Simulator/home theater in Jacksonville, FL

[Jaxpaj]

We are building a new home and I have a room 15' 7"X 20' 6". Is there anyway to make the room convert into a home theater or is the room too small? Have others done this? I have read through the forums and it seems to be a consensus that a person should try out different simulators before purchasing and Protee appears to be a board favorite. I have no idea where in NE FL I can go.

I wish I could hire someone like Bubba22 to purchase and install for me. From reading the forum it sounds like you can save thousands of dollars and get a great simulator. Any and all suggestions are GREATLY appreciated. This entire project seems overwhelming unless you just throw a ton of money at it.


Thanks

[Jaxpaj]

I am having trouble with the layout of the room. Initially I planned on putting the screen on the top wall but my wife has added a sliding glass door to the outside.

Is there enough room to put the screen on the right wall between the windows? That would give me 15' 6", is that enough?

If I put the screen on the bottom wall I will need to move the door or make it a pocket door in order to make room for the screen. I would need to lock the door to use the SIM!

How much concern should I have with side walls/protection from shanks?

Thanks

[aja]

You are asking for trouble if you install a sim or golf practice room in a space with glass doors. Lose on the doors on your "man-cave".

You should be concerned about side wall protection and the possibility of mis-hits, shanks, fliers, worm-burners, heel hits, toe hits. They will happen, even to the best of golfers, not to mention those who just want to "try it out".

Golf balls travelling at speed indoors are unpredictable and dangerous.

[Shine]

The picture showing the Jacksonville room looks like they put carpet directly on the ceiling. Has anyone done that with or without padding? It looks to me like there would be some danger from sky balls bouncing off the ceiling and carpet installed on a concrete floor.

I like what AJ did with baffles but I would prefer to attach the carpet directly to the ceiling if I could do so safely. Any thoughts from you guys?

[mthunt]

I have carpet tiles crown stapled to plywood. Works perfect. Anything that hits it is heading in the direction of the screen anyway.

[Shine]

What length are the staples you used? Did you use a staple gun?

[Boerdoc]

I have carpet tiles crown stapled to plywood. Works perfect. Anything that hits it is heading in the direction of the screen anyway.

I too would like to know how the carpet is applied. Any glue as well? What type carpet and where to get it. Pics always help my understanding.

[mthunt]

I used an air powered staple gun with 5/8 crown staples. The nice thing about those staples is they get buried in the carpet tile when you use a nail gun and you can't tell the tile was stapled. I put like 50 staples per tile.

I started with the intention of gluing the tile then stapling it with a few staples while the glue set. That was a huge mistake. Troweling carpet glue on a ceiling 10 feet in the air was horrible. Glue dripping on my head sucked. Once I realized glue was unnecessary, I ended up putting two 7x10 side walls of tile and 7x16 ccieling in about two hours. It looks amazing but it's not cheap.

[mthunt]

Here's some tile with my holding back the bungee cover to show bungees.

[mthunt]

This panoramic shows the tiled wall. You can't really tell its tile. The room looks weird in pano. It's 16x20

[Shine]

Thanks for the staple idea - I wonder if contact cement would hold a solid piece of carpet on the ceiling?

[mthunt]

That was my other option to try but staples worked so ridiculously well that I didn't bother. Try it and let us know.

[goodmatt78]

mthunt....did you staple carpet directly to ceiling or to plywood and then mount to ceiling?

[mthunt]

I used wood instead of drywall. Stapled carpet directly to wood.