[ctviggen]

Well, I'm nearing the end of a several year project to revise my family room into a slightly more dedicated HT. 

I added a location on one wall where all the equipment goes:




On the left is a metal box for an isolated ground system.  I ran metal conduit all the way from there to the panel and ran 6-10 gauge, cryogenically treated THHN wires.  I'll have two 20 amp circuits to this location.  I also ran a separate ground for the metal box/conduit.  I have two cryogenically treated, 20 amp outlets to go in there. 

Immediately to the right of that is an outlet for the projector.  You plug a battery backup into the power source and a cable goes from the battery backup to the outlet for the projector.  This way, if the power goes out, you can turn off the projector and let the bulb cool.

To the right of that is 8 channels of speaker wire, using Belden low capacitance 12 gauge speaker wire.  I had the front, right, and center wire cryogenically treated.  There are 7 channels plus if you want to reverse the room, another center channel.  There are 7 RG6 cables for 7 sub locations spread throughout the room.  I can use up to four of these at one time.

To the right of that is another 2 channels of speaker wire, in case I want to biamp the front speakers.  There are also the two conduits and several cat5e/cat6 cables and RG6 cables for cable/satellite. Oh, and a phone wire. 

To the right of that is a location for the Grafik Eye (more about that later). 

There are two conduits, one to a TV location:



And one to a projector location:

[ctviggen]

This is my Grafik Eye installation:




This is a device that has four "zones" for lights.  I have 18 recessed lights I added in this room.  6 on on one "side" of the room (between the front of the house and the beam) and 6 are on the other "side".  These light up the entire floor, and are 6 inch.   I have another four, 4-inch recessed lights on one side and another two, 4-inch lights over the fireplace.  The Grafik Eye allows you to set 12 or 16 "scenes", each of which will set the zones to any value of dimming or leave other zones untouched.  The GE is also IR controlled, although I plan to use RF to IR. 

This is the projector location, with 2x4s for mounting the projector:





The projector will shoot under the beam and onto a pulldown screen above a slider.

[ctviggen]

Here's a larger version of the wall:




Because the conduit needed a 1.75 inch hole, and I thought the wall was load-bearing, I doubled up some of the studs and then built another wall with a header (see right side, behind wall in front).  The inspector said this wasn't a load-bearing wall, so I did not need to do this.  Oh well, it's a nice, strong wall now!

In the upper right hand corner, I had to use a deep electrical, single gang box.  So I protected the wires with the metal, so that no one will drive a picture nail into the wires. 

[ctviggen]

Some final pictures after I added insulation:







This shows you how many wires run through the HT room:




I added:

20A circuit (10/2) for microwave
20A circuit (10/2) for upstairs HT system (using two, 20A outlets, cryoed)
20A circuit (10/2) to garage, with raceway (10/2, THHN) around the garage
20A circuit (10/2) to attic, for air handler/expansion
20A circuit (12/2) to attic, for expansion
15A circuit (12/2) for lights in this room
20A circuit (12/2) for old lights and other areas (can't have a hidden box, and this was the only thing I could do)
20A circuit (12/2) for kitchen lights I installed
2-20A, isolated ground system

Electricians added:

30A, 240V garage outlet
20A (12/2) circuit to GFCI, covered outlets outside

I ran out of time and had to have an electrician and carpenter help. 

[ctviggen]

The room is being drywalled.  I'll post some more pictures of the finished room.

Would I do it again?  Absolutely not.  It went way, way over budget, and that's with me doing the vast majority of the work.  I worked every weekend for many, many weekends, usually 10-12 hours a day.  The last few weeks, I went to work and worked 6am-6:30am to about 4-4:30pm, then worked in this room for about 3-4 hours.  I worked a ton the last few weekends. I took time for the inspection, then insulated from 7am to 8pm Tuesday, with no breaks, then got up at 4:30am and finished at about 11am Wednesday.  This was necessary because the carpenter is getting married and had to start Thursday morning in order to finish drywalling by his wedding date. 

Anyway, I'll post more later.

[Bob in St. Louis]

  Yea!!!
Been a long time since I've seen a good HT build thread. Thank for the pictures and captions.
Looking great Viggen, very nice!

Congratulations on the (soon to be) newlywed status as well.

You gonna glue the drywall, and are you using multiple layers of drywall?
Personally, I'd grab a few tubes of LiquidNail and glue the drywall to the studs. Especially if you plan on getting silly with a sub.
Drywall moves, ie: rattles, quite a bit when LFEs are concerned. 

Bob