Our First Ever Contest - over $3,000 Worth of Prizes

Today we announced the winner of our first ever Home Theater Contest!  The lucky person was Philip Holubar and his wife Jamie who won a row of three Octane Bolt XS400 theater seats with power recline and premium in home delivery - a $2,000 value.  Congratulations Philip and Jamie!

Philip Holubar

Philip just bought a new home with an unfinished basement and thought it would be the ideal location for a home theater room.  His exact words were "What could a guy need more than a space of this size (roughly 900 square feet), ready for it to be his canvas for design ideas and make it a space to remember."  We cannot agree more!

Philips Basement

Home theater rooms are there to relax and enjoy with friends and family.  According to Philip, him and Jamie love to entertain, have friends over, throw a party and have fun! This past October they had their first pig roast at their house warming party and would love to have our 2nd with a finished home theater basement! They are both Virginia Tech graduates and couldn't be more proud. While their colors of maroon and orange may be quite much in the area, they would love to use a burnt orange color on the walls for a rustic feel.

Virginia Keg

As you walk down the stairs, you will turn left where the pool table area will be. Along the right side wall will be a 55" TV and a few chairs. If you keep walking, a storage room will be in the attic (have to keep the wife happy!). An immediate left from the stairs you will see a planned out bar area. I want to use the space below the stairs for a cool cove-like wet bar that will have my kegerator.

Behind the back wall of the bar, a bathroom will be placed. There is another smaller cove already in the basement that I would like to place a contemporary fireplace.

Rob Peterson wanted to create a space that is attractive without sacrificing acoustics or functionality, and that is easily up-gradable. Cosmetic elements became functional such as pillars and ceiling beams that serve as cable raceways and conceal immovable obstacles.

Finally - ceiling problem solved.Rob started with a basement that had 9' ceiling, so to create more room, he lowered the floor by breaking the current flooring, digging out space and creating a new foundation with gravel and concrete. The result was a 12' ceiling in front with a 10.5' ceiling in the middle tier.

Now for the fun part - Planning the room.  Due to the odd shape of the area and a few immovable obstacles in awkward places, I spent quite a bit of time playing with Google SketchUp (which I'd highly recommend BTW – it's free and fairly easy to use) before settling on a design I liked. The design is rough, but allowed me to visualize how things would come together.

In Rob's words "my home theater design attempts to create an attractive space without making sacrifices in acoustics or functionality. It was also important to me that the room be readily up-gradable, as it seems the second you buy into a technology, they change it on you. To this end, I put a great deal of thought into making functional use of elements that would otherwise just be cosmetic."

Fast forward to today (skipping several months of framing, soundproofing, dry walling, etc.).  Rob has some moldings installed and am nearing being ready to paint.  I still have crown moldings, baseboards, and additional trim to install on all the arches, but it's getting close.

As can be seen from the pictures, this theater is not quite complete. Rob has done all the design and labor himself, and I'm not fast (and I'm also redoing the rest of my basement at the same time). "I will gladly forward more pictures when the room is done (hopefully soon?!?) if anyone is interested."

Josh Padget is currently building a home theater that utilizes double drywall construction and sound isolation from the ceiling joists and walls to minimize sound from the theater getting into the rest of the house. There will be 96"x 40" acoustic transparent screen that will be mounted onto a false wall to hide the front channel speakers. Surround speakers will be hidden in columns, and electronics will be kept out of the room to keep the heat down.

Right now Josh has the room all painted and ready for the next step which is building the seat riser and build the screen wall. 

He plans to seat 5 in the room. Three seats in the back on the riser, and two seats in the front on the floor. The ceiling will be a tray ceiling with color changing LED lighting to provide a nice ambient light that is controllable with my IR remote. The IR remote will also control the remainder of the lighting in the room as well as the stereo system.

Cemal Sozener is in the process of building a home theater that includes features such as three zones of dimmable lighting, soundproofing and wiring for seven speakers plus a sub-woofer. His goal is create an entertainment space with a 110-inch screen, 7.1 surround speakers, and two rows of power recline seating with a bar top behind the front row.


Cemal has done this whole process himself and claims it is not for the faint-hearted - "Well, this has been a major work in progress.  As I am doing all of the construction myself after hours when I have some free time, it has taken me two years to get to this point.  My wife keeps hoping for a new space to watch college football, and I fell through on my goal to have it ready by last season.  With five months to go before the season starts up, I am motivated to finish my project."

Congratulations to all our winners and we wish them lots of pleasure and enjoyment in the future.