July 18, 2008 – 3:56 pm
warning: this has nothing to do with my Windows Home Server
When we originally moved home we decided to give the lounge a lick of paint. It was a little “tatty” and the plaster work was not brilliant, but it was perfectly acceptable. As we were planning on living here for quite some time we decided to do a proper job and get the walls re-skimmed before we repainted. This then progressed to having all the existing plaster work removed and basically dry lining, i.e. taking the walls back to the brick and starting from scratch.
We removed the plaster work ourselves which took about 3 days. It was at this point that I started to regret the whole thing. But, there was an upside to all this work. One of the walls in the lounge was a stud wall, and behind that was my computer room, almost the prefect setup for a Home Cinema wall, with all the media boxes being located in the computer room behind. So the planning began…….
As the media boxes were to be hidden away I wanted the speakers to be flush with the wall, after some research and many discussions with my Audiophile friends I opted for a set of Monitor Audio Bronze in-walls.
After the plasterboard had been removed from the wall, and the studs revealed it was time for a little “stud rearranging” (while carefully making sure that the wall integrity was not compromised!).
I made cardboard cutouts of the speakers and the TV so that I could position them on the wall, and check that the heights were comfortable for viewing. After much contemplation I decided on a 40″ LCD, even though the wife suggest we buy a 46″, as the viewing distance would be only 3m I decided that 40″ would be more than enough. This was going to be our main TV, and not a separate TV for movies, so we had to watch Neighbours on this, as well as blockbuster movies! After the studs had been moved to accommodate the speakers and TV stand I then had to cut holes for all the cables.
The plasterboard on the ceiling was left in place, and we opted to “overboard” i.e. place new boards on the existing boards. To do this channels had to be cut in the existing boards so that the cables for the rear speakers and sub would then sit between the two boards. When fixing the new boards we had to take care so as not to screw through the speaker cables.
Once the ceiling had been over-boarded it was then time to cut the holes for the rear speakers. This was done with a JigSaw.
The majority of the work we could do ourselves was then over, and it was now time for the plasterer to start fixing the plasterboards. In order to bring the Home Cinema wall inline with an existing brick wall it had to be brought forward a few inches, this was done by adding 3 layers of plasterboard, this also gave the speakers a more rigid structure to sit in than a single layer plasterboard wall.
Once the plasterer boarded the Home Cinema wall I then had to cut the holes for the front speakers. I’d taken photos and made a lot of measurements of the stud locations in the wall before it was boarded to make sure that the holes I cut were in the correct place.
The plasterer then completed boarding the rest of the room and then skimmed the walls and ceiling (and a top job he did!). After a few days the skim was dry enough to be painted. The speakers have a matt finished and have been designed to be painted, but as the walls were magnolia I opted to leave the speakers in their natural white colour.
After the paint had dried I then fitted the rear speakers. These speakers were 7″ deep, and had obviously been designed to make maximum use of the space provided in the ceiling. They fitted snuggly into the holes and fixed in place easily (the build quality of all the speakers was excellent). I had no idea at this point if the cables which were sandwiched between the two plasterboard layers were still intact.
It was now time to tackle the stud wall. I was a little nervous to say the least, I didn’t want to mess up a newly plastered wall by cutting in the wrong place. Eventually I made the initial cut for the left speaker, and all seemed to go well. I continued to cut the holes for the other speakers.
The one issue I did have was that the wall thickness (3 layers of plasterboard) was too thick for the speaker fixtures, so I had to cut notches out of the 1st layers of boards, not a big problem but it was a little time consuming. Once this had been done it was then time to put the speakers in place. Again they fitted snuggly and the fixings worked well and seemed to hold the speakers firmly in place.
I then had to cut the hole that would eventually take the cables running out the back of the TV. The position of this hole was critical as it coincided with a hole in the slimline TV bracket. Once the hole had been cut I knew it was in the correct position as it revealed 5 pieces of string which I had hung inside the wall, they were to be used if there were issues with feeding cables down through the wall (which there were!). The project then had to be “parked” so that the carpet fitters could come and do their job, this was OK as at this point I still had not bought a TV!
My original choice for a TV was the Samsung M87 40″, but while I was waiting the M87 was replaced by the Series 5. Then I wondered into Currys (just to look, I was obviously never going to buy anything from there), and they had the 40″ series 6 (LE40A656A)with a Samsung BluRay player (the BD-P1500) for £999, which at the time was a very good deal (it has since dropped in price again, as these things do), what was I supposed to do, so I bought it.
After hanging it on the wall I was glad I went for the 40″ rather than the 46″. Maybe if the TV were only a few inches think then a larger set would have been OK, but given the depth, it already dominates the wall. I had to buy 90° degree HDMI connectors so that they did not bash into the wall, and it was a real pain getting the cables through the wall, but hopefully that’s not something I will have to do very often.
I was still missing a sub, as it turned out a mate was selling a REL Quake for a very reasonable price, so I took it off his hands. I must admit that I was quite impressed when I watched my first BluRay, I knew HiDef was a step difference in image quality but I’m still impressed every time I watch it.
After putting up with Sky SD via a Scart for about a week I invested in SkyHD. The only thing I’m now missing is my all-in-one remote control, as the media boxes are out of sight I need something that will do RF to IR. My plan is to go for the Logitech Harmony 895 (890 pro in the US).
I’m quite happy with the result of the work, I hadn’t put in the planning and research that I would normally do as the Home Cinema was just a part of a much bigger project i.e. the Lounge, which included an Oak floor, Granite Hearth etc, but overall I’m very pleased with it. I’ve since signed up with LoveFilm and I’m trying to get through as many BluRay movies as I can while on my 3 month free trial 
. I’ve also pre-ordered The Matrix trilogy and Band-of-Brothers on BuRay.
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