Rutland Home Cinema

Having newly bought this beautiful Georgian property the new owners were looking to upgrade the whole property to include a special home cinema room for their growing family to enjoy.

We started off by modelling the room in 3D in Sketchup so that we could look at how different cinema designs would work with the owners.

Modelling started with sketching out the actual floorplan of the room, Its a period property so there weren’t any construction or design documents that we could use. We then modelled in the furniture, doors and windows in Sketchup.

Floorplans 2D

Floorplans 3D

Once the room had been modelled and the furniture laid out in Sketchup we had a great model of what the room currently looks like. We can now use this to add different design elements with the clients so we can check out how different colours, seats and screen sizes work in the space.

Current Room Render

The client opted for Frontrow motorised cinema seating with Six seats in two rows of three curved recliners. Lighting was a mix of Philips Hue spotlights, up/downlighters at the side of the cinema and strip lights at the top on the left and right viewing towards the screen.

The screen size was 110” Wide and a 5.2.1 system was chosen featuring Paradigm in-wall and in-ceiling speakers and an Anthem MRX740 amplifier.

Home Cinema Render 1

Home Cinema Render 2

Home Cinema Render 3

The renders were done within Sketchup to give the owners a view of what to expect in terms of colours, sizing, seats and screen etc…

The colour of the walls was chosen - Farrow & Ball off black estate and the acoustically transparent fabric on the side walls was Cara Camira in Midnight Black.

The Frontrow Cinema Seats were chosen in Charcoal Grey.

The owner didn’t want the home cinema to be too dark so the doors, skirting and ceiling were left in the same white used throughout the rest of the house.

The raised floor for the rear seats, the side walls and the bulkhead were built by the carpenter and then painted by the decorators with wiring left for the electricians final fix for the speakers and lights.

At the rear of the room we turned some fixed furniture that was already in the room into a bit of storage and space for a popcorn machine and a fridge.

We will also have somewhere close to the seats to plug the RTi T4x remote into for when its charging.

The painting and decorating took a little while than we first figured, because its a period property we had to be very careful to make sure that the windows and skirting were painted correctly. The paint is a very dull matt finish so as to minimise reflections from the screen or lights towards the viewer.

After the painters were finished the electricians came in for their final fix, fitting the Philips Hue spotlights and up/downlighters and the strip lights on either side (also controlled with Philips Hue). The speakers were also all fitted and speaker cable throughout the room was trimmed and plugged in.

Next the carpet and seats where fitted into the room alongside the curtains that we had specially made for the room from the customers selected fabric.

Once all the furniture was in and the amplifier and speakers plugged in and setup we were able to run the ARC Genesis room correction. Anthems amazing room correction software helps ramp up your cinema by correcting the sound directly to your room. With ARC (Anthem Room Correction) we place microphones around your room to listen to the sound generated by your system, then the room is optimised by the ARC software. Unwanted noise, resonance and coloration, boomy bass and intelligible dialogue are programmed out of the system and great sound is programmed in.

Pelmets were constructed using the same fabric as the curtains, we got hardboard cut to size at the local wood merchants and coated those with foam and then the curtain fabric. The results looked great and softened up the hard arches over the windows.

The last item to install was the RTi T4x remote control, RTi had just launched their new ID11 software so it was great to learn that and put it to use programming the remote so that it’s all so easy to use.

The clients pickup the remote and have four icons, one for Netflix/Disney+, one for Sky, one for Bluray and one for their Kaleidescape system.

They simply choose which one to watch, press the button and the system all turns on and selects the right inputs.

When they are finished they simply press the off button and everything turns off, easy!

The finished cinema features;

• 115” SR Cinema Screen

• Epson TW9400 Projector

• Anthem MRX 740 Receiver

• Paradigm Pro-P1 front speakers

• Paradigm Pro rear and in-ceiling speakers

• Paradigm V12 Subwoofer

• Kaleidescape

• Philips Hue Lighting

• RTi T4x remote control