rd Feb the old
door and frame are removed and the new door frame installed. Note the black
rubber seal at the bottom to ensure a snug fit. |
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24th Feb the
skimming is finished and the skirting board fixed. Also the hatchway into the
loftspace is completed.
This photo shows the
right-hand side of the room with the doorway. The fusebox can be seen near the
top of the door. Just below that is the cable for the wall light. Below that
are the boxes for the Lutron control panel and the electric screen switch.
The DVD player,
amplifier etc will be located near the door and the 7 Chord speaker cables
(white) and 4 LFE cables (blue) come out of the wall at this point.
On the wall past the
door are the cable for the right surround speaker and above that the cables for
the alarm keypad and the wall light.
From the door frame
you can see a single cable for the door sensor for the alarm.
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Bill for the building work and
materials.
- reinforcing
of the roof
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installation of additioanal rafters with bulkhead
- fitting of loft access hole and removable
hatch
- laying
of concrete floor and wooden boxed channel for
the projector cabling
- bricking
up of the large garage door and the extractor
fan hole
- battoning
(with insulation), plasterboarding and skimming
of the walls and ceiling
- fitting
of new door frame and door
- fitting
of new double glazed UPVC window
- all
materials for above
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£5,700 |
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This shows
the back of the room. You can see the 4 white speaker
cables, the 2 blue LFE cables and the grey cables for
lighting and power sockets.
In the top
right-hand corner you can see the alarm sensor cable. |
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The front of the
room. You can see the 2 blue LFE cables. The speaker cables for the front 3
speakers are in the roofspace and will connect to the in-wall speakers in the
bulkhead.
A heater is left on
over night to gently help the plaster set. |
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And that's where we are as
of 24/2/04.
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Phase 1 : Planning | Phase 3 : Decoration
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