The Modern DREAM Home Theater Room Makeover 2024

- This video is sponsored by Sennheiser. (intriguing music) What's up, my friends? It's Mike again, glad to have you guys back. So over the past year I've done several room makeover projects, but this time it's definitely one of the biggest and most challenging projects to date: making a home theater. So to make this happen, I have to tap into my inner interior designer and learn some new woodworking skills to integrate my love for tech into a space where everyone can enjoy. It's a huge project

to transform an outdated looking basement into something that looks modern and elegant, and keeping it cozy and inviting for my friends to hang out in. So there are four stages to the evolution of this room. I can't wait to show you what I've accomplished here and share the satisfaction of building a dream space and watching it come to life. So without further ado, let's get right into the video. So this is the room that we're working with. This is a multipurpose room in the basement, and I do a

lot of different things down here, like workout and game. It's kind of like a man cave, but I've never really enjoyed being in the room because it's just kind of a mess and the room looks a bit outdated with the wall color, cork wall, fireplace, and that huge wall made of wood panels. So it's finally time to give this room some love and transform it into a single purpose space that I'll be happy to hang out with my friends in. To start the home theater build, I cleared out the room and got a pr

ojection screen. This is the Kestrel Tab-Tension 3 electric rising screen by Elite Screens. And I gotta say that it's quite magical and futuristic because to this day, I have no idea how it's able to roll up and hold the entire screen all in this metal case. The cool thing is that it uses its Tab-Tension design on the sides to help maintain a flat surface so when the screen is fully extended, anything you project onto it will have a ripple-free image. And that's quite an important thing because

the screen is 122 inches wide diagonally, so it is huge. I love the simple design of this because it was the perfect solution for my drop ceiling panels, 'cause I can't really install anything up there. Also the screen has a black backing so it blocks out any lights that leaks from the window blinds. And when I'm not using the setup, I can totally hide the screen away so that I can still get some natural light in through the window during the day. As for the projector, I've been using the Hisens

e PX1-Pro. It's an ultra short throw projector, so it only needs to be placed around 16 inches in front of the screen. I've been watching so many movies on this setup, and the picture quality is just next level. The PX1-Pro is a triple laser projector rated at 2,200 lumens, so the colors on the screen looks super colorful. Everything is very vibrant and bright. And best of all, there's no lag when I'm playing "Smash Bros" or gaming with my friends. When we're using this setup, it's really hard t

o believe that a projector can produce this kind of quality. The 4K content is just super crisp, and combined with the screen size, I can say it's a super immersive experience. However, there's a few problems with the setup. If you know me, I like to make my spaces look nice, so I hate seeing cables. Everything is just kind of exposed here, making the setup look a bit messy and it's definitely a tripping hazard. I did some research, and it looked like using the IKEA BESTA units was the best opti

on. If I wanted this projection screen to be right behind the cabinet, I needed the projector to be able to slide in and out as that's how I can control the projection size. So I decided to use a BESTA frame and installed a drawer inside to be used as a slider for the projector, and this design worked out perfectly. The sliding motion was super smooth, but we ran into the next problem. The projector was too high off the ground, so when it's projecting at the right size of the screen, the top is

kind of cut off. So we need to raise the projection screen as well to make all of this work. And this is actually where the fun begins. I had to design a shelf or some kind of mount to hold up the screen, so I quickly drew something up and went to get some plywood and got right into building my first woodworking project. So this is actually my first time using a table saw. I gotta be honest, it was quite intimidating to use this because of all the horror stories of losing fingers. But after watc

hing a ton of table saw safety videos on YouTube and being super careful, I'm so glad that I learned how to use it because I can see that it's the one tool that made me fall in love with woodworking. With a table saw, I'm able to make smoother, straighter, more accurate cuts, and most importantly, I can precisely replicate my cuts to make multiple of the same sized boards quickly. So after gluing and screwing the boards together and making sure it's square, we get this shelf thingy. It may look

simple, but I learned a lot from just making this project, so I was quite happy. So I made three of these in total and placed it under the projection screen. I designed it so that the back and front of the shelf would act as spacers between the wall and the cabinet. And the miraculous thing was that we made it just high enough so that the screen avoided hitting the ceiling. Now that we maximized the screen projection size, it was time to build the rest of the cabinets to hide everything. So I ad

ded bigger cabinets on both sides. As for the cover panels, we went with the glossy white color and installed the push openers as well for a simple and modern look. However, once everything came together, I felt like it didn't look as cool as I wanted to, so with my newfound table saw woodworking skills, I wanted to take this to the next level and make it look more premium by adding a walnut wrap on the top. To do this, we have to get a special plywood that has a walnut veneer on it, and we had

to get this at a special plywood store because this isn't something you can find at Home Depot. And the cool thing we're doing here is making a waterfall edge effect where the grain continues from the top piece to the side piece. So we cut both the panels at a 45 degree angle, and this would've been very hard to get right without a table saw. Anyways, after fitting them on top of the cabinets and making sure that they're the right size, we had to add edge banding to hide the plywood. This takes

a lot of time gluing and trimming the bands to make it look like it's solid wood. But each step is actually really satisfying and the end result is so worth the effort. So the next day, I actually had a crazy idea of putting lights in between the wrap and the cabinet, so I tested it out and it really brought the whole thing to the next level and gave me that wow effect. So I just had to do it. We added spacers in between and glued them to the boards, and then we glued it again to the top of the

cabinets while matching the side pieces to make sure that it's glued in the right place. After letting it dry for a while, we secured it with screws from the bottom to hold them down for good. Now, securing the side piece was crucial. We had to make sure that there was no gaps in between the two pieces. And thankfully, it turned out great. I love the look of the waterfall edge, and the space between the cabinet and the plywood created such clean lines that it really gave the entire thing a reall

y minimal and modern aesthetic. I mean, it looks really good, even without the lights installed yet. And next, to make it look even better, we're gonna hydrate the wood with some mineral oil. So with any kind of wood that's unfinished, the wood is usually kind of dry, so doing this part really brings the wood back to life and adds more color to it. It's really a night and day difference with the before and after. Finally, I added two layers of polyurethane on it. This stuff really helps seal the

wood and lock in the color. It also adds some protection to the surface. To complete the cabinet, I made two extra pieces. I made this piece to hold the projector on top of, and the other piece I made it to connect in the middle so that visually, it looks like all the units connect together. And it's also a great place to hold a soundbar, which we're gonna add later on. Now, the cool thing is that I can actually hide the projector by pushing it inside the frame. This way it's kind of protected

in its little cozy space. Now to add the light, I'm using the Govee neon light strip. I love how this light does not show any hot spots where you can see the individual LEDs, so instead it looks like it's one continuous strip of light. The other reason why I'm using this is because it's made of a really thick, bendable plastic material, so it's very easy to work with and I was able to bend it and fit it through the corners and push 'em through in between the cabinets and the wrap. I don't know w

hy, but adding lights is always cool. In the Govee app, I can change the lights to many different colors. There's a lot to choose from. But this orange color really hit me just differently. I think it really works with the walnut and the white panels. Now that the cabinet and everything looks awesome, the next thing on the list to upgrade would be the audio system. So for this setup, I'm using Sennheiser's AMBEO Soundbar Plus with the wireless sub to really complete that home theater experience.

So the AMBEO soundbar is quite impressive. It has nine speakers housed inside. There's seven high end aluminum cone full range drivers, along with dual four inch long throw woofers. So setting this soundbar up is super simple. On the back it has two HDMI ports for two different input sources. So I can plug in my Apple TV and Nintendo Switch in HDMI one and two, and then I can connect the soundbar to the projector using the HDMI eARC port. This is a great feature because the soundbar acts as a H

DMI switcher, and because the sources are plugging directly into the soundbar, it'll ensure that there will be no latency between the audio and the video. Next, we are adding the AMBEO subwoofer to the setup. This little guy looks super modern and compact, and it houses an eight inch high-end proprietary woofer. So to connect this to the soundbar, it's super simple. All I had to do was connect it to the power and go on the Sennheiser Smart Control app. In the app, it found the subwoofer right aw

ay, and it paired it to the soundbar wirelessly with just a push of a button. Now, the special thing about this audio system is that it creates a virtual 7.1.4 home theater system using an automated self-calibration process. It does this by playing a series of sweeping sounds to help it map out the room, and then the speaker uses state-of-the-art AMBEO virtualization technology to figure out how to use the room to bounce the sounds off the walls and the ceiling to create an immersive 3D effect f

or surround sound content. I think this process took around three minutes, and all I had to do was kind of just sit there and wait for it to do its thing. I gotta say I loved how simple it was to set all this up, and the overall aesthetic of the sound system looks very minimalist and modern, which really enhances the rest of the space. As for the sound quality, it sounds totally on another level than anything else I've heard before. When we were watching movies, the sound felt like it really is

coming from all around us. I couldn't believe it at first, but this made it feel like there are multiple speakers placed around the room, and the dedicated subwoofer created such a deep and thunderous bass that it literally felt like the ground was shaking. Sometimes I could even feel the rumble in the air. To make things even better, you can use the app on the phone to customize the soundbar settings. If you want to tinker about the sound, there's a four band equalizer to play around with. Ther

e's also the AMBEO 3D mode, which I always have it on boost mode to get the most expensive surround sound effect. Anyways, I would say all the techy stuff of the home theater is pretty much perfect now, so it's time to finally work on the rest of the room. So this room looks quite old. I think the last time it was renovated was like 20 years ago. However, I think there's a few things I can quickly change up to make it a bit more modern. To begin, the first and easiest upgrade would be fixing up

the walls and changing the paint. There are a lot of holes and imperfections on the walls, so it was definitely a good chance to fix them up. I chose to use a dark black and blue color called Black Force from Dulux. I'm painting this wall a darker color intentionally so that it will give the room a more theatrical look when the lights are off. I knew that painting the biggest wall a dark color might make the room feel small. However, I think that this dark blue color actually makes the space fee

l moody and it creates a cozy and intimate atmosphere that is perfect for relaxing and unwinding. As for the other two walls, I chose to paint it white to add some contrast and lighten up the space. I think it's also gonna go well with the cabinet doors that we made earlier. As for the lighting, I went to Home Depot and picked up some sconces that could blend in with the wall, and that's because I actually don't want to see them when they're not being used. So I ended up choosing these ones, and

I think it instantly adds a modern look to the room. Next, we got a small ledge at the bottom of the wall. I have no idea what it's for, so I decided to paint it black. Now, this is kind of weird. I've never seen anyone do this before. But I wanted this part to kind of disappear in the room, so I think that does the job very well. After doing that, I had another crazy idea where I wanted to make use of that ledge and use it for lighting, so we put a light strip on top of it and suddenly it made

the whole room look very futuristic and really had the wow effect, so I just had to do it. To implement this idea and make it work in the room, I needed a way to hide the hotspots and turn it more into ambient lighting. So me and my friends friends picked up some two by fours and cut them at a 45 degree angle to make a beam that would cover the light. And if making this looks dangerous, that's because it is. A table saw is no joke. I should have set up an outfeed table to hold the piece of wood

. However, I have my friend holding up the other end instead. We're risking our lives trying to make awesome content for you guys, so remember to like and subscribe. (Subscribe button thuds) We really had no idea what we were doing, but somehow this worked out perfectly as it could stand on its own on the ledge and it successfully covered the brightest parts of the lights. And by the way, I am using the Govee M1 strip lights here, and I was super impressed with how bright they can get and how go

od the colors looked. In the app, I can change them to a lot of different colors, so there's a lot to play around with. Also, everything that I'm using in this video to make the home theater can be found in the description below, so you can check that out later. Moving along, we secured the beams to the trim using brad nails and painted it black as well to make it blend in with the wall. Next, we have this cork wall over here. It was used as a dart board before and it looked kind of funny with t

he miscolored cork panels, so it just had to go. We're going to apply a quick fix here and turn it into an accent wall using some slat wall panels by Andor Willow. I've used these types of panels in my desk setups, and this time I went with the walnut option. The slat panels look gorgeous right out of the box, and I think that the black backing pairs really well with the walnut for a bold look. Another reason why I like using these panels is because of how simple and quick it is to install them.

All I needed was to get the measurements for the height of my wall and then use my trusty circular saw to cut them to the right length. If you're doing this yourself, a circular saw is a lot safer and easier to use than a table saw, so this should be an easy DIY project for anyone to do. When installing these to the wall, we just put them right on top of the cork and the panels easily slide together for a perfect fit. So we just have to make sure that they're level to ensure that they'll look s

traight. To secure them to the wall, we used the brad nail again and put a few nails in each panel, and that was pretty much it. It only took around two hours to do all of this, and I really love the end result. The vertical slats really help the room look taller than it is, and it instantly adds a bit more elegance to the space. Again, to make it look even better, I played around with adding some lights on the bottom of slats, and man, that orange glow of the lights look so good on those panels

, it's definitely another wow moment here. For the next upgrade, we're gonna change the window blinds. Since the cabinets were right in front of the window, I needed an easier way to access the blinds, so we ended up replacing it with the smart motorized cellular shades from SmartWings. Now, these shades are custom made, as I had to give them the exact dimensions of my window. And the cool thing is that these shades are powered using this battery, so everything is wireless, and the battery is ju

st attached right behind it, so it's hidden. Each charge can last up to four to six months, so that's pretty good. To install it, all I had to do was to drill in the three clips to the top of my window, and then I just simply pushed the shades into it to secure it. To make the shades go up and down, you can control it with a remote or pair it with Alexa for home automations. But man, seeing this in action is actually really cool. I haven't been excited about a window blind since, like, ever. So

I chose to get the light gray color and the light filtering option instead of the blackout option because this room is already pretty dark, so I would still like to get some natural lighting to come through during the day when the blinds are down. Now that this side of the room is looking nice and modern, the last thing that we have to tackle is this huge wall that's made of wood. These wooden panels actually look kind of cool, but I'm not a huge fan of these black knots on them, so to improve i

t, I could paint over the entire thing, or even take them out entirely and put in a normal wall. However, that would be a lot of work. There is something in these wooden panels that make the room feel warm and cozy, so for now, I'm just gonna keep it simple and add some furniture to tie in this section of the room. The main goal for the space is to make it more modern and cozy, so after a lot of research and browsing around, I decided to get the furniture from Article. We chose to get quite a fe

w products to deck out the space, and since the setup is in the basement, we had to unbox everything and move it down there. I couldn't have done this by myself, so I'm super glad I got my friend to help out. Everything was quite simple to put together, and after playing around with the positioning and using it for a while, this is the configuration that we ended up with. (smooth upbeat music) So for the furniture, we wanted something that's high quality, designed to last, and most importantly,

it must be very comfortable as I'll spend a lot of time here. When choosing the sofa, we went with the gorgeous Sven Charme Tan Sofa from Article. The seat cushions are just so comfy and the leather is so smooth and soft to the touch. We also paired it with the ottoman from the same Sven collection to really kick back on it. The ottoman is just as comfortable as the sofa, and it feels like my feet are held up by clouds. And this quickly became my favorite spot to sit in. Next, we needed a table

that said we've upgraded from IKEA to elegant, so we added the Vena Walnut Rectangular Coffee Table. The table has a white glossy marble top paired with solid wooden legs, so I love how it matches the cabinets and it's just big enough to fit in nicely in the setup. Moving along, I needed more seats to host more people for board games and parties. However, I didn't want to add another sofa, so we ended up getting the Sven Charme Tan Chaise Lounge instead. This is like a day bed and it's super com

fortable as well, so it's nice to be able to just lie down here and take a little break during the day, or when my wife kicks me out of the bedroom for the night, which I'm happy to do now, but, I mean, that never happens. Anyways, over in this corner, we added the Roscoe Walnut Tall Bookcase to help the white wall and the wooden panels blend in together better. It looks quite industrious and classy with the walnut frame and the steel shelves, and it's perfect for storing our board games, books,

and some decorative pieces to add some personality to the room. And lastly, by the couch, I added the Neat Filing Cabinet by Ergonofis. The solid walnut panels match the rest of the setup very nicely, and it's very handy to use it as storage, as it keeps all the remotes and controllers I use at arms reach for quick access. Overall, I really love the aesthetic of the setup. The sofa easily became the focal point, making the entire space feel more friendly, cozy, and inviting, but also keeping it

very simple and modern at the same time. Now, we're gonna talk about smart home automations, and this might be the coolest part. The Sennheiser Soundboard Plus actually has Alexa built inside, so I can control all the lights in my room. So if I say, "Alexa, hello there," it will turn on all the lights. Doesn't light make such a huge difference? Next, I wanna show you the other automation I created. When I say, "Alexa, activate home theater," a few things would happen here. The lights will dim,

the screen will come up, and the blinds behind it will close. It's all happening at the same time, so I thought this was like one of the coolest things. And lastly, I put ambient lighting all around the room. They're all lights from Govee, so they're all connected together wirelessly, making it super easy to change the entire color scheme of the room. This feature is particularly impressive because it really allows me to perfect the mood for any occasion. Whether I want a calm and relaxing atmos

phere or a vibrant and energetic one, I can achieve it with just a few taps on my phone. So with all these useful automations, I really only use these three controllers. I use the Sennheiser one quite a bit. It has shortcuts to quickly enable night mode or voice enhancement mode, and I can also switch between six different sound profiles depending on what I'm doing. When my friends are over, I love playing music in the background while we hang out. It's very easy to use Spotify and stream the mu

sic over to the Soundbar Plus, so I love how it can also take a backseat and function as a background speaker to really change the mood of the space. Again, the Soundbar Plus sounds amazing. The highs and mids are so clear and crisp, and that bass was so powerful and deep that my friends couldn't stop talking about it. I think that upgrading the audio system really took our gaming and movie watching experiences to a whole new level. It was as if we were really there in the game or movie, experie

ncing every sound as it was happening right in front of us. I couldn't believe how much upgrading the audio had enhanced our overall experience, and I can't imagine going back to anything else now. So big thanks to Sennheiser for sponsoring this video and making the home theater transformation possible. I'm super happy with how everything turned out. It's one thing to have nice tech to enjoy, but there is something special to be able to share it with your friends in a warm and relaxing environme

nt. It creates a sense of bonding and togetherness that is hard to replicate in any other way, and I can't wait to see what new memories we'll make in our new space. So guys, if you like the design of this makeover, the color scheme and everything is actually modeled after my desk setup. I think you'll like watching that as well. I'll put the video link in the description below. And I know you're still watching this video 'cause you're seeing this right now, so thank you so much for supporting m

y videos and watching till the end. Make sure you drop a fire emoji in the comments below to let me know that you watched up till this point. And if you have any questions about the setup, please comment below. I'd love to help you guys out. And that's it for now, guys. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the very next video. Bye. (smooth upbeat music) So that's the end of the video. That's the end of the video.