That escalated quickly

It has only been two weeks since my last post and things went from 0-60 in a hurry.

This round of contractor work is completed. The south end of the basement is now a walled-off entity, primed as a gym, auxiliary pantry, wet bar, workshop, bathroom and storage space. It's really a phenomenal achievement in this odyssey and a really dynamic multi-purpose area.

Obviously, for the home theater context, the headline is that the north end of the basement is now a separate area, making it easier to fine-tune plans and visualize how to best use the space. We will be clearing the clutter from that room in the weeks ahead to better view the blank canvas. Functionally for that space, there are two doors along the south wall: One for entering the south side area and one for concealing the HVAC system while allowing access for service and maintenance.

The real main event, is this brand new room. It really brings together the design elements we started in the bathroom and wet bar area. The idea was to give it a slightly unfinished look, with a blend of industrial and art deco cues. Everything from the oil-rubbed bronze fixtures, to the faux marble looking surfaces, unfinished ceiling in the open space and the use of gas line for curtain rods and mimicking that look for our shelving (more on that later). All of it contributes to this unique aesthetic that feels refined and stylish, while also pulling in elements of a basement (like the steel I-beam that runs the length of the level near the west wall) that remind you that you're not in the main living quarters.

From the skeleton of a wall to a functional new room.

In the gym space, it really is a multi-purpose area. The drywalled wall electronics are on a separate circuit from the east foundation wall. We talked to our contractor and he shared my concern about having A/V electronics on the same circuit as high-draw motors like a treadmill or any order of work bench accessories. He really has a talent for the electrical planning and does really clean work. Both circuits are on surge protected breakers, enhancing protection at the outlet not just for the devices plugged in, but also for the rest of the house in arresting surges from these spots.

For the home theater folks, the A/V setup is relatively simple and was done on a fairly strict budget, but it is where I will spend the majority of the time on this post because that's what I started this blog to talk about in the first place. The TV is my old Panasonic TC-P60ST50 -- a 60-inch 1080p plasma that had been our main living room TV for years until we recently upgraded to a larger OLED. Maybe I'll do a post about our living room setup in the future since it's all related to the intersection of home theater/home improvement. I love this TV and will defend the bygone technology of plasma displays for many years to come.

Anyway, the soundbar is a Klipsch Cinema 400 with a wireless subwoofer. This was where the budget and sound quality Tetris was really played. I went for sound quality over connectivity features. My original plan was for the bar to be a hub for devices (like an A/V receiver), but those proved too costly and I wanted good audio first. It's a simple HDMI ARC connection from the TV to the soundbar and HDMI CEC allows for easy volume and power controls. All the reviews I read pointed to this one for the best bang for my audio dollar. I love that it has a wireless subwoofer to fill out the soundstage on the low end. It's nothing amazing. It has a ported 8-inch, down-firing driver. It's a little boomy for my taste. I prefer the tight control of a sealed sub, but at this price, it's hard to beat. The remote allows for subwoofer level control and being wireless allows for clean placement on the floor nearby. I also like that the soundbar has "night" and "dialog" modes. Night basically disables the sub, so if one of us is sleeping, the booming from the basement doesn't disturb the other. Dialog is an EQ setting that emphasizes speech. I'm thinking it could be helpful when streaming exercise classes if the accompanying music is too overpowering. We may never use it, but it's a nice-to-have.

Content currently comes from by a terrible 2nd Generation Fire TV stick. It was $35 years ago on Prime Day and has always been a laggy piece of garbage that can't run essential apps for our gym. It replaced a first-gen Fire stick that was even worse (but free). I have learned my lesson there and I am waiting to see how low the Nvidia Shield TV (the regular, not the pro) drops around Black Friday time and jump on one of those to do the necessary work of powering this little setup.

The mounting system is really my favorite part. I combined a standard Echo Gear full-motion wall mount with a universal subwoofer TV mount from a company called WALI. It allowed me to mount the soundbar to the TV itself, piggybacking on the wall-mounting hardware on the back of the TV. This way, I can pull the TV away from the wall, pivot it in any direction and the soundbar follows, aiming the sound in the same direction as the picture. It's elegant, clean and makes me smile every time I look at it.

I wanted to use a UPS to protect everything, but the only wall-mountable UPS that's low-profile enough to go on a wall can't handle the power demands of these high-end TVs and their accessories. So I went with simple and reliable. A Belkin 6-outlet surge protector that mounts right over the outlet and is designed to keep the wall plate on behind it as well. Just uses the center screw hole to hold down. The best part is probably the rotating outlets. They can pivot 90 degrees to accommodate varying sizes of plugs and bricks, which will come in handy down the road.

Everything is running on WiFi right now. My network setup may also be a future post one day. Long-term, I plan to run an ethernet drop to this location and throw a mini switch on it to hardwire any connected devices. In fact, when I do the pre-wire for the theater, I plan to run ethernet, possibly coax (from my OTA antenna... a post on that probably in the future) and an HDMI line to this area. The HDMI will be for a second video zone from the future theater's A/V processor. That way, when people need refreshments or a bathroom break, the movie can be mirrored onto the gym TV so they don't have to miss a moment when they leave the room.

A look at the A/V setup taking the gym to the next level

Okay, back to the rest of the room walkthrough...

We debated flooring for a long time. The ultimate goal was to do a black rubber flooring throughout the space for its incredible durability, easy maintenance and a few other factors that are important to us. That said, rubber flooring is stupid expensive for the square footage we need and it's not the easiest to work with. So we opted to re-use our old gray foam floor tiles. They get the job done. We've had them for years, dating back to our basement workshop/home gym at our old 1950s home. They have some wear-and-tear and are far from perfect, but like I said, they get the job done, are plenty thick and didn't require any added cost to the project. The foam also really helps warm up the acoustics of the space, which had been unsurprisingly echoey... and our feet from the cold concrete floor.

I love the lighting in here. It's nothing special, but the overhead lights are flat, can-style LED fixtures that have a control box to change the color temperature and they have some pivot range to direct the light if desired. I like the 4000K temperature for this space. It's warmer than the starkly too-white 5000K, but also not as dulling to the senses and color-altering as a warmer 2700K-3000K. Yeah, I'm a nerd about color temperature and how it affects the dynamics and purpose of a space. They're just braced on boards between joists, but again, it adds to the intentional unfinished ceiling aesthetic. We have them on a 3-way switch so you can turn the overheads on from the doorway or from the end of the counter on the wall where the switch for the pendant sink light lives too. I plan to eventually add Lutron's Sunnata dimmers. That's on the roadmap for eventual tweaks and finishing touches.

My Husky work bench sits along the east wall, with a few other odds and ends. We collect comics, so a comic shelf sits in there, along with more storage shelving. One of the coolest things that my wife and our contractor devised was the overhead shelving system. We recently updated our closets and these shelves were left over. However, they had these awful arms that took up a ton of vertical space. We knew we wanted to re-use them rather than trash them because there's nothing technically wrong with them. Our contractor hung them using an ingenious wire system. They are anchored to the joists above instead of drilling into the foundation wall, which I love. Again, maximizing the unfinished nature of the space and fills an area of the wall that would otherwise go to waste.

Another thing that collaborating with our contractor helped us to devise was the use of gas line as curtain rods. It really just vanishes into the unfinished basement ceiling, but also plays into the aesthetic of the space at the same time. Curtains allow us to conceal the less attractive areas like basic storage shelving, HVAC, hot water tank, etc. while allowing easy access. It also helps deaden the echoes. Between the curtains and foam floor tiles, the space is much warmer acoustically, which does noticeable favors for the soundbar and sub. Our curtains aren't finished yet. We're short a set of panels and they still need hemmed, but with this space 90% there, it's highly satisfying to walk through.

Safe to say the room is about 90% complete for now.

The gym equipment is all pretty standard stuff. A Schwinn spinning bike, a Livestrong treadmill (long since discontinued, but manufactured by Polar) and some free weights and yoga blocks. We're working on getting a weight rack and a few more of those rubberized/poly weights. We got the Bowflex dial weights, but they have limitations because of their size. The Perfect Pushup will migrate there from the bedroom soon. We use the Peloton app on the TV for classes. It's far cheaper than the Peloton service for their own equipment and works incredibly well for our needs. We're not gym rats. We just want to be able to feel good, lift things that normal healthy adults can carry and not get winded going up the stairs. We've been fortunate to have built up this array of equipment over several years of deal hunting, research and making financing payments on the bigger items. And yes, some power cable management for the bike and treadmill is needed and will come in time.

It took us years to build up our collection of gym equipment

The trim around the doors are on hold, pending the theater phase of construction, which is fine. We're wired for a smoke detector in this room, in addition to the existing one in the future theater. I plan to snag a bunch of Nest Protect smart smoke/CO detectors over the Black Friday time period to replace our existing ones and go into this space. Next is the planning and quoting of the construction part of the theater space. I'm simultaneously researching and itemizing options for equipment. Best believe there will be a post about that down the road.