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Small apartment - Big entertainment

S

Sidekicknichola

Senior member
Hoping someone has dealt with a similar situation...

I am going to be moving from a large home in the boonies to a small downtown apartment. Doing this obviously will cut my space for home theater down bigtime.

Current basement setup is:
110" screen + HD20 projector
55" LED next to the screen (yes two displays side by side - blame nfl sunday ticket)
Main sources are - HTPC, PS3, Direct TV box - all have the HDMI signal split - one side going to the LED tv the other going to a receiver....

The receiver feeds the projector and a 5.1 surround setup....

this is all in a 25'x35' basement and works great... hangup is the new apartment is less square feet than my current basement.

Anyone have a clever way to get the TV and Projector utilized in the living space without looking like trash (must pass wifey approval)

New apartment layout :
500
 
* Forgot to mention- current idea*

My current idea is to have a low rising tv stand that the TV would sit on (upper wall of photo above ^).... above the stand (there are 12' ceilings in the apt.) have some ikea "floating" cabinets, then cut a 88" x 3" hole in the bottom of the cabinet then a motorized drop down screen would come out come of cabinet through that hole (would hide the screen and cords from the Mrs.).... and hopefully (haven't measured yet) the screen would stop ~6" above the top of the TV screen.

I would have the projector hidden on top of the cabinets in the kitchen so I could get a full throw needed to fill the screen.
 
My buddy does setups like these in NYC. I don't have any pictures handy, but basically they make a build-out cabinet from the wall (basically a floor-to-ceiling rectangle that sticks out a foot or so) and house the TV in the middle (rectangular cutout) and have an electric screen come down. So during the day, you get TV viewing, and at night, the screen drops in front of the TV and hides the whole thing for big-screen projector watching. It's really an awesome setup and ideal if you can't get light control during the day, plus it looks really classy.

You can get fancy and add can lights in front of the screen, hydraulics for a TV lift, hide all the wiring and electronics in the cabinet, wall-mount the TV to the rear of the cabinet, etc. If you don't want to invest a lot in it, simple MDF works great with either paint or vinyl as a finish. If you want to go faux the easy way, check out Orbi vinyls on eBay - they take awhile to ship from China, but they look really nice and go on with a hair dryer: (I use them for DIY speakers)

http://stores.ebay.com/ORBI-Vinyl-Supplies

So you could make something pretty awesome without a lot of effort. If you're looking for electric screens, here's a link to one of my forum posts:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=33890521&postcount=16

I got that $130 Elite screen a few years ago, works great. Has a remote control.
 
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That depends...

What makes your new bathroom "Sexy"

🙂

In seriousness...

I think I would consider dropping the projection and just go with a standard TV on the top wall.

Why the big lifestyle change?
 
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alkemyst said:
That's cool, but sadly most people just renting a place can't pull it off.
Click to expand...

I'm not really a big fan of complex electronics for simple things like that. An electric drop-down projector screen is OK, but a lift-up TV stand is much more complex (not to mention expensive) and while it has a cool factor...not for me. I'd rather just wall-mount the sucker and be done 😀
 
Ended up getting a different place with a different floor plan.... good thing is, it is an extra 250 ft^2 bigger!
*See photo at bottom for screen wall*

Why the big lifestyle change?
Click to expand...
My fiance got her "dream job" in Minneapolis, so I transferred to our corporate office there... the plan is to rent for a year there before buying another place (try to figure out neighborhoods and traffic before we buy).

can you ceiling mount the projector? Also, get an electric screen.
Click to expand...
I will be "wall mounting" the projector... the ceilings / floors are all solid concrete, but there is drywall on both walls (project and screen side) so I will just do a "floating shelf" for the projector and the screen can mount on the other wall.
I have a 110" fixed from screen and a 92" electric screen.... so I can use the electric if needed, but would rather have the larger one if possible.



The new place is a different setup - kitchen is on the side of the living area/where the screen would be mounted.... but the living room is much larger than the floorplan above.

Screen wall (she is about 5'6" for reference:
JDHKa.jpg

Screen wall into the kitchen:
154458_8076967_1973782516.JPG
 
Nice place. I'd definitely have it where the screen drops down in front of the TV assuming you don't use them at the same time.
 
electric drop down screen and ceiling mount projector ... won't take up much space, and won't be too ugly ...

Now the hard bit will be getting your speakers positioned in a way that meets the wife approval rating and also sounds good ...
 
Well, sort of moved in (still have boxes everywhere) but I've decided to scrap the 2nd tv in the living room.... I'll just be running the projector, at least for now. My mom's DLP died so I left her my 55" LED when I moved since I didn't need it.... it may make its way to the apartment someday.

Obviously it is still in shambles... still need to hide wires and mount the screen, but this is the general idea of the setup.
... my other hangup now is how to mount the projector.... I will have a row of bookshelves in the back of the room (all white) and might just make a 2x4" extension, paint it white, and run it off the back of one of the bookshelves to hold allow me to mount the projector "upside-down" since ceiling mounting won't work with the concrete ceilings.... this would also avoid putting holes in the wall.

178984_977783668382_1387781111_n.jpg
 
If those speakers aren't front ported they need to come off the wall a bit. Also I'd try to do something to kill the light reflection off the pipe. Otherwise not too bad.
 
Sidekicknichola said:
Well, sort of moved in (still have boxes everywhere) but I've decided to scrap the 2nd tv in the living room.... I'll just be running the projector, at least for now. My mom's DLP died so I left her my 55" LED when I moved since I didn't need it.... it may make its way to the apartment someday.

Obviously it is still in shambles... still need to hide wires and mount the screen, but this is the general idea of the setup.
... my other hangup now is how to mount the projector.... I will have a row of bookshelves in the back of the room (all white) and might just make a 2x4" extension, paint it white, and run it off the back of one of the bookshelves to hold allow me to mount the projector "upside-down" since ceiling mounting won't work with the concrete ceilings.... this would also avoid putting holes in the wall.

178984_977783668382_1387781111_n.jpg
Click to expand...

that big ass metal tube above the screen would make me mount the projector on another wall. that is totally distracting since it is going to reflect like a mofo.

pair that with a white wall, white ceiling, white floors, and a white media stand, i'd definitely do some painting and buy a new media stand.
 
Could paint the big-ass-metal-tube flat black?
Click to expand...
Highly doubtful, but since the screen has been mounted and the projector mounted upside down, the reflection to the pipe has been cut to almost zero.

The photo angle was a bit to blame too... from the couch, most of the reflection would have been on the back side... I didn't notice until it was mentioned here.

pair that with a white wall, white ceiling, white floors, and a white media stand, i'd definitely do some painting and buy a new media stand.
Click to expand...
Walls have been painted since this, rugs down over the concrete floors, and the TV stand is dictated by the Mrs.... so that probably won't change. Now that I am more "moved" in, most of the issues have been addressed.


As my original post stated, I wanted a second TV in the room for sports viewing.... ended up buying a new one for the bedroom, so am able to move the 40" LCD that was there to the living room for a 2nd TV / Computer monitor....now just to add in all my HDMI splitters to be able to move sources back and forth between the displays, still waiting on a desk for the computer before it is all finished.

Hopefully by Thanksgiving I'll have every last thing I need and can update the photo to the current state.
 
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