This week, we are kicking off our basement media room project! This first post will introduce the scope of the project, and next week, we will update you on the framing, drywall, and progress on the built-in wall unit (sample below!) So much to share!
One of the most exciting/usable/fun spaces in the finished basement will be the new media room. We’ve never had a space dedicated to entertaining before, so this is a whole new ball game y’all. Call it a home theater, a man cave, or a family entertainment space — either way, we hope this new basement media room will be amazing!
Okay…so, maybe it doesn’t look like much…yet – but soon! Can you envision the finished space? No? Yeh, it’s difficult for us too!
In the meantime, let’s get you oriented to where we are in the basement.
Surprise Square Footage in the Basement
When our Realtor suggested I tour the Forest House during my whirlwind house hunting trip, we were reluctant. At 1,600 sq. ft., Chris and I were concerned about having enough space for all the things we lug from house to house. But when the Realtor walked me downstairs to see the huge, unfinished basement, I immediately video called Chris on my phone to show him. What he saw, in the grainy, dimly lit screen, was POTENTIAL! With the 1,600 sq. ft. in the basement, and another 400 sq. ft. unfinished space over the garage we would learn about later, this house definitely had room to expand – from 1600 to over 3800 sq. ft., to be exact.
Essential Media Room Qualities
As part of the planning process, Chris and I came up with some essential qualities (aka really important things) we wanted for the basement media room. These qualities are influencing our overall design, material choices, electronics, and construction.
- Great audio/visual quality (good speakers, nice television, and solid receiver)
- Sound isolation (insulation in walls and ceiling)
- Comfort and usability (insulation, carpeting, furniture)
- Hidden or seamless components (recessed lights, covered speakers, recessed tv)
- Ambiance (dimmable lights and fireplace)
Drawing up the Plans
I typically start with a rough sketch of my design idea. Sometimes, that’s enough to just hand over to Chris to make it a reality. Other times, we’ll work through the kinks and space limitations to maximize the final product. This was one of those times. We needed to play around, take some additional measurements, and put some tape on the walls to see how levels and layers would come together.
So, I started with this rough…rough…sketch. Can you even tell what it is at this point? Note to self: work on chicken scratch handwriting.
After some refinement (and Chris and I trying to figure out just how large a television we could fit on the wall that wouldn’t take up the entire wall), I created another, more polished version of the media room main wall to guide our build.
Media Room Space Utilization
The longest wall will have a built-in custom unit to hold the television, audio/ visual/media components, and fireplace.
From a different perspective, here is the unfinished Media Room looking in from the basement office. This view shows the studs we already roughed in, set at 24″ on center. The studs are built in front of the green rigid foam board insulation, which we installed over all of the basement poured concrete walls.
It also shows the framing for the coffered ceiling!
We want the media room to be sound insulative, but we do not want it to be totally closed off from the rest of the basement spaces. It’s worth noting, that the back and forth about how big/wide/open/closed this wall would be took us like a week to decide. Ultimately, we compromised with a pass-through wall (how 1980 chic!).
Once we figured out the passthrough size, we framed it out, using what used to be the large doorway opening.
Check out the media room update where we share the custom TV wall unit, our research on the AV components (tv, speakers, receiver), and a sneak peek at a room that’s all drywalled and ready to finish!
ALSO: Learn more about our Forest House and all our DIY projects here.
[…] week we kicked off our basement media room project. This week’s post is all about research. Not the stuffy, academic kind or the messy, […]