Building a Twenty-Four Seat Movie Theater in My Basement

When we moved into our house several years ago, it came with a large (21' x 21') unfinished room in the basement.  The floors and walls were cold concrete and block.  We decided to put a ping pong table in it which gave it some limited functionality when we had friends over, but otherwise it was generally wasted space.  My wife and I called a local contractor and asked for an estimate to frame the room, hang drywall, run electrical outlets, and prime it.  To save some money, I was willing to paint it and we were confident we could get a good deal on carpet.

$10,265. That was the estimate received in December of 2016.  My wife and I couldn't believe the price, so we spoke to another local contractor who confirmed that this was about right for this kind of work.  I looked at my wife and said "Hey, I bet I could do a really cool theater room for a fraction of the price."  She agreed to turn me loose as long as I was less than the contractor's estimates, so I went to work.  I had never taken on a project like this.  I knew very little about finishing a room, so things went very slow.  I spent about half my time during the project researching online and about half actually working in the room.

On January 1 2017,  I bought all the 2x4s our SUV would carry from the local box store with a gift card I got for Christmas and away I went. 

I bought an $80 NuMax framing gun from Amazon along with a box of framing nails, consulted on my plan with a contractor who knew the local code, and I went to work.  With all the utilities running through the room, framing was a little tricky, but I managed to complete it in a week or two as I worked in the evenings after the wife and daughter went to bed around 8:00.

I ordered the 10ft drywall sheets from a local supply store and had them delivered in the room which was about $600 after delivery.   Since I had to drywall the walls and ceiling, I got a small lift from Amazon that was about $130 which I promptly sold for $100 after the project.  That little thing was a life saver!  I could get the dry wall on the lift and spend several minutes maneuvering it to precisely where I wanted it.   It was far more controlled than I imagine it would have been with two people hanging drywall traditionally.   

Since I had never done any significant drywall work before, I had to read up on how to frame and prep the room for hanging.  Once the room was framed, I began running electrical and servicing.  I wanted to run all my speaker wires behind the wall and have connection points where the speakers would go.  I bought a large spool of insulated speaker wire for about $30 from Amazon as well as a couple hundred feed of Romex electrical wire to connect the outlets and lights for about $60.  I also ran wire in the ceiling which would support the recesses LED lights I would incorporate as well as power and HDMI supply to projector.  I had all the speaker and AV wires coming together at a single point on the wall where my AV cabinet would be located. 

As this was going on, my wife and I were searching for seating options for the new room.  Seating for a "theater" was not going to be cheap, but it was about that time we heard that a movie theater a few hours away was remodeling and selling their old seats.  We drove down to take a look and they were perfect!  They looked like new!  We bought 24 seats for $600!  On January 15th, my dad and I went and picked them up, loaded them on a trailer and brought them to my house.  After a good scrub-down with a carpet shampooer, our seating problem was solved!

 It was now time to hang drywall.  We looked at the pros and cons of a drywall vs suspended ceiling.  Although the suspended ceiling provided better access to utilities above and was easier to install, we chose the drywall ceiling because it was less likely to rattle when watching loud movies, provided better acoustic damping between floors, and was about $1000 cheaper. 

It took several weeks to hang and tape the drywall but by February 10th it was done! (Yes, I'm a messy worker which drove the mrs crazy on her occasional visit.)

Now, the tedious part: the dreaded mudding and sanding.  This part was extremely exhausting.  I actually took four days off from work to try to move things along.  There were two things that really helped me get over the hump in this seemingly endless task: 1) I was specing out my speakers and projector which really helped keep me excited about the end product and  2) I textured the ceiling by rolling on thick mud and stamping it with a broom which reduced my finishing work efforts by a couple of days. 

At last, on March 1st, the drywall was done.  It took me over a month!  I felt I was in the home stretch!

After priming everything, I painted the ceiling black.  Between the texture and the color change, this took 3 gallons of paint! I also installed the black recessed lights and access panels to reach things like drain clean-outs and water shutoffs. 

I spent a lot of time calculating the optimal seating layout.  After some deliberation, I decided on 4 rows of 6 chairs.  My dad came by for a day and helped frame the platforms.    We were able to knock it out in one day.  The lumber cost about $700 for this portion. 

We picked a grey color for the walls and all black outlets.  The speakers and sound system also came in around this time.  I got the entire 5.2 receiver and speakers for about $800 on clearance from Amazon and a refurbished LCD-3 projector for $600.   I also got a nice vinyl 120-inch screen from Amazon with a velvet frame for $150.  You can find a lot of cheap LCD projectors out there, but make sure you get an LCD-3.  The LCD-3 uses prisms to separate the light and make the picture significantly brighter than a traditional non-LCD-3 with an equivalent lumen rating. 

I got the brackets and mounts for the speakers and projector from Amazon.  If you just buy this stuff at a big box store, you are going to pay 10x what you would by simply shopping around, so keep that in mind.  My speaker and projector mount brackets only cost about $30 all together (shipped), and they work great!  These could have easily been hundreds of dollars. 

On March 11th, everything was installed, so we hooked up Netflix and watched our first movie on a blanket spread out right on the plywood.

Even with a 120-inch picture projected from 18 feet away, the picture from the LCD-3 was so bright, I had to turn the brightness setting down.  

We ordered the carpet from a Home Depot.  They were running a special on a good quality carpet and offered free installation (even with the tiers).  We also splurged ~$160 on some nice frames so we could swap in and out posters that we liked. 

On April 9th, 2017 a little over 3 month after I started, the project was complete.  What an awesome new room!  I learned so much from going through the headaches and joys of this project.  In the end we have a great space to relax with family and friends and watch sports and movies without having to drop $50 at the local theater.

Final Cost Breakdown

Lumber, hardware, trim, and tools: $1100

Electrical: $200

Drywall: $600

Paint: $200

Chairs: $600

Sound: $800

Projector:  $600

Screen: $150 

Carpet: $1100

Total Cost: $5350

That's about half of what it would have cost for the contractor to just do framing, drywall, and electrical.  I imagine if I had hired someone to do the whole project, it would have cost $20,000 or more.

I learned so many valuable skills that I would have never had the opportunity to acquire if I had not taken on this project.  Now, I use these skills to help others out in their own projects and I have so much more confidence to take on new projects in my own house.  What a great way to exercise my Creative, Proactive, Passionate, and Grateful hallmarks.  I hope this project encourages some of you to take on something yourself.  You were made to create!