Before I started my basement finish project ten years ago I coated all the poured foundation walls and floor with two coats of UGL Drylok. I have never had a problem with moisture and we have 9' foot ceilings and a high water table. I agree with your father. I plan on addding carpet/ pad directly over floor with some slate tile and engineered hardwood flooring glued directly to the floor. The whole idea is to create the largest space possible. Walls, dropped ceilings, sub-floors, etc. are just subtracting from that concept.

I am very opinionated when it comes to paint. Most professionals insist that paint from the big box stores is inferior. How many paint contractor trucks do you see in the lot of your local Walmart store? I used/am using a premium paint from a company here in Ohio called "Porter Paints". They were recently bought out by PPG. Top coat goes for $65 a gallon. I used one coat of primer and two topcoats. I don't buy that gimmick about one coat will hide everything. I used some semi-gloss for baseboard moulding with a Purdy super-soft trim brush. There wasn't a single brush stroke mark to be had. I applaud your use of Sherwin Williams just like I would Pratt and Lambert. Clearly a case of "you get what you pay for."

I^^^^^^^^^ I hear ya, brother. I have approx. 1800 ft square basement. I have about 28 gallons of premium paint. One primer coat and two top coats. It's all being done by hand with your basic Purdy roller on the end of my push broom handle. With Porter Paints you don't have to worry about roller marks.

Don't feel bad about the color variations on your wood products (other than being disappointed). I wanted to recreate an antique brick wall. I choose the model from the color swatches on Lowe's website. The bricks I received weren't even close. I wasn't going to return them; just had to do a different style of wall with different grout.

PS - I would not cut the stand pipe until the floor is finished (painted, tiled or whatever).

All of the home improvement stores will have the toilet flange and wax ring. Many different styles and materials to choose from.

In my basement project so far I have been disappointed twice in color samples and actual material received. I wanted to do an antique looking brick wall and picked appropriate colors from the on-line samples. What I received (boxes marked correctly) didn't look anything like the sample swatch. Same thing for the stone wall. Point being that it doesn't matter what color - gray, brown, etc. - that you select, the reclaimed lumber you receive won't like anything like the samples. Pessimist or realist? That's why they have those little fine print disclaimers. Wait until you get the material then react to the next color selection for carpet, etc.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around this sub-flooring. People kill to increase the height of the ceiling and you needlessly made it smaller. Especially when you turn around and put in a riser. You could have taken that money and bought some nice bass traps.

But I would think that carpet plus foam padding would negate most of that. Your biggest problem with reflecting sound is going to be drywalled ceiling and walls. All the home theaters I have looked at have bass traps on the walls and ceiling with emphasis at internal corners. Never seen any treatment of floors other than spikes on the speakers.

Turbo,

Two observations on your tile job that you may want to consider: 1) Since your bathroom is considered a secondary room to your main room (where the concrete is) the tile should not "protrude" into the main room. Once you have the door installed and it is closed, the tile would be showing at the bottom when viewed from the main room. Not the norm. I would cut it back to just beyond the door stop trim. 2) I do not see the aluminum edge trim in the threshold to protect the edge of the tiles. It is recommended if you are going to put down carpet. Hardwood flooring or other tile you probably wouldn't have to do it. Just my thoughts.

My bad. My eyesight is failing me in my old age. At first blush it looked like the tile was flush to the door jamb. "Upon further review" I can see a slight offset. Remember...if you do go with a tile edge trim that you will have the thickness of the extrusion plus a grout line that you would add to the leading edge of the tile run. Then you start getting closer to the edge of the door instead of a generous recess. Just a thought.

^^^^^Your body may but your ears won't.

Thanks for posting the information regarding your riser. It provided confirmation. I am installing a 12" riser including two (2) layers of 3/4" strand board. I want the "floor" to be rock solid since all seats will have Buttkicker's.

Looks like we are taking similar approaches in some areas. I haven't installed the lighting yet but here is my selection for riser steps. I hope to sneak a line voltage low-watt night light in a deep wall handy box. Can't tell from pictures but what is the width and depth of your room?

louver (resized).JPG

Thanks for the link. A nightlight is 7-watt so they are probably using the same thing I'm thinking of. I decided to go back to the beginning of your forum to look for answers. I notice your drawing said the depth of your theater is 14'. Was this a typo or did you steal some space from the gaming area? You list the width as 11' 4". A 3-seat straight unit is approaching ten feet. With the generous aisle for egress do you have enough room for the desired seating?

Any high quality (notice I didn't say expensive) surround sound processor will have a pink noise generator built in the unit. Any processor that has software for room EQ will have it. Even my cheap Pioneer VSX524 ($150) that I use for a 5.1 system in the lounge area has built-in room correction software and a microphone for setting up the speakers. That uses pink noise for each channel.

I don't believe in kicking a man when he is down so I thought I would wait until your toe was sufficiently healed before I questioned some of your motives. You spent untold thousands of dollars on acoustical treatment and then you choose in-wall speakers to put in some clunky 11" wide columns? Speaker manus. spend millions of dollars in R&D to perfect speaker enclosures and you build columns? Then you say you have 5" of clearance on the side of the screen. I guess you don't have any room to put speakers up front. Ideally the tweeter should be the same height as your ear. Don't see how that is going to happen. In retrospect I think the anamorphic screen is too large for the room.

You couldn't build those? Hell that's half the fun plus you save lots of dinero. Savings could be reinvested in better equipment.

Turbo, With a concrete floor as your substrate, how do you plan to affix the wood flooring?