My Home Theater Building Tips

I just love redesigning a room for home theaters!

I have built three home theaters over the years in three different homes and so here are some tips

Design and panels

• Draw out your design, even if not to scale.  Measure, write down your measurements on your drawings.  Where do you want the screen?  How big is the screen you want?  Draw out where you want panels to cover up things or curtains to hide or conceal or just for looks
• When buying material for panels make sure it's not a type that will shred easily.  Play with the edges and make sure that it doesn't just fall apart.  Also, do you have pets?  If you have pets, keep in mind that you should buy material that will not attract pet hair or you will have a constant mess to clean up when your pets rub up against panels
• It's okay to use a couple of different materials. I used two different types for my panels, one for the top and bottom and another for the two side panels.  They were both black but the contrast and change of the material looked nice.  Look for clearance materials at Joann's Fabrics, Beverly's Crafts, Walmart, etc.  My first home theater was on a serious budget and I bought some really thick, awesome material for the panels from Walmart, and that material is no better than what I paid full price for at Joann's.  If you've got the time to wait and look (and the patience) you can find great deals.
• The Home Depot aisle that contains all the brackets and deck parts is your friend!  I have used hardware such as bed side rail hardware, corner hardware for decks, etc to build my home theater panels and attach them to the walls and ceilings
• You can build panels for sound and looks or just for looks.  My rooms have always had nice padded carpeting or plush rugs so I've never felt I needed sound panels.  I build my panels for theaters to make the entire front of my theater look black and theater-like.  It's a better viewing experience and it looks really nice for little money.
• Build panels with the light bundles of 1"x1/2" wood sold at Home Depot.  It's cheap and light but strong enough to support having material stapled and pleated around it.

Screens

• Buy your screen online, ebay is an excellent source.  Read reviews for the seller.  Get a premium frame where the frame is covered in velvet or material to keep it from reflecting.
• Slightly grey or silver screens seem to give the best pictures (IMO)
• Electric screens are cool but keep in mind they can fail and you could end up with a broken screen that is stuck up or down, it's all personal preference though.  Fixed screens have no parts to fail and are perfectly flat.  Also, the less expensive electric screens are slow to lower and raise but they do work!  If you really want electric, go electric, I'm considering a future upgrade and redesign of this room to include an electric panel so we can use the fireplace but I really prefer the look of the fixed frame screens.
• Hang the screen first, it's easier to measure out the panel sizes once the screen is in it's place

Curtains

• I made my first curtains in my first home theater.  They weren't as nice as what I have and I spent almost $400 on material that wasn't really reusable given the way I designed it.  You can make your own or buy.  After experiencing both I recommend buying.
• Look on eBay   I still spent about $1000 on my theater curtains during my last project but I bought them at Linens and Things for about 1/3 of the cost during their clearance sales.  Luckily I bought a ton of curtains so I had them for my new project.  You can get a very similar style on ebay now at $22 per panel in black with a second layer of fabric for blacking out light built into the curtain.  They look nice and you just can't buy nice fabric for that low of a price.
• I've mounted curtains behind panels (valance) and where they show and they both look great.  Do what looks good to you, look at other people's photos of their theaters.

Mounts

• When buying a mount consider if you want your projector flush with the ceiling (or close) or if you need it to drop down a bit.  If your ceiling is high and you don't drop it down you could get the keystone effect.  I find even projectors that adjust for this still don't look as good as they do if you just buy the right mount and mount it properly.  My first two theaters required a drop down mount and my current one called for a flush mount.  
• Plug the projector in and hold it and get it on the wall displaying the approximate size you want it to display to get an idea of where to mount it.  Stand on a ladder with it while it's on and see if you have any keystone issues (this is where the picture is smaller at the bottom than at the top and so there is a distortion, it's not rectangle).  If there is then you will likely need to get a projector with a little drop from the ceiling.
• Ebay is a great place to shop for mounts but I would stay away from the homemade stuff people sell, stick to things that look manufactured professionally.  The lower the cost the cheaper it's made.  Don't cheap out on your mount or you will be futzing with it till the end of days.  Vibrations from people just walking upstairs gradually will move the projector if you have a cheap mount.  Keep in mind to replace the lamps you need to remove the projector and if your mount is badly designed this could be a frustrating experience.

Cabling

• Whenever possible run your cables through the walls and ceiling.  If you run cables from your entertainment console area and the projector I suggest running a couple extra pull strings through with the bunch of cables so that if you ever need to pull a new cable type (such as HDMI the supports 3D) then you have a string in there to pull through another wire.  
• If you can't hide them in the walls then hide cables under carpet, rugs, furniture, etc.  I really like the cable track you can buy at home depot as it blends into white trim, etc.  I used this a lot while in an apartment.  A really big area rug for a home theater warms it up and can easily be used to hide speaker wires, etc.  
• Look on eBay for good deals on cables but don't buy the cheapest thing you can find.  Buy shielded cables when possible and it's good to look for cables with quality connectors.  HDMI and other expensive cables can be purchased for a fraction of the cost on eBay.  They sometimes ship these direct from China so they can take a couple of weeks to get them but in my experience it's worth the savings if you've got the time.  The really long cables are much, much cheaper here than you will find in any store, just don't go with the absolute cheapest and read those seller reviews!

Walls, Paint, Carpet, etc

• Use black and matte black around the screen as much as possible.  Lighter colors reflect the light from the screen and light up the room which makes for a less enjoyable viewing experience.  Some people have even painted the ceiling or mounted a black panel on the ceiling to reduce the light. 
• Medium to dark colored paints on the walls and floors works best.  
• If you can't or don't want to paint your room in a darker color just try to black out the wall around it with black panels

Well that's it for now.  I will post more on the theater project as it changes and develops.  I hope to take some detailed photos soon...  stay tuned.

Brueggers Bagels copycat sun dried tomato spread recipe

I am from Michigan and we have a chain called Bruegger's Bagels that I just loved when I lived there.   There was one sandwich inparticular that I loved, the Herby Turkey bagel sandwich made with an everything bagel.  The sandwich comes with light herb garlic cream cheese, turkey, red onions and most importantly sun dried tomato spread.

While I can no longer stomach raw onions (I'm not happy about it either) the sun dried tomato spread is the king of this sandwich.

There is a really great bagel place nearby called Sonoma Valley Bagel Company that makes a most excellent everything bagel with garlic and herb cream cheese (though it's not light unfortunatley).

It's just missing that sun dried tomato spread!

Well, since becoming sensitive to several common food additives/preservatives I've become more adept at making things that remind me of foods I can't eat anymore.

I happen to know that Bruegger's actually buys this in bulk from a manufactuer in on the east coast.  They only sell in bulk though so unless you want to buy a case of the stuff they won't sell it.  Seems like they would package and sell it in the stores or something but they don't.  It also contains some chemicals I can't eat such as citric acid and so I am happier to make an organic version sans chemicals.

UPDATE:  christofoods.com is the name of the manufacturer.  The site doesn't seem to have a store.

I used all jarred spices as the original uses dried spices and I thought I might get a closer flavor this way.  I looked up the general ingredients of what Bruegger's lists as the ingredients and went from there and I have to say I was pretty happy with my results.

Ingredients

3 oz tomato paste
4.5 oz sun dried tomatoes in oil (drained and patted dry)
2 tbsp raspberry preserves (to taste)
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp basil
1/4 tsp dried chives
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/4 tsp sage

Simply dice up the sun dried tomatoes in to small 1/4" pieces and mix together all ingredients.  I recommend mixing in the preserves last and doing it to taste.  The original is quite sweet (at least to me).  Let this sit for a few hours in the refriderator as it takes a while for the full flavor to set in.

While I wouldn't make this on a regular basis because it's not great for you with the sun dried tomatoes in oil thing but it's a great occasional treat.

My Italian snack box

I'm not sure what it is about snack box lunches but I just love them.  Maybe it's the variety of fresh but simple flavors and ingredients but I also think it's that I love having so many choices of what to snack on throughout the work day.

We went to Whole Foods this weekend and I stocked up on snack box type foods.  I really like taking these to work with me so I snack on healthy foods all day long.  We have a huge 7/11 looking store setup in our break room with all sorts of processed foods; this is much better for me and it tastes a heck of a lot better.

Trader Joes aged white cheddar
Whole Foods Dry Salami
Trader Joes Red Pepper spread/dip
Whole Foods garlic olives from the olive bar
Whole Foods red table grapes
Wheat crackers

Award Winning Lemon Crinkle Cookies

I just love fresh lemon baked goods so when I came across this award-winning recipe for Lemon Crinkle Cookies on Pinterest I wanted to try it out.  The recipe comes from the cook book of Lauren Brennan from Hood River, Oregon. They were easy to make and they turned out delicious.  Jodi (my wife) loved them and I took them to work and they were a huge hit.  I'd have to say that this is probably my favorite lemon cookie I've ever had.

The cookie has a strong lemon flavor that will please any lemon lover.  If you follow the directions you will end up with a soft, chewy cookie bursting with fresh, sweet flavor.  I highly recommend using fresh lemons; I just don't think you get the same great taste from juice out of a squeeze bottle.

Lemon Crinkle CookiesMakes 2-3 dozen cookies

Ingredients:½ cups butter, softened1 cup granulated sugar½ teaspoons vanilla extract1 whole egg1 teaspoon lemon zest1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice¼ teaspoons salt¼ teaspoons baking powder⅛ teaspoons baking soda1-½ cup all-purpose flour½ cups powdered sugar - used to roll the cookies in

Directions:Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease baking sheets with non-stick cooking spray.  If you're using a darker pan you may need to reduce cooking time.

In a large bowl, cream room temperature butter and sugar together.  Beat in vanilla, egg, lemon zest and lemon juice.  Fold in salt, baking powder, baking soda and flour until mixed.  Pour powdered sugar on a plate so that you may roll the dough in it.  Roll up a ball of dough and roll it in the powdered sugar and place it on the tray.  You can make small cookies with a teaspoon size as the original recipe calls for but I preferred to make them tablespoon size.  

Bake them for 9-11 minutes or until the bottom is just barely brown.  Once the top has a matte color they are done.  The cookie will looked puffy and maybe just a bit under-cooked but they are not.   The original recipe calls to leave them on the pan for another 3 minutes while cooling which will cook them a bit further.  We experimented and decided we liked ours slightly under-cooked and so removing them from the pan and putting them on the cooling sheet right away gave us the texture we liked.  If you don't like under-cooked cookies then leave them on the pan for the 3 minute period and they will still be soft and chewy.

My New Home Theater

Lots of pictures below! 

I've built several home theaters at this point.  Each time I learn something new, I tweak the design a bit, I make it better.  My first "home theater" I put together in 2000 was just a projector on a shelf and it was on the white painted wall.  Then I built what I consider my first nice home theater in my home in Brighton, Michigan in a finished basement.  I built another in my two car garage in a home here in California.  This is my third and the fastest and I think, the nicest I have built.

I love having a home theater so much that every home I have ever lived in had to have a proper room that would work well for a home theater or I just wouldn't consider it.  I generally do all the work and design myself; though I have had help with electrical and flooring and Jodi helps with some of the design.  This home has a very large lower room with french doors leading to the deck and pool area in the back yard.  It has a nice pass through from the kitchen, allowing viewing of the theater from the kitchen.  It also came with a wet bar already built inside what would become the theater room.  

This view looking into the front living room and the kitchen/small dining room.

I first thought about putting the screen on the wall opposite the door.  This would allow me to leave the wood fireplace usable and available.  The problem was that it fails to take advantage of the awesome passthrough.  I loved the idea of being able to view the theater screen from our kitchen, this means covering the fireplace.  Also, the room is so long that putting it over the fireplace would mean we would have plenty of room for a craft/play area behind the theater couch.

I had about two weeks to build the theater in time for our move in date.  I decided I would cover up the fireplace because we have a firepit in the backyard and weren't likely to use the fireplace anyway.  I was also not particularly fond of the fireplace styling.  I took advantage of this in that I mounted the screen from the ceiling in front of the fireplace and left space behind the curtains for shelving and storage.  

I was able to reuse a couple of the black valances I made for my last theater.  I bought new hdmi cables to convert to the higher speed cables and prepare for a future 3D projector.  I used the same 120" fixed cinema grey screen, black out theater curtains, audio equipment, etc. from my last theater.  I purchased a thicker curtain rod with a modern look that curves to the wall so that the curtains would hug the wall and keep out the light.  Jodi added storage around the theater couch for art supplies and Ryan's toys.  

Jodi chose the colors of the walls in the theater.  The walls went from peach to a medium brown with a darker brown accent wall.  The wet bar received a face lift with an addition of a back shelf, black can light bevel, black faucet handles and light switch cover.  Thanks to my brother-in-law, contractor, Tim Hronis who really has an eye for colors.  Jodi and I added some color with green pillows and planters to wrap in the color of the wet bar.

The low sitting front entertainment center and Klipsch speakers blend into the curtains which gives the room a much cleaner feel.

I think the only thing I plan to do still is add a large 16 x 12 dark brown wool rug under the theater couch to give the room a more cozy, warm feel.

I'm really happy about how it turned out.  The final pictures.

The view below is from the small dining room table area.

Craft Area, looking into kitchen/dining area

Healthy box lunches

I've recently really gotten into making healthy snacking type lunch boxes for work rather than one single filling meal. I find that I feel better and never get hungry when I just snack.

Today's lunch box:

Best Crock Pot Beef Lasagna

 

I have been wanting to get into trying out crock pot recipes since they are generally easy on the prep and you can just leave them and dinner is ready at the end of the day.  Perfect for our family.

I'm not sure I've ever made lasagna before and Jodi hasn't either.  

For me, all citric acid free tomato sauces and ingredients.  I recommend using regular lasagna noodles rather than the no-cook noodles.

I found this on food.com and slightly modified it based on the comments.

We let ours cook for about 5 hours but I think we should have shut it off at 4 so check your noodles at 4 hours.  It was an easy and delicious recipe that we would make again.  It reheats really well.  We found it under-seasoned so I modified the recipe to add more flavor, more garlic, some garlic salt, more oregano.

• 1 lb lean ground beef
• 1 onion , chopped
• 4 garlic cloves , smashed
• 1 (28 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
• ½ cup water
• 1 teaspoons garlic salt
• 1 ½ teaspoon dried oregano
• 12 ounces cottage cheese (we like 2%)
• ½ cup grated parmesan cheese or ½ cup asiago cheese
• 12 ounces lasagna noodles , uncooked
• 16 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions:

1. Brown ground beef, onion and garlic in frypan.
2. Add tomato sauce, tomato paste, garlic salt and oregano.
3. Cook long enough to get it warm.
4. Spoon a layer of meat sauce onto the bottom of the slow cooker.
5. Add a double layer of uncooked lasagna noodles (break to fit) and top with cheeses.
6. Repeat with sauce, noodles and cheeses until all are used up
7. Pour 1/2 cup of water around edge
8. Cover and cook on low for 4 to 5 hours.