How I Spent My Christmas Vacation

Quite a few years back (2007 and 2008), I completed much of the work required to convert an extra bedroom into a mini-home theatre. I say “mini” because the space is a bit constrained and I wasn’t going to knock down walls and install sound-deadening drywall with sophisticated acoustic treatments like contractors do for dedicated “real” home theatres – the whole “build a room inside a room”. 

I ended up installing some recessed lighting cans and dimmers, laid new A/V cabling, painted walls and ceiling, and installed in-wall and in-ceiling speakers, a projector mount, and wall sconces. The bedroom closet was converted into an equipment closet.  About the only thing missing at that time were the essentials – an HD projector,  projector screen,  and some HT recliners. 

Much of that work was done many moons ago. Talk about procrastination. I kept telling myself I would get around to those other high ticket items and eventually complete the space, but six months turned into a year and then a year turned into five.

Truth be told – I am pretty conservative financially and spending all that cabbage for watching Netflix,  MLB-TV, and the occasional Blu-Ray disc on a 96-inch diagonal screen seemed a bit over-extravagant. Cody N™ would be rolling over in his grave at that thought. I was also waffling about whether I would be screwing myself if I ever try to sell the house, reducing the property from four bedrooms to three. So the room was pretty much “all dressed up with no place to go” for the better part of five years or so.

I had a nice long Christmas break last December and decided to finally get off my butt and finish the room. I self-imposed a $3000 budget for the remaining pieces (projector, screen, and recliners), which meant that I would have to make some tradeoffs in terms of features and quality. This is not high-end stuff here – one can spend a whole lot more money than that on these toys.

So far I am really enjoying the room. Future weblog posts will provide some additional details about the room, the equipment, and the process of stitching it  all together (which I thoroughly enjoyed).