So, in what was my year of financial irresponsibility (actually my second year), I decided to drop some money and build a home theater in my basement. My basement was basically a large L. The small part of the L was the office. Adjacent to the office, I put in a gym. Before I built the theater, nothing separated the gym from the remaining long part of the L except a plastic tarp (so I could actually heat the gym).

So I started by putting up a wall... (Click here to see the build-slideshow.) The construction process did teach me a few things. For example: I suck at putting up drywall, and nailguns are fun.

At the end of 2018, the fiscal irresponsibility bug hit me again, so it was time for an upgrade, and the theater to go 4K! I pulled down the old screen, in-wall mounted new front speakers, and hung a new acoustically transparent screen. The whole thing is way brighter, with obviously much better resolution (and HDR color), and looks fantastic.

• 12' x 27' dedicated theater with 9' ceiling
• Optoma UHD50 projector (3840x2160 resolution, altho it is a pixel-shifter; HDR; 2400 lumens; 500k:1 contrast)
• 135" Silver Ticket Woven Acoustic Screen (118" x 66", 16:9)
• Yamaha RX-V581 7.2 A/V Receiever - 80W per channel
• Monoprice Amber in-wall front speakers
• Onkyo 7.1 speaker set for suround
• Seating for 10 with 4 recliners in the first two rows
• Stadium seating wih three rows (each raised about a foot)
• Dedicated mini-split A/C (9000BTU heating and cooling)
• APC Line-R 1200VA Automatic Voltage Regulator (LE1200)
• Panamax MAX8 surge protector

The first movie ever shown was Empire Strikes Back, but my first large public showing was Aliens.