Sock Food

As beautiful and enjoyable spending time with my family is, I still need a place to escape from time to time. I spend my work day with a seemingly constant flow of questions and needs, fires to put out, plans to plan, and normal day to day operations that seem unending. Then I come home, have dinner with the family, make sure homework gets done, get the kids ready for bed, and come back downstairs to cleanup after dinner and do any other necessary home maintenance and cleanup tasks. When I finally get a moment to take a break it's about 9 PM or later. I need an escape.

In January, I finally began building my escape. My man cave. Or as I like to calll it the men's room (It just sounds funnier that way).

I'm lucky enough to have a room in my basement that has three solid walls, no windows and is the furthest distance from any sleeping areas of the house. That way I can make a lot of noise and not worry about keeping everyone up.

The project took about two and half months total. My son, Ethan (6), helped out tremendously which was quite fun. He used saws, drills, nail guns, and helped paint. He is a surprisingly great painter. Jessica was very weary of having him paint but I figured there was only one way to learn and get better. My two rules to him were "no drips and no glops." For two days of one weekend, he helped me paint three solid hours each day without a break. I couldn't believe it! He painted 90% of the trim and the riser.

Here are some pictures of the project:

(ABOVE) This is a view of the wall during construction that will soon be the screen. You can see the holes we added to run wiring for the lights and speakers. You can see the cutaway at the bottom of the front wall where the built-in cabinets will go.

Sconces on the left and right were added. Front and back are controlled independently so I can turn the front off completely during a movie and dim the back row.

(ABOVE) Here you can see more speaker holes and you can see the start of the riser in the back. In total, my friend Greg and I cut eight holes into the drywall. Luckily, that room has this weird double stud wall (two walls of insulation) where the inner wall has no 2x4 top plate. This made it incredibly easy to snake wires down the ceiling joists to the opposite wall.

(ABOVE) This is a direct view of the riser. This was probablly the most fun for me and Ethan. As we built the frame I let him pull the trigger on the nail gun while I positioned and held it. I would yell, "ready.... FIRE!" each time. We had quiite the giggle-fest doing this.

(ABOVE) Here's a great picture of my helper with the smaller pneumatic brad nailer. He was able to use this tool all by himself. I drew the lines where the joists were located on the riser floor and he simply nailed up the line.

I will admit, I did pay Ethan $2.50/hr because he was saving up for something (probably a DS game) and I wanted to help him earn it. In a couple weekends time he made $15-$20.

(ABOVE) The most important piece!! I finished the screen using Goo Systems reflective screen paint (similar to painting normally). The screen size is around 118" diagonally. The two front speakers are Klipsche satellite speakers (came free with the receiver), the other speakers are Energy 5.1 Take Classic. They all sound fantastic for their price point. I'm no audiophile and am very happy with the quality.

The projector is an Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 8350. It is a 1080p projector at a great price point. Animated films like Toy Story 3 and How to Train Your Dragon are incredibly vivid!

The built-in cabinets under the screen took the longest to complete. I wanted them to be flush with the wall and hide all the electronics. By doing this I eliminated infrared remotes and had to upgrade to the Harmony 900 that uses RF and an IR blaster. It's a lot more than I ever believed I'd spend on a remote but it makes the entire operation accessible not only by one remote through RF but to the entire family. All you have to do is press the activity you want and it automatically turns all the right equipment on and changes to the correct sources. The choices are "Watch Movies," "Watch TV," and "Play XBOX."

(ABOVE) Side view looking into the room.

(ABOVE) Here's the finished seating with the riser. I had another love seat I could have added but it seemed like overkill. We haven't run out of seating with a few overnight guests and a 1st grade movie night. I think we're good with seating quantity. Now we just need to get some new, non hand-me-down furniture. But, other than being ugly, it works well so new furniture is a long way off.

To round this all up, I added an HTPC (home theater PC) running XBMC Live (XBOX Media Center Live). Here's a video of what this looks like using the Night skin (ignore the background music they added) . This was the keystone of the entire project and took the longest time setting up but once it was done it was definitely worth the effort!

And there it is folks.

Every man needs an escape, especially dads.