Tweedbean's Home Cinema Build

tweedbean

tweedbean

tweedbean

Associate
Joined
12 Apr 2010
Posts
363
Location
Balsall Common
I did post up an initial thread discussing ideas on this however recently we made up our minds and decided to go for the log cabin type structure. Custom designed by myself to fill the space we have and meet our needs. I submitted the design to a local company and they are happy to supply and install it.

The brief for the space was to provide a building that did three things, firstly a home cinema room for watching football, gaming and movies. Secondly a home office as I work from home atleast 1 day a week, giving a quiet space away from the children while working. And finally a shed type storage space for all the gardening tools and patio furniture cushions as I have a rule in our house which is garages are for cars and car tools, not lawn mowers and junk.

I feel my design delivers all three of these spaces. Here are some details of what we are having:

Dimensions

Plans by James Baker, on Flickr

Elevation 2d

Plans by James Baker, on Flickr

Elevation 3D

Ignore the wonky window. This is just to show location and dimensions.

Plans by James Baker, on Flickr

Layout

Here is a rough idea of where I want to place furniture etc.

Plans by James Baker, on Flickr

As you can see this design allows for an uninterrupted view of a projector screen which will be placed on the wall represented by a TV cabinet in the plans as the software I used didn’t have anything for a project screen. Projector to be located above the sofa, distance to the screen around 4.5m. I will ensure a power supply is placed up high where the projector is to be mounted.

My desk is set back at the top of the design on the right and I have included a window looking out into the garden here so I have some natural light on the desk area.

The building is to be fully insulated, tongue & groove interior finish, also looking at under floor heating for winter months. All windows and doors are double glazed. The building will be finished in a lightage colur with grey tiled roof and white doors/Windows to match those on the house. The room will also have 5 double power sockets, two ceiling lights and a wired network connection to our existing home network. Internal wiring all done by the suppliers hooked up to a small garage sized consumer unit. I then need to get an electrician in to connect that to the house supply.

I will be updating this thread with build progress aswell as seeking advice on audio/visual equipment.

The build progress so far

Here is the space located behind our garage, a strip of grass with garage wall on one side, border wall in the other and a fence lined with massive conifer trees which were at least a metre deep. I don't have a before pic as such but here is me starting to strip the turf off. I enjoy getting my hands dirty so will do most of the prep myself but leave the building of the cabin to the professionals:

Build in progress by James Baker, on Flickr

In came the tree surgeons to remove all the conifer trees which left a much larger space. I'm going to paint that brick wall. All that unsightly bit on the right will be hidden by the cabin:

Build in progress by James Baker, on Flickr

We decided to lay a plastic base filled with pea gravel, so myself and the brother in law did this last weekend. We were a little sceptical but it's turned out with good prep to be a solid and level base to put the cabin on. The guys supplying the cabin came and looked at it Wednesday and they were really pleased with it saying it was better than some of the concrete bases they have seen in the past:

Build in progress by James Baker, on Flickr

We plan to install a patio across that square of grass infront of the cabin to avoid mud getting in and give an informal seating area or possibly the hot tub which is being delivered in July. This can't be done until the cabin is in as we will need to raise the level of the ground to match it and also run a small perimeter of slate clippings for drainage.

This coming Monday the suppliers are coming out to deliver and construct the cabin in one day. So much easier than getting builders in and faffing with planning etc. The office will be within the 2.5m height restriction etc so as to not require planning.

In terms of wiring for the audio visual setup they are leaving off one of the wall papers along the bottom and top of the wall so I can run candles at my own leisure them pin the panels I place when wiring is complete.
 
Looks great, I will be interested how this turns out. I'm in the process of doing something very similar - though am having a concrete base laid, I've ordered a cabin from dunster house 5m x 3m and am hoping to squeeze in a small rubber matt gym area on 1 side and projector cinema setup on the other.

Like you, all garden tools are banned from the space and a separate shed will be purchased for those.
 
Would recommend not having the sofa directly along the back wall. Plays havoc with the low end response since you're so close to a boundary - really can't stress this enough.

Also it's 'better' if the rear speakers (in a 5.1 system) are about 110 degrees behind you over each shoulder. If you are sat on the back wall, the best you can do is 90 degrees which is workable but not ideal on a new build.
 
Thanks, I am planning to move the sofa out its just the software kept locking furniture to walls.

I am also looking for advice on the audio visual side of things.

We have a richer audio store near us so I plan to visit there aswell as shopping around online for parts. Below is my shopping list so far with a rough idea of budget for each item:

#Projector Screen – Recommendations required on brands, this will be a permanent screen as it is a dedicated room. Had about £200 put aside.

#Projector – Recommendations again on this based on size of room and connectivity. Budget around £800. I was looking at the BenQ W1080ST+.

#AV Receiver to take input from PC/Xbox etc and send a single connection to the projector via a long HDMI cable. Budget around £200, I was looking at the YAMAHA RXV379. Could stretch a little more if required.

#Speakers wise I was looking at a 5.1 setup. I was recommended the DALI ZENSOR 1 5.1 @ £979, what do you think?

#Speaker, sub and hdmi cables. The only thing to worry about here is the length of the hdmi cable and does it need to be active or is there a cat 6 solution that's simple to use to run the visual signal from AV receiver to projector. The cable will need to run along the insides of the walls and up into the projector.

#iMac connected to the projector. I have this already. Will be used to stream Sky/BT sports etc online.

# Skq Q mini box maybe

#Electric recliner corner sofa – I already own a super comfy that we no longer require in our lounge as we have had all new furniture. It's has 2 electric recliners, 2 manual and a corner piece. Need to work out how much of it will fit in the room. So it will either be a corner or a 3/4 seater sofa.

#Xbox One - I already have one so will chuck that in there.
 
Looking at your room dimensions you need not go excessive on a 5.1 system IMHO. Of course it's personal but I've a old creative 5.1 system from 2002 that easily fills my mancave which is bigger than your space. Definitely spend extra on the projector but there are plenty of excellent value screens available that will work great. One piece of advice is have dimmable lights (remote ideally) as you often be farting about when your fire up the projector especially when your setting up and the lights will need to go off and on often. I use a roku 3 with a small adapter to split the 5.1 to optical for my 5.1 system.

Needless to say everything needs to have a remote when we park our fat butts on the sofa (footstools are a must) Enjoy and definitely fill the room up for acoustics { or foam tiles). Sub just behind main sofa and your golden.

I watched the England game on my set up and even though they played like utter pooh was fun. Even tennis is great on the big screen. Enjoy.
 
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Thanks I will take a look.

Electrician has been out today and found a much similar route to get power to the cabin and hot tub that we has thought. They are going to try and get in as early as possible in the next two weeks to make the connection to the cabin so should be all up and running within the next two weeks. Just to decide on a projector and AV receiver as a starting point.
 
After a long day for the installers, the cabin is now built and I couldn't be happier. Exactly as I had designed it, with plenty of potential in inside.

Here are progress photos throughout the day. They got here at 11am and finished around 7.30pm.

Untitled by James Baker, on Flickr

Untitled by James Baker, on Flickr

Untitled by James Baker, on Flickr

Untitled by James Baker, on Flickr

Untitled by James Baker, on Flickr

Shed section

Untitled by James Baker, on Flickr

Main interior

Untitled by James Baker, on Flickr

Going to pick up some spot lights later today and carpet/underlay has been ordered and should go down this weekend. I am also putting in a patio right up to the front of the cabin with a strip of slate chippings running around the edge where you currently see plastic and pea gravel.

They have also left the bottom row of wall off so that I can run the cabling for speakers in the walls and a high plug socket on the back wall to power the projector. I have also placed string in the wall near that high socket so I can pull up the hdmi cable from the bottom of the wall to the top once I have it.
 
Wow, that is amazing, to think it took more than a year for my project to finish and yours is looking well on it's way in such a short space of time.

Good luck with the rest of your build.
 
Thanks, been following your thread closely as well.

Just trying to work out layout on mine in terms of equipment such as xbox, sky box and AV Receiver. Trying to minimise impact, which location would you recommend:

Location A: Under my desk, out the way but would require longer cables for everything

Location B: Under the screen in a low profile TV cabinet, reduce size of screen.

Location C: In a short TV cabinet down the side of the sofa so it doesn't interrupt TV view or screen size,

Location D: Overhead on the wall under the projector, on some funky shevles. Reduces need for long HDMI cable but means remotes will have to be pointed backwards and Xbox one Kinect camera wont work.

AV receiver location choice by James Baker, on Flickr

The wall the screen will be located on is 320cm wide and 200cm high. Its roughly 420-430cm from the front of the projector if located above the sofa. Need to work out what sort of image size I will get with those distances.
 
Thanks, the one we had I actually designed myself and they produced it based on my plans. Excluding the base which I did myself, the whole thing delivered and installed was £5250 which I thought was good for something custom built. They offer cheaper off the shelf options but I wanted something that 100% utilised the space we had behind the garage. It is wired up for two ceiling lights and 5 double sockets. It has an insulated roof and walls.

Looking on ebay prices vary so much, there are some really cheap ones and some really expensive. I based my decision on recommendations from others that have used this company, Woodhouse Garden Buildings. They dont have the greatest website but who cares, its their log cabin I wanted not their IT skills.
 
Looking pretty good there, hope that the thin walls dont cause the room to be echoing, hopefully the sound dampening materal you use is good and causes the sound to stay in the room and not make an echo.

Will follow the thread for any updates, I totally want todo this eventually when I own a property.
 
tweedbean said:
Thanks, been following your thread closely as well.

Just trying to work out layout on mine in terms of equipment such as xbox, sky box and AV Receiver. Trying to minimise impact, which location would you recommend:
Click to expand...

I'd say keep the equipment away from your screen to minimise distraction and allow you to have a bigger screen if you want.

You could have a fibre optic star lighting setup like mine if you like that sort of thing, which could extend into the outside and into the garden. Also an LED strip light could go somewhere too. I'd be thinking about some sort of illuminated cinema sign for outside, possibly motion controlled so it lights up at night when you are setting off from the house to see a film.

Presumably you'll also be putting in some sort of alarm system as you'll have some desirable kit in there.
 
That's why I was considering locations C and D. C is out the way and will allow the use of the kinnect camera. Location D I could make a feature of the equipment on the wall but when I say it out loud, that just sounds ugly, so thinking location C.

Love some of your ideas there, I wonder how easy the fibre optic star lighting would be, off I go to look it up...
 
tweedbean said:
That's why I was considering locations C and D. C is out the way and will allow the use of the kinnect camera. Location D I could make a feature of the equipment on the wall but when I say it out loud, that just sounds ugly, so thinking location C.

Love some of your ideas there, I wonder how easy the fibre optic star lighting would be, off I go to look it up...
Click to expand...

If you have access above the ceiling then the install will be straightforward, although it is hard work I think the result is awesome. I'm also thinking an LED strip light underneath the overhang below the roof outside would look pretty good - this is of course down to personal taste.
 
Not really, the office part has 22 mm external cladding, an air gap stuffed with insulation then 16 mm internal cladding. It's only the shed part that isn't insulated or internal,y cladded but will only hold garden tools. These cabins are used for a variety of things including hair salons, groom parlours, home offices, CB radio shacks with no problem.
 
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