 Filed Under: Reader Interiors Casual $$ 
Posted Thu Apr 16, 2009, 10:47 AM ET — By Jay North
The project to transform my empty basement into The Ultimate Man Cave took about 8-months. The theme is "Transportation" and all of the artwork and décor is based on planes, trains, antique cars, motorcycles, etc. We turned approximately 1400 sq. ft. into a large media room/game room/pool room with a dedicated workout area, home office, wine room and storage/AV Room. There is also a full bath and wet bar. Filed Under: Reader Interiors Casual $$
Posted Thu Feb 12, 2009, 4:13 PM ET — By Doug and Candy Laven
My wife and I own a Queen Ann Victorian home built in 1886 in the Silk Stocking district of Mankato, Minnesota. It’s a large home with each room decorated in period furnishings which isn’t conducive to a large screen TV and visible speakers. This made it hard to watch movies and Monday Night Football, so Doug convinced Candy to build a media room in the basement. The basement, which occupied two cisterns and a steam boiler, had a six foot unfinished ceiling and Kasota stone walls. As we developed our plan for a theater, we felt it was important to incorporate the Kasota stone and leave evidence of the cisterns, which played an important role in the house at the turn of the century. Filed Under: Pro Interiors $$ Casual
Posted Fri Jan 23, 2009, 5:19 PM ET — By Kim Wilson Photography:Dave Rutz
Dealers are often advocates of their favorite products but I have found few dealers as fired up over a product line as Dave Rutz, owner of Dave's Home Entertainment. To say he is a strong supporter of the Bose BUILT-INvisible® product line would be a serious understatement. To hear Dave tell it, this specialty line from Bose is perfect for the next generation of home entertainment enthusiasts due to the brands perceived quality, value, and performance. Filed Under: Reader Interiors Casual
Posted Thu Nov 13, 2008, 4:46 PM ET — By Tim Ending
Back in 2004 when we purchased our current house, we couldn’t have predicted what we were in for. Being previous renters, we had no real experience as to the ins and outs of home ownership. In New England, most houses are old. In our case, the particular house we bought was built in 1901. Granted, the house was well maintained and was, thankfully, structurally sound. We moved in and, with little time and much fanfare, proceeded to brand the house with our own tattoos of individual taste. Unfortunately for my wife, I was not prepared to be an armchair house decorator, so being actively involved meant that we sometimes disagreed on things like design styles, color schemes, or furniture choices. But overall, I have to say we always came to either a compromise or mutual agreement. My pet project was the audio/video system—something I had long ago visualized with pumping bass and a gazillion gadgets—while hers was the kitchen. Filed Under: Casual $$ Reader Interiors
Posted Mon Feb 4, 2008, 5:04 PM ET — By Ray Coronado
We wired the room, installed the equipment, and calibrated the system ourselves—and we couldn't be prouder. My home theater desire started in 1994 when I went to a friend's home theater to watch Jurassic Park on laserdisc. All I could say that day was, "Wow. . .that was amazing." For the next 10 years, my living room was my theater, but my wife suggested that we do a room addition to the house and make it my dedicated home theater. I was all in favor. Filed Under: Reader Interiors $ Casual
Posted Mon Jan 21, 2008, 12:44 PM ET — By Russ Klass
How I got a great basement home theater—without breaking the bank. I love to read about the great, inspirational dedicated theaters in the pages of Audio Video Interiors magazine. However, not everyone, including myself, can afford these sometimes expensive theaters. I thought AVI readers might like to see what a determined homeowner could do on a modest budget. We built our theater for the primary users, our three-person family, but we can add extra seating as needed. Filed Under: $ Reader Interiors Casual
Posted Fri Jan 4, 2008, 11:26 AM ET — By Robert Barbiero
The Robelle: my labor of love. The dream of one day having a movie theater in my home was born in the summer of 1976. I was impressed by my friend Brian's dad's theater. It had a dozen or so of those old wooden seats that you'd find in a school auditorium. It had a separate projection booth for the Bell & Howell 16mm projector, and it had an actual stage, with speakers built into the walls. Filed Under: Casual $$ Pro Interiors
Posted Thu Dec 20, 2007, 12:24 PM ET — By Krissy Rushing
Actor Donnie Wahlberg is not opposed to bringing his work home with him to this sleek, simple, high-performance home theater. If it weren't for Hollywood, we wouldn't have home theater. It is not only the old movie theaters that today's homeowners find inspiration in—it is also the film community that pushes the envelope for high-tech theater at home. In fact, many early home theaters were film theaters, with directors installing full film-projection systems in their homes in order to watch the dailies. Of course, this type of theater usually required a special staff, such as a professional projectionist, to make the image look right. Filed Under: Casual Reader Interiors $
Posted Fri Dec 14, 2007, 12:03 PM ET — By Ron Wiechmann
How to start from scratch and achieve glory. The seeds for our home theater were planted in the mid-1980s, when the sun would shine through the curtains and put an incessant glare on the TV. I said on many occasions, "When I have a home built, I will have a TV room in the basement with no windows." In 1994, the idea of a home theater sprouted after I went to a home show in the Dayton, Ohio, area and saw a home theater with tiered seating, a 104-inch screen, a front projector, and a laserdisc player. As the idea grew, I was able to design the right-size room into the plans for our new home. Filed Under: $$$ Pro Interiors Casual
Posted Mon Dec 10, 2007, 12:08 PM ET — By Krissy Rushing
A theater in Birmingham, Michigan, straddles the line between professional digital cinema and home theater. When we talk about home theater, we normally talk about equipment that is readily available and relatively affordable, as well as brand names that are somewhat recognizable to the mainstream consumer. Bradford Wells, owner of Bradford Wells + Associates in Los Angeles, takes a slightly different approach. Because his business is half home installation and half professional A/V installation, Wells takes some of the best concepts he creates in his professional digital-cinema installations and incorporates them into his home theater business. Filed Under: Casual $$
Posted Wed Nov 21, 2007, 1:48 PM ET — By Krissy Rushing
The breeze off the Pacific brings unparalleled ambiance to this Maui outdoor theater. Outdoor theaters are becoming more and more popular, although what constitutes a theater is up for interpretation. Many magazines today sing the outdoor theater's praises, but that theater might be just a plasma in a cabana or a couple of outdoor speakers. Engineered Environments in Alameda, California, however, has set the bar high for outdoor home theater. Filed Under: Casual $$$ Pro Interiors
Posted Wed Nov 14, 2007, 3:00 AM ET — By Krissy Rushing
Who says a home theater has to be a dungeon? Inspired by the homeowners' backyard, this theater brings the outdoors in. In the quaint town of Danville, Pennsylvania, lies a gem of a home theater owned by Rhonda and Robert Seebold. While their 9,000-square-foot home is located in an exclusive development, they are situated on the top of a hill, which gives them access to several acres of pristine woodlands right in their backyard. It also gave Rhonda a private area in which to develop an award-winning water garden, which includes two streams, a waterfall, and a pond with koi fish. Filed Under: Casual $$ Reader Interiors
Posted Wed Nov 14, 2007, 2:43 AM ET — By Joe Klusnick
For my first true home theater, I didn't mess around. The first two homes my family and I lived in suffered from the shortcoming of not having a dedicated space for our home theater, so the TV-based systems with huge tower speakers dominated the family rooms. When it came time to search for our third home, my wife and I made sure to find one with a space for me to practice my hobby. Filed Under: Casual $$ Reader Interiors
Posted Sun Sep 23, 2007, 3:19 PM ET — By Brad Wescott
Her style, his performance—in a room they can both enjoy. Welcome to the ultimate his-and-her home theater. This home theater and family room was a labor of love that my wife and I designed and constructed. We did all the wiring, electrical setup, lighting, texturing, drywalling, painting, and flooring. The room measures 16 by 23 by 18 feet and is painted a flat latex chamois. The rear of the room opens to the kitchen where my wife can cook, entertain, and watch a movie all at the same time. Filed Under: $$$ Casual Pro Interiors
Posted Tue Sep 11, 2007, 10:20 AM ET — By Gary and Kim Sekulow
This major re-do of a theater features actual props from the Star Trek Series and Movies. Recently featured on VH-1 The Fabulous Life, this home theater is out of this world. We acquired many of the authentic props from the Christie's Star Trek Auction held in New York in October of 2006. My wife and I were two of about 300 who attended this historical auction in person. Our winnings included a coveted Captain Chair, as well as two command consoles, a three-computer panel display and even the walls of the famed Starship USS Enterprise. Filed Under: Reader Interiors $$ Casual
Posted Mon Sep 3, 2007, 8:04 PM ET — By Doug Christianson
An electrical background and a passion for gear garnered this reader a great DIY theater. The process of building the DJ Theater began in 1995, the year when Dolby Digital was made available to the public in various receivers. Prior to this time, hobbyists like me had no need for a dedicated theater room due to the simple system requirements of Dolby Pro Logic. With the emergence of Dolby Digital, a dedicated room seemed appropriate. The only question that now remained was: How does a person build a theater room to accommodate unknown future needs at a reasonable cost? Filed Under: Reader Interiors $ Casual
Posted Wed Aug 29, 2007, 2:08 AM ET — By Steve Barnard
How I did my homework and saved. When we moved into our first home a few years ago, I couldn't wait to get started finishing the basement. I told my wife I would wait a while before starting, but I was so excited that I could only hold out for a few weeks. The space is approximately 1,800 square feet, so I had plenty of room to let my imagination run. There were several things we wanted to put down there, like a workout room and a billiard room, but the one thing that really excited me was a dedicated home theater. I have been an avid reader of Audio Video Interiors for the past several years, so I had plenty of ideas about the experience I wanted to create. Filed Under: Reader Interiors $$ Casual
Posted Wed Aug 29, 2007, 1:37 AM ET — By James Robinson
From 30,000 feet to reality. So, when was the first time you heard the term home theater? For me, it was at about 30,000 feet. I was on my way back home from another business trip when I noticed a magazine left in the seat pocket in front of me. Curiosity got the best of me, and, before I knew it, I was flipping through page after page and getting more and more immersed in this amazing new world. Then there was that one thing that changed everything—I was reading an article, and there it was—the exact LCD projector I had been carrying with me all those months for boring business presentations (the NEC LT155). Someone was using it in a home theater installation. Could it be? I anxiously drove home and plugged my projector into my living-room DVD player, and voila! There it was, a glorious projected image on my living-room wall that was bigger than any TV I had ever seen or imagined. The DVD I was playing was so clear, and the image was bright and beautiful. Filed Under: Reader Interiors Casual $$ Staff Picks
Posted Tue Aug 28, 2007, 5:22 PM ET — By Tony Reimer
Although it took a total of two years and six months of hard work, an equity line is what really helped me finish my theater. Home Theater magazine, Audio Video Interiors, and the Internet were my main sources of information. The room's dimensions are 13.5 by 19 by 8.33 feet, with a closet in the rear that houses the component rack. I gutted the room to the studs, even the ceiling, and installed a dedicated power circuit for audio, video, and lighting. I ran all the wiring for low voltage in the crawl space and for high voltage in the attic. Some crossing was unavoidable, but, at 90-degree angles, I've had no problems. To begin color selection, I started with the ceiling. I simulated the night sky with Ralph Lauren flat paint in magistrate black. I took a paint chip with me to the garment district in L.A. and found curtain fabric. With those colors to work with, I picked out the wall and trim paint and the carpet to match. I already had the black leather furniture. Filed Under: Reader Interiors Casual $$
Posted Tue Aug 28, 2007, 4:58 PM ET — By Glenn Mosby
Having lived in our home since 1979, we are the third owners of this tiny 750-square-foot, 1.5 story, 1943 frame bungalow. In 1998 we decided on some major interior and exterior modifications, which I designed and we had done. The exterior changes gave the house a fresh, neomodern look without spoiling the home's original character lines, allowing it to still fit in with our neighborhood. The interior changes opened up our main floor plan. I have since caught the carpentry bug and now design and do my own work. 1 2 Older Posts >
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