Home Theater/Prop Room design advice - help me flesh it out

[Jedifyfe]

I always loved the "eccentric safari hunter library" look. Kinda like the old "Adventurers Club" at Pleasure Island in Orlando:

http://themerica.org/blog/archives/67

Here is a little thing I whipped up:

 

[wackychimp]

Wow! Very cool, thanks!

Maybe a little too much red for me but it looks good. Also that window is getting covered by a projection screen.

Been wondering how it would look with a hardwood floor though. Looks kinda cool!

 

[wackychimp]

Bump for any more ideas...

 

[jasonw2112]

Well there is the several scenes from " Metropolis " that I really love. Rotwangs lab, and the office that over looks the city. It kinda has a mix of art deco, steampunk, meets frankenstein! I'm sure I could post some screen grabs, if it sounds like a direction you would want to check out

 

[Wes R]

The first thing I thought of when i saw it for some reason was "holodeck", i think it's the shape of the room. A retro art deco style thing would work with the angled walls, you could easily use the angles to display smaller items and work them into the overall design of the rest of the room.

 

[Lear60man]

My first thought was the interior of an Eagle transporter ala Space 1999. But I digress.

A few things to think about in these planning stages: Carpet for flooring is good, it helps keep the sound from reflecting. Go as dark as possible on the ceiling and walls. Ralph Lauren makes a good faux leather paint. Avoid eggshell or any other paint that will reflect light. Same goes with movie posters. If you must, get the anti glare coating on the glass.

Dont know what you are going to do about the skylights except watch movies after the sun goes down. Are they skylights or photoshopped?

 

[wackychimp]

Dont know what you are going to do about the skylights except watch movies after the sun goes down. Are they skylights or photoshopped?

The plan for the skylights are that they will be faux skylights. I'll get a mural artist to paint a sky and set up cove lighting... so I"ll be in full control of the light. Yes, that mock-up is photoshopped.

Similar to this:

 

[sgmorton]

So are you looking for a prop room or a theater? I am not sure you can really do both here due to the size.

What does the area leading up to your room look like? Maybe you could do the lobby/prop display area leading to a theater. That is what I did with my set up. (set up display areas for my props in the lobby)

At any rate...

I've always wanted to do my study into something that looked like the Batcave met with the Nebakanezer from the Matrix.

I also had a brief period where I wanted a Alien spaceship hallway to lead up to the theater as well. Thought I'd throw those ideas in with your mix.

 

[Mieal Deneb]

I've always thought something along the lines of a Millennium Falcon interior would make an awesome home theater. We recently moved and the house has a walk-out basement room I'm planning to turn into a movie room. In the meantime we call it the "spare room". Once my Dad said something like "Oh, Spare Oom! Have you been to Narnia yet?" Now I think it'd be fun to do a Narnia theme, have the entrance to the room lined with "fur" coats like it's a wardrobe and then have pine trees and a post lamp in the room with Narnia themed stuff. Of course, I like too many movie and TV genres to pick just one: Star Wars, Star Trek, classic Battlestar Galactica, Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters...

 

[DS Operative]

With all due respect to the guys here who decorate their home theaters with their props, I have to honestly say that I really don't care for those types of theaters. Usually, for one main reason-- they are too busy, too cluttered, too much on display, too distracting. I really do not care for them at all, not even a little. ugh.

Now go ahead and jump all over me-- but I get it! Those guys are very Very proud of their props, and with good reason!! And there usually isn't anywhere else in the house to display them, and I get that too. But maybe they should try putting a few on display and rotating them out. That's my suggestion and I'll stop there for now. I hope you don't follow suit.

When I think of home theater, I picture a theme room. I picture a room where the decor is made to look like a set from a movie, or maybe to emulate a beautiful old art deco movie theater from the 20's or 30's. Below is a link to what I'm trying to describe-- I don't like all of them, but some are very nice! (And notice there's not a lot of crap on the walls! LOL) My intention is not to offend, but offer friendly advice and I hope that it is received that way.

Theme | Home Theater Design

 

[wackychimp]

DS Operative -Thanks!

My take on it is that I want to be surrounded by the "things of the movies" when I'm watching them. I've looked over many many theater designs and I'm not interested in getting "the feel of a theater in my house". I'm not doing theater style seating either - couches / sectionals, no movie-house popcorn popper, etc.

The closest on that page would be Tom Spina's "Man-Cave Horror Theater" - I've kicked some ideas around with Tom (great guy!).

sgmorton - Tom Spina and I talked about the Nebuchadnezzar and the "old spaceship" feel (like this and Milennium Falcon) vs the "new spaceship" feel (ST:TNG, 2001). I'm definitely a more of an "old & dirty" kind of guy.

 

[Amish Trooper]

I'm sorry if I missed it so if you are getting a sky mural painted in the skylights will you be installing small leds in the ceiling to represent stars at night so when the lights are dimmed etc?

 

[sgmorton]

This is where we chronicled our theater build... jump to the end to see the mostly final product.
Our Home Theater - sgmorton's Photos

If you want to see how mine turned out.

 

[nwjedidave]

This is where we chronicled our theater build... jump to the end to see the mostly final product.
Our Home Theater - sgmorton's Photos

If you want to see how mine turned out.

MOST impressive! Thanks for sharing!

 

[wackychimp]

I'm sorry if I missed it so if you are getting a sky mural painted in the skylights will you be installing small leds in the ceiling to represent stars at night so when the lights are dimmed etc?

Yeah, except the stars will be from a fiber optic kit & not LEDs. Hoping for the look of twilight.

sgmorton - looks GREAT! Really nicely done! Did you work from plans from any where or did you just "wing it"?

 

[sgmorton]

Yeah, except the stars will be from a fiber optic kit & not LEDs. Hoping for the look of twilight.

sgmorton - looks GREAT! Really nicely done! Did you work from plans from any where or did you just "wing it"?

I had a basic idea of what I wanted. In the end I paid Dennis Erskine to make the plans for me for the theater portion. This was a great help in getting the acoustics right. I did the lobby/concession stand part on my own. I also did all of the detail work on my own.(colors, sconces, ticket booth, candy counter, fiberoptic stars, neon etc.)

I did a fiberoptic star ceiling and I love mine. I actually mapped a real night sky with correct orientation 1 minute after sundown on the day my sun was born. When you do fiberoptics get a lightsource with a twinkle wheel. In the end I made my own wheel out of card stock to get the twinkle effect I was after.

The item I am currently looking to add to "finish" the ceiling... a pico projector showing a moon in the correct place with a bit of cloud wisp around it, but every 10-15 minutes it will morph into a Deathstar for a few minutes. I have not got it mounted yet and I am just now playing around with the animation so a little ways to go before it's finalized yet. when it's done I can drop the "that's no moon..." line. I will say that at first I thought this was excessive, and a waste of a projector, but the cost of the little picos is way down. In reality each sconce I have in my room was more expensive than little projector so $/wow factor I think I am in good shape. Since I brought up costs, our install including the room build out was done for about the cost of a swimming pool, not really that bad at all. Granted, we did a good portion of the work ourselves.

 

[sakraft1]

You can go on flickr and search The Commons (not to be confused with "Creative Commons") for old images that are out of copyright. Institutions post these images and they are often large enough to print or there are sometimes links to high res versions.

Its been said here but I would definitely take a look at the interior of Disney's Adventurers Club (now closed). Look through this for interior photos:

Flickr: Disney's Adventurers Club

If you happen to play Half Life 2 or any other game with the source engine and/or use Garry's Mod, there is a Garry's Mod map out there of the Adventurers Club made by a fan that is of incredible detail:

gm_adventurers

So have you have any progress so far?

 

[Moviefreak]

With all due respect to the guys here who decorate their home theaters with their props, I have to honestly say that I really don't care for those types of theaters. Usually, for one main reason-- they are too busy, too cluttered, too much on display, too distracting. I really do not care for them at all, not even a little. ugh.

Now go ahead and jump all over me-- but I get it! Those guys are very Very proud of their props, and with good reason!! And there usually isn't anywhere else in the house to display them, and I get that too. But maybe they should try putting a few on display and rotating them out. That's my suggestion and I'll stop there for now. I hope you don't follow suit.

When I think of home theater, I picture a theme room. I picture a room where the decor is made to look like a set from a movie, or maybe to emulate a beautiful old art deco movie theater from the 20's or 30's. Below is a link to what I'm trying to describe-- I don't like all of them, but some are very nice! (And notice there's not a lot of crap on the walls! LOL) My intention is not to offend, but offer friendly advice and I hope that it is received that way.

Theme | Home Theater Design

I can agree to the fact that it feels cluttered and is almost too much for a theater to handle, but.... sometimes you just don't have space to do two seperate rooms. I would love a theater with the classic art deco look and no props, but sadly I don't have an option. It is either pack my props away or display them. Until i have the ability to but a larger house, those are my only two options. And frankly, if I have to pack the stuff away, I might as well sell it off and get out of the hobby.

 

[wackychimp]

So have you have any progress so far?

No. Unfortunately our house needed painting (on the outside) so this has been put on hold until we can get that done. Not a big deal though since I'm still in the planning/layout stages.

Thanks for the links! I'd not seen the Adventurers Club - very cool and pretty close to what I was looking for. Found a video walkthrough of that Half Life map on Youtube. Looks amazing!