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We recently decided to take advantage of the space in our basement to create a recreation room and home theater area. We started by contacting the builder who built our house. We were very pleased with his work so we were glad that he was able to do our basement project.
We leveraged the interest rates at the time and secured the loan in August of 2003 and construction started soon after.
Our vision for the basement was to create an area for our kids to play, which included a small game table (pool, foosball, etc). I knew that I also wanted to create a home theater. My original plan was to create a completely separate room for the theater. After mulling this over, we decided that we didn't want to break the room off by itself. Instead, we decided that by leaving the room open, and putting in a bar area, we could have more people over to enjoy things like Chiefs games. So we created the theater, and then a bar area, but they are open to each other. Now, we plan on hanging a curtain at the back of the theater to close it off for serious movie viewing. Or, the curtain can be left open. We have a friend how has volunteered to make the curtain for us. She is doing that now, and we hope to have it done in the next week or so.
The next step was to decide what kind of equipment to use in the theater. I visited a local home theater store and asked them for some advice on the decision between a large screen television or a projector. Based on quality of picture, screen size, ease of inatallation and cost, I decided on using a projector. The projector I chose is the PLUS Piano Avanti 3200. This is a great little DLP projector. It is designed for home theater use, so it works well with DVD and Hi Def television channels. I ordered the projector directly from PLUS and the screen (a wall mounted Da-Lite screen) from my dealer. The total was around $3500 - about the same price as a big screen tv with a smaller picture (my screen is 92" diagonal). Based on the advice of my dealer, I also purchased some Wharfedale speakers and a NAD receiver.
Construction on the basement went fairly smoothly. We only had one hiccup that cost us about two weeks. The project was completed in early October. We are very pleased with the performance of the theater system. The picture and sound quality are great. Considering what we paid, I think it is a great system. Our local cable system has a few hi def channels available, and those are fabulous.
The pictures below were taken the day the furniture was delivered. We've since added a popcorn machine and a pinball machine. I'll try to get new pictures posted soon.
