After a couple of international moves in the last few years we’ve become somewhat minimalist. Condensing our “entertainment center” to a projector was a huge step in that direction.
Usually for Christmases and birthdays Eric and I decide on one gift that we want for the family to enjoy. So, for a little less than $400 we gave ourselves a movie theater… in our living room.
First, a look at what we were upgrading FROM…. no I’m not kidding:
Needless to say it was heavy, and took up a lot of space in the living room since we needed a dresser to place it on. We decided on a projector since it can be mounted on the ceiling so it takes up no space, the screen can be HUGE and is a fraction of the cost of its flat screen counterpart.
So we dove in! Here is Eric’s tutorial on what we did:
I ordered this projector, this ceiling mount, and an audio switch selector (also called an RCA splitter). We wanted to connect the computer, our Nintendo Wii, the DVD player, and the Digital TV antenna (yes, we still have old school bunny ears instead of cable). By the way, we get over 100 channels. For free. Suck on THAT cable company! I mounted the projector and ran a 25ft cable from the screen output in the computer to the HDMI port in the projector. Then I ran all of the RCA jacks to the RCA splitter so I only had to connect one cable running from the splitter to the projector. I then ran it all through our old hand me down surround sound system. Presto! We have an AWESOME home theater! It really helped that we had a perfect spot in our living room with the couch facing a big blank wall. I did some research and found out that the best color for a projector wall is light grey. So I painted the wall with a VERY light grey (it always turns out darker when you put it on the wall) and it all works perfectly. We can watch anything from Youtube videos to DVD’s and after purchasing this wireless Wii sensor, we can play the Wii on the big screen. It’s for the kids of course. (wink)
Here’s what the size of the “screen” looks like (with Eric standing in the way for size reference)
Getting rid of the dresser in the way also means we now have space to dance with the kids and do yoga! That might sound airy fairy but we actually do it. I should have incorporated that in the 8 ways to play with your kids...
Date nights are cheaper, more comfortable and dog are allowed in this theater as well!
If you go out to a movie once a week and the tickets are $15 each, that’s $30 a week. In just a little over 3 months that’s $400. Boom!
What are you going to spend the rest of the year’s movie budget ($1260) on? What about next year’s movie budget?
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my friend had one and she hated it! it was her husbands. she found the picture much dimmer than a regular tv, and there were times of the day she couldn’t even see the picture because the room was too bright. i’ve watched hers and you do lose a lot of crispness and color as opposed to an lcd or plasma, a moderate size of which can be purchased for about the same price these days. but as for everything, it’s whatever works best individually, but i would see what it looks like in person before buying it. i’ll stick with my 32″ lcd, but i’m glad you love it!
What really helps is painting the wall a light grey color. 🙂
OMGosh…LOVE this! My kids would love it to! Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Yay! Glad you like Kristine!
Great post! Sharing with husband…
Thank you Ann Marie!