[mcgsxr]

OK, so after 7 years of living in this house, we are now planning to finish the basement.   Still very much in the planning phases, work likely to begin in the January timeframe.  I expect to do some of the work myself.

What it will not be - a dedicated audio or HT.  It won't be soundproofed.

What it will be - pool room, with lounge area and a display of some kind.

We are looking to build it out to accomodate my 4.5x9 pool table, put in a 3 piece bath, and create a basement family room with some kind of video display.

The entire footprint of the finished space will be around 25x25 with 7.5 foot ceilings.   Inside that 25x25, I figure the bathroom will be around 5x10.  Open concept otherwise.

One half of the basement will essentially be a pool playing space, and the other half for family room type activities.

Flooring TBD, but my wife wants to put in a Dricore subfloor to ensure that it is warm down there. 

I am considering a PJ, but am not sold.  Budget for display likely in the $1500 range, all in (meaning screen and PJ if going that way, or just Plasma or LED otherwise).

Not sure of size for screen yet, but will have about a 12-13 foot throw available for the PJ.

It will be a compromised space for sure, but an interesting opportunity for a PJ, and the only hope in my house!

Ideas guys?

What have you done that you would do again when converting such a raw space?
What did you forget to do, and wish you had done?

Thanks boys!

Below is a bad not to scale drawing, but will highlight the overall idea.

[rodge827]

I forgot to put one of theses in my budget  .

Very useful when playing pool  .






Seriously though the full bath is a great idea, and I would go with the largest flatscreen you can get in your budget. It will look the best with the lights on when playing pool.

What are you using for heat?

I have had great luck with one of these...





Chris

[Phil A]

While my basement is a bit bigger, the main space (bar, TV area, etc.) is about that size (and then I have a bedroom, bathroom and unfinished storage too).  I originally framed the space for a pool table and then decided not to get it so I have recessed lighting above (mine is probably about 8 feet tall give or take an inch and did not want a light hanging down) where I was to have the pool table and I framed a space into the wall for pool cues which is not being used for LD storage.

[mcgsxr]

Good ideas so far, thanks.

I should have specified that the finished area is the 25x25.  There will be an additional unfinished space behind the right hand wall of 13x25 or so.  That is where the furnace, hot water heater, freezer, 2nd fridge, workbench and storage will live.

I already have the pool table, so that has to stay!

We have a few ducts down there feeding the room with forced air, so I would seek to avoid adding a heating device, but I am sure my wife (and 2 daughters) will have input on that in time.

The advice about panel vs PJ is good.  There will be 3 small windows in that room, no larger than 1x2 feet.  The rest of the house has california shutters, so those 3 windows may end up with those on them too, for light control.

Good point about the lights being on for pool, and potentially affecting the output of the PJ.  Having never had one, I am not sure how having some lights on in the room can muddy the pic.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Since there's a "utility" room that's attached, you could mount the PJ in that room, and use a screen that allows you to mount the PJ "rear mount" instead of what appears to be above the pool table.
Check the Epson 8350. Mine was $1000, which leaves money for the screen material.

In ceiling speakers might be neat for room filling party music. As opposed to our normal two channel tunes that keeps one side of the room "too loud" and the other side "too soft".

Dark colored ceiling tiles and carpet will help for light.

Highly recommend dri-core[sp?] under the floor. That'll help a lot for comfort.

Bob

[Phil A]

Here's a closer shot of the basement rack recessed into the unfinished area and the spot I originally made for cues that now houses LDs.

[mcgsxr]

Nice use of the built in area there Phil, I like that.  I will do something similar for a bar area to the right of the pool table.

To clarify, I am envisioning the lounge area to the left of the pool table.  The PJ would be hunt off the main trunk that bisects the basement, and fire towards the top wall.  So, the screen or Plasma would be at the top left of the pic - ie beside the pool table to the left, but up top.  Blach, hard to describe!

Let's imagine that the bottom of the pic is south.

That H shaped thing beside the pool table is a post.  Beside the post will be the couch, running east west between the post and the west wall.  Above the couch, on the ceiling, would go the PJ.

Screen will be on the north wall, near the west wall.

[Wayner]

As a friendly reminder, most home insurance coverage (if they cover it at all) has drastically reduced the amount of coverage to a basement with a sump-pump (if it should fail). Most policies are $5,000 to $10,000 max.

I'm not trying to strike the fear of mother nature into you, but $10,000 will barely cover the replacement costs of carpeting and a few pieces of furniture, let alone a lavishly constructed AV room with all the fixins.

Just a thought.

Wayner

[Phil A]

Depends on the basement, the State and whether one is in a flood zone.  Mine's a walk-out and basically the whole thing is above ground with the driveway sloping up to the front of the house and the ground sloping sharply from the front of the house to the back.  The bottom of my lot is around just under 100 feet above sea level and I'm up on a hill.  I'd have a lot more serious problems than equipment if there was flooding where I am.  In an old house with a walk down basement with nothing but a couple of small basement windows, I might be a bit more concerned as except for the window height basically the entire basement was underground.

[mcgsxr]

Good point to raise insurance.  My total budget (finish the space) is about 27K. 

My wife works in insurance, I will have her scope out the local rules and regs.

[SteveFord]

Worrying about water damage is what keeps me from finishing off my basement.
I used a water sealant on the floors and walls but didn't get one small spot on a cinderblock totally filled in and had a small stream during last year's tropical storm.
I plugged that one up with Hylomar Gasket Sealant which worked great.

What are you using for plumbing pipes? 

[mcgsxr]

The house is 16 years old, it has copper feeds, and ABS drain pipes throughout.  I can see all the main floor plumbing above me down there. 

I have never had any water issues down there in the past 7 years.

[Phil A]

It's best to check with local statutes/insurance agents about specific coverage - here's some info for one State that popped up - http://www.espositoins.com/NJInsuranceBlog/floodinsurance/the-truth-about-flooding-limitations-of-basement-coverage-on-fema-flood/

[Bob in St. Louis]

Use a drop ceiling instead of drywall. You'd be suprised how often you'll get up there if it's possible.

[SteveFord]

That's what I was going to do with mine (drop ceiling) and put my zoo down there but you'd be surprised how often snakes will figure out how to get into a drop ceiling!  Crazy things.
Phil A, your set up looks terrific.

[Bob in St. Louis]

That's what I was going to do with mine (drop ceiling) and put my zoo down there but you'd be surprised how often snakes will figure out how to get into a drop ceiling!  Crazy things.

WOW!
I love 'herps, but yea....in the ceiling is a "no go", for sure.

[SteveFord]

How something as short and fat as a 5' Black Blood Python can get inside of a 10' drop ceiling is beyond me but he did; I saw a corner tile bent down a little bit so I got a ladder and sure enough, there he was.
He has since been named Marco Polo.
Back to the basement audio ideas.

[Phil A]

That's what I was going to do with mine (drop ceiling) and put my zoo down there but you'd be surprised how often snakes will figure out how to get into a drop ceiling!  Crazy things.
Phil A, your set up looks terrific.

Thanks, I originally had a 64 inch 346 lb. rear projection unit in the opening (where the 88 inch screen is now).  About 4.5 years back I gave it away and I had done a couple of runs of PVC from the soffit opposite the screen to the unfinished part in the event I went with a projector.  I thought about the drop ceiling but wanted the ceiling as high as possible and also thought it would be hard to keep from rattling.  I braced the wall behind the sub so much as I built the wall attached to the return duct and didn't want to hear that rattling.

[jarcher]

Having done this myself almost ground up a year ago, a few practical suggestions:

1. Before you put up drywall run tubing / conduit for your speaker & other cabling.  This way if you later need to change something or you have a cable failure, you can do so w/ out hassles.  In-wall cabling will snag on anything & everything it can if it isn't run through some kind of conduit.  This was immediately helpful to me when I realized the handyman crew put the speaker cable in the wrong direction. 

You can use the blue "smurf" plastic tubing at Home Depot for speaker cable, and regular PVC plumbing tubes for other stuff such as Ethernet, cable, satellite TV, etc etc.

Doing all this will score much higher on the ol WAF.

2. Dropped ceilings are handy, but if you do #1, no longer so important. And it's hard for them not to make the space look like an office - much more so if you use florescent lighting.  I did a dropped ceiling & put insulation in both the walls & ceiling for some soundproofing, then did double drywall on the ceiling. Booms still come through, but the HF stuff is mostly contained.

3. If you have the walls open, would suggest a dedicated power line or two for the equipment.

If it's going to be a pool / rec room mostly w/ the light on / up, have to agree w/ the rest that a flat screen makes more sense.  I've not seen a projector no matter how bright look that good w/ full lights on.

That doesn't mean you still can't get a project / screen anyway when the lights are going to be turned down, but just don't rely on it as the only source.  On Audio Circle trader offering a Sanyo 720P + screen for $400 total, so not a big investment.

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=107403.msg1102152#msg1102152

As for water entry - unless you rarely go down to the basement, you generally know when water is coming in & can address it in time.  If not - or you're going on vacation - you can always invest in a flood detector.  Some of these are just alarms, others can be hooked up to a home security system. 

I unfortunately had serious water entry problems in the basement that required investment in a waterproofing / drainage system w. sump pump & back up.  Hence starting from the ground up.  But now I'm good to go.

[mcgsxr]

Thanks for the pointers, I appreciate it.

I am thinking (the horror!) of drywall ceiling.  In a previous house I had a drop ceiling in the basement, and was not in love with how it presented.  But it was dead nuts simple to run cable when needed.  I like the conduit idea.  My brother ran conduit in his fireplace TV install when he had that done, and it seems a wise future proofing idea.

I am on the fence for PJ vs Plasma.  I doubt the room will frequently do double duty for viewing and pool playing at the same time.  I also am unclear (since the room is unfinished, there is no display down there now, and it is pretty uninviting for anything but pool playing for the truly dedicated!) how folks will use that display.  Will people walk past the 55 Plasma on the main floor to view downstairs?  Likely depends what is down there.

Good advice on the infrastructure so far, and I need to sit and think about what type of viewing I want down there - ie will it be a space to watch major sporting events and movies only, or will people think they will want to watch regular TV down there.  I would think the intended use would play a large role in figuring out what display to use.

At present when I play pool, all other lights are off.  I am a pretty avid player, and unwanted reflections bug me.