Awesome DIY Basement Home Theater for Around $1000

come on in and let me show you my home

theater that i built for just around a

thousand dollars

maybe some ideas that you can take if

you're looking at building your own

so first let's just take a quick look

around

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to be honest it was the

looking at facebook marketplace and

seeing some

original theater movie seats

online that really got me going and said

hey this may be doable i could buy some

inexpensive theater seating utilize some

space in the basement and create an

actual theater experience

so on facebook marketplace i found a set

of theater seats where they had taken

out the theater seats and had them

stored in a building i went and met the

person looked them over they looked like

they were in good condition but they had

been stored in an area didn't smell that

good so i was able to get them at a

really cheap price i think all in all

pay just around 300

for about 15 theater seats

after i got them home i just laid all

the seats out while the sun was shining

i washed and scrubbed them all by hand

and used an oxiclean detergent and just

made sure everything was clean all

around

there's something that's different about

these theater seats than other furniture

you might buy they're designed to last

because the actual foam inside has a

really thick skin on the inside so that

things don't penetrate past the fabric

and the fabric is really good upholstery

fabric so they'll hold up for a long

time with a lot of wear which is really

a great thing

something specific about theater seats

is that they have brackets that are

screwed into the floor so you just can't

stand up a chair and sit in it it has to

be attached to the floor or something

else to stand up freely

so i want to be upfront about there's

expenses that i didn't have to take so

my thousand dollars that i spent

you know already had some things in

place so i didn't have to go and buy

them such as my room was already framed

out with 2x4 so all i had to do was

purchase sheetrock and install that so

that could be an extra expense for you

so let me talk for just a minute about

setting up the actual chairs

i had 15 as i said but for the room

the four by you know three rows of four

worked out much better so i

you know that's how it wound up

working out but i just connected the

chairs together and first you know

practiced by just screwing the

chairs into some two by sixes laying

flat on the ground and that made them

sturdy and so then i basically just

stacked

two by sixes behind it and then made

another level and put the chair behind

it and had someone sit in front and

someone sit behind and you could look

over their head and make sure that with

the view of the screen and all that like

a theater you're not looking at the back

of someone's head that you're actually

seeing the screen very well so that that

was an important part of it as i kind of

built the layers to create the you know

the stadium effect for all the seating

so i can't over

emphasize the importance of using black

paint to do the walls

as you can see here the room just

changes once the sheetrock is up and

then it is just you know painted black

with some just flat black paint from

walmart

it completely changes the look of the

room

i i call this that disney effect where

it's the dark ride there can be all

kinds of flaws and things but if your

walls are black and the lights are down

really low you won't notice it you can't

see it so there's no reason to you know

work on little details and try to fix

everything perfect when you can just

it'll all kind of just disappear when

the lights go down

so let me go around the room and kind of

point out some of the things that you

wouldn't maybe notice without me

pointing them out

first if you look right now it's just a

cement floor

we're going to put carpet on that the

carpet squares

the walls are black and the seams i

didn't change you know didn't finish the

seams left them just had them put

together if there was any gaps you could

place a masking tape over it so that

when you paint it it kind of just

disappears like i said that disney

effect then second the lighting was

really important to me so i went ahead

and i ran an actual connection you know

this may be something if you can't do

electrical might be more of an expense

for you but the lighting is key so with

a dimmer switch i added these lights

that went all the way around that are

recessed and flat the led panels so that

i could you know dim the lights and

you'll you'll notice in some of the

pictures how different that effect looks

then

my ceiling and walls were already bumped

out like this so i just used that went

around it and made sure the ceiling was

high enough so that it all worked out

i also got the tiles for the ceiling

from another project someone was doing

is changing out the tiles in a church so

i took those tiles and i actually

painted them all black so that they have

an acoustic value that kind of makes

sure that the sound is kept down even

though it's pretty loud whenever you're

playing a really good sound system

at the time i took this picture i only

had the one projector

and this was actually the first one i

had that i used upstairs and it was

maybe 720 wasn't very good

but i started out with that and then i

started looking for other projectors to

improve the quality so the first one

that i came across i actually purchased

on shop goodwill

that's the goodwills online auction site

i bought a

true 1080 commercial panasonic

projector it's like a 2k projector and

in my opinion

it's as good as you need i mean everyone

some people like to go

ridiculously for extremely

outrageous picture

but at 1080 a lot of times your eye

can't even tell the difference between

1080 and 4k you know it's a 2k versus 4k

so if you're you know just one of those

people that has got to have the latest

and greatest and the newest and the best

it's going to cost you a fortune

i literally could build the entire

theater

for about the fourth of the price of one

of the 4k projectors

so just as a price comparison

i paid about 69

including shipping for my 2k projector

on shop goodwill and the picture quality

is just great

so just to talk a little bit more about

the riser this is two by sixes

they just were put flat on the floor

straight back and then i stack them

across

about eight feet

across maybe a little shorter once you

cut them off then when i was done i

placed a

piece of

plywood down in front of it a four foot

strip that i could then put a carpet

runner on a dark blue carpet runner so

that it covered it it was all carpeted

that also helps absorb sound the seats

and the carpet and all these other

things help to absorb sound which makes

it sound really great

now one of the other things that's very

important is that i had closets along

one wall and had other door openings on

other wall all different spots in the

room so to be able to reduce sound to

block out light and to be able to close

those areas off and make them look well

i went ahead and i covered those with

fabric i got just a big roll of black

fabric and basically just took a board

at the top and folded it and stapled it

along the top to give it kind of the

curtain look and that way they can be

parted and you can still get into those

parts of the room or to those closets

but still be able to close them have the

room look nice that's a very theater

thing to do as well as it helps to

absorb sound once again always important

to be able to absorb that sound and not

have it bouncing off the walls

especially with a loud or good audio

system

and while we're looking at this picture

you'll notice also that i put a second

projector they're so inexpensive

especially if you're just about 1080p to

get another good projector and have it

mounted right below that's a 3d

projector so you can do the 3d stuff but

for me it was important that if i was

watching a movie and something happened

with a projector i can just hit a button

and switch over to the other projector

and make sure that we get to finish the

movie especially if somebody's visiting

or something like that

so here you'll notice that i have a sony

7.2 surround sound system if you're

getting a surround sound wrist you know

audio amplifier you don't get the same

kind of experience having like a sound

bar and it's like a 2.1 or something

like that but having seven speakers

six plus a center channel plus your subs

and it can be very inexpensive i paid

twenty five dollars for this at a pawn

shop also the speakers i got on goodwill

i paid somewhere between you know ten

dollars to 40 dollars for these speakers

to get a really good surround sound

experience different speakers yamaha and

um

yonkyo and i have two subwoofers in the

front that are

yamaha

and then i have one large 200 watt

subwoofer in the back

when you put on all those subs in the

right combination you can really have

some great movie theater experiences

here are a few other things just as a

side note one is is that when the screen

is pulled up i like having something on

the wall so i have this little montage

to the mandalorian and that was just

some pieces that came from hobby lobby

also on the side these large framed

pictures are ones that i took at walt

disney world in orlando florida and just

had them framed and i had these before i

made the theater they just seemed to fit

so well with the black frames i also

like these fake candles that look like

real candles once again something i've

noticed at disney

also as a side note i'm very tech savvy

so some of these things may be more

challenging for some of you but

i also have as you can see here an ipad

on the wall it allows me to play any

music and things without having to have

anything else on but the audio receiver

and the ipad

most of the lights and the

lighting especially is controlled by the

google home setup i have all of the

canned lights as well as the led light

strips that go around so that i can just

say a command and the lights will

automatically lower and reset and turn

on the subwoofers something that's just

neat and not very expensive when you use

it with the home automation with the

google

for my home audio and video system

i use plex to be able to store all of my

dvds and movies i have about 2 000

titles that i have copied and in plex

that i can use to watch at any time

streaming them through the apple tv

so this is a great way to get all of

your movies consolidated and ready for

your theater

now it's understandable that

construction costs and materials are

really high right now when i'm recording

this when i did this the costs were much

lower but it still applies that whatever

it would normally cost it's

significantly less when you do things

yourself and you maybe get things from

different sources than you would

normally get them if you like this video

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content and keeps us growing hey i'm joe

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