| After building the last 4 foot section of "the
big wall" it was time to frame the wall where the projector
screen would go. This wall will probably be the 2nd most prominent
wall in the room. It's the one everyone will be staring at when
they come over for sports events or 'family movie night'.
Projector screen wall
In my original design, I was planning to bring the center of the
wall (between the windows) out about a foot from the rest. This
would allow space for the drain line running vertically down the
wall. Since that same pipe needed to be moved from along the ductwork,
I needed space under the left window for the same pipe. I decided
to make one long, straight wall instead.
To make things easier, I decided to run the wall parallel to
the 1st joist (about 16" from the foundation walls). This
way I could secure the wall directly to the joist instead of adding
blocking along the top.
As I started to build this wall, I was reminded of how much easier
it is when you can just build full 8' sections with no obstacles!
This wall has two windows, ductwork, 2" PVC (main drain from
house), and the main support beam for the house to navigate around-
all in the span of 15 feet!
Framing around windows
My first decision was how to frame around the windows. Since
the wall is actually about 15" from the concrete basement
wall (due to the ductwork & drain pipe), the windows will
be recessed quite a bit. After I get the two glass block windows
installed I may have to make some modifications to the framing.
For now, the important decision was how much to slope the drywall
running from the bottom of the basement windows to the framed
in wall. After considering how much vertical space I'd need for
my projector screen, I decided to slope the window opening about
1 ½ inches from back to front. This meant the two studs
below the window would be 70" while the rest would be full
height. Here's how it turned out.
Framing the 2nd window
The second window was a bit more complicated. Since I needed
to conceal pipes and the "make-up air" duct, I was going to lose
½ of the window. (The window will still be there, it will just
be concealed behind the drywall.)
The main duct, and the fact that I needed to add blocking to
secure the top of the wall complicated matters even more. Since
I was unable to secure the top plate to the main (iron) beam of
the house, I cut the two studs that would be near it about 1/8
too long. Although it took a lot of pounding to get the frame
to fit under the beam, once I got it there it was a nice, tight
fit.
After seeing the wall framed in, I think the ½ window is going
to look stupid. I'll probably end up drywalling over it leaving
just the one window in the theater area. It took me about as long
to build and secure that 7' foot section as it did to build 24'
feet of straight wall the week before! The entire 15' foot wall
took about 10 hours to build. Finally, it's done!!!
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