About 6 months ago, the Geekdad came home with a sheepish grin on his face and said: “If we move the couch I can get 100 inches! That’s the perfect size for a TV.”
Truth be told, I dropped my wooden spoon onto the kitchen floor, wondering if he had suffered a mild concussion on the way home from work.
“100 inches?” I asked “Have you lost your mind?” I was hoping that would be the end of the conversation, but I could tell by the look on his face that the wheels were still turning. (I know my husband well enough to know that when he gets that look on his face, it’s best to let him go.) As much as I hated to admit it, we were soon going to be moving the couch.
The next few weeks consisted of Geekdad scouring through ads and websites looking for a sale, but given the prices and web pages I was seeing, I wasn’t sure there was any way our budget was going to allow this to happen.
That was until – he found a projector on sale. Gulp. And then he found a projector screen with remote that was just the right size for our basement. Double Gulp. This was it, the time had come, TV supremacy would be his.
He ordered the projector and screen online, and as soon as they arrived he began the installation. The measuring tape was going full tilt, angles from this spot, distance between speakers, if it was in our basement it was measured. Couches were moved, cables were run, speakers were installed, and box valences were built. The excitement level was building, and Ok, I was starting to warm up to the idea as well.
When it came time to flip the switch on the projector the look on his face was priceless. The Ottawa Senators were on in HD that night so we sat down on the couch, and started to watch. He called it “amazing” and was thrilled, I called it “ridiculous” and was motion sick. The Geekling called it ‘awesome’ and changed the channel and promptly started having a light saber fight against Darth Vader.
The Geekling tests out his light saber skills
I’ll admit now that after the shock of the size wore off, I really like having the projector in the house. We spent less than $1500 on the projector, screen, wood for the valences, and cabling which is far less than the numbers that popped into my head when we first started the discussions. It’s given us great movie nights, and even better evenings with friends watching sports (which has saved us money on tickets this year for sure).
The moral to this story, don’t discount seemingly crazy home theatre ideas. If you do your research you can do it affordably.
A few tips:
Measure your space - Before you even get started planning your home theatre, you need to make sure you have the space to do it.
Talk to people - I'm sure someone in your life has done it (hint - twitter: @ksswansong) and can give some advice.
Read product reviews before you decide what you want - The time being spent on research should be considered part of your home theatre investment, use the internet to search for what real people think of any TV, or projector or screen equipment before you commit to your project.
Price check online - As you can imagine, the big box stores here in Canada can be pretty expensive. Most online retailers have really good sales, and a lot of Canadian and American sites offer free shipping.
Don’t assume you need the ‘best’ of everything - Cables are a great example of this – Monster cables can be a monster rip off for most people. Save money by buying lower ‘name’ cabling.
And the final moral to the story: If you want a life sized Ellen Pompeo in your basement, it takes 100 inches.
The full projector screen (with laundry basket for scale).
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