Picture House #3

Official home cinema of the AV Forums

Phase 3 : Decoration and fittings

Picture house number 2 was decorated in blue. Dark blue painted walls and ceiling plus dark blue carpet and curtains. I liked that colour scheme and I see no reason to change it for number 3. Plus I have 2 blue home cinema seats so that kind of decides it for me.

Early March, the electrics are finished. The fuse box is wired up...

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...and the power sockets fitted. The Lutron lighting control box, alarm keypad and the 6 spotlights above the seating were installed (see below).

Alarm box, control unit, keypad, door and wall sensor £140
Lutron Grafik Eye lighting control (see local dealer)
6 Spotlights £40
All electrical cables, sockets, fuse box and labour
(note that the electrician is a friend of the family and undercharged on the work)
£500
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March 25th and 26th I sealed the plaster on the walls and ceiling. A mixture of 1 part PVA glue and 5 parts water seals the plaster and provides a base for the paint. A bucket full did the trick.

PVA glue £6
Brushes and rollers £10
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April 3rd the painting starts. One tip. If you want a nice and smooth finish, don't let toddlers help you.

Paint 5 litres (this is the total - we needed another 2 litres later on for the fittings) £60
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The paint is the darkest blue from B&Q's own range and is mixed in-store. It dries darker than when it's applied and this helps when applying a second coat.

I've decided to paint the power sockets and the skirtinboard the same colour.

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Early May Dad puts the wall lights up. They were about 25 quid each from www.thelightingsuperstore.co.uk and made from paintable ceramic. I painted them with the same colour I have used on the walls so they blend in. They look really nice.

Total bill for the lights was about £200
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The only element of completing this project done by myself is the painting and it takes six weeks.

May 22 the curtains go up. They were made to order and installed by a local curtain maker I found in Yellow Pages Jenny's Curtains. There are 3 curtain rails - the main one seen here over the window. The curtain material is blackout, of course.

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The other two curtain rails are on the side walls along the front 7 feet. The intention here is that they will serve two purposes when closed:

  1. Create an uneven surface to absorb and disperse the sound and reduce reverberation and
  2. Cover movie posters which would otherwise reflect light and sound.

Curtains along the walls definitely add a cinematic feel.

Making and fitting the curtains £500
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Early June the concrete floor was sealed by the builder as the last part of his duties. I was somewhat surprised to see that it was using PVA glue the same as I had used to seal the walls.

15th June the carpet and underlay go in.

From a local carpet company, I went for a slightly more expensive, thicker carpet for two reasons. Firstly the anti-stain coating would be pretty essential with two youngs kids. And secondly I like to walk around in bear feet and I like to feel a nice thick carpet under them.

Naturally the carpet is in dark blue.

A good idea from the carpet salesman was to have a foot-wiping bit of thicker carpet inside of the door for people to wipe their feet on. This was neatly installed with a metal strip round it.

Supplying and fitting the carpet £520
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The process of putting the carpet in scratched a good deal of paint off the skirtingboard so I had to spend some time very carefully repainting it.

29th June my Dad revisited and wired up the infa-red receiver for the screen which arrived earlier this week. We had expected it to be an in-wall job, but it wasn't and the only neat and quick way we could get it in was to put it inside a larger box which you can see here to the left of the lighting control. The guys from Owl say there might be an in-wall version coming soon and I will put this in as and when it arrives.

Also this week I took delivery of the new stand for my gear. It's the Chunky Extended Sound Tower Cabinet (in Mahogany with grey tinted sides and doors) from Stands Unique and it's quite simply a work of beauty. The Denon AVC-A1SE fits in there with room to spare.

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My Dad also wired in the central spot light which will shine down onto the coffee table built round the projector. You can see it at the very top of the photo here.

Hey this is starting to look like a cinema, isn't it ?!

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July 1st 2004 was a big day! The picture side of the Picture House was completed!!!

It started with the arrival of the builders Phil and Vin who quickly installed the window boxes to block out the light spilling in above and below the curtains...

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...and the DVD shelving. I'm going to paint the window boxes and the shelving. After which Phil will come back to put the vertical shelving rails in so I can then insert and adjust the height of the shelves.

The shelving reaches to the ceiling so I can store the maxumim number of DVDs there.

Mid-way along the left wall is the only place to put the shelving and unfortunatley it is right next to the wall light - which spoils the effect a bit - and I bet it will be too close to the left surround speaker, too.

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Proceed to the next page to read about the installation of the home cinema hardware.

« Phase 2 : Construction | Phase 4 : Installation of the kit »

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