Show Us Yours: A Missouri family built a basement theater out of cast-off furniture, Cragslist finds and a salvaged drop ceiling, and the result is impressive.
This is Cody with his family. They're from a town in southwest Missouri. They wanted to share their "modest" home theater setup, created in a raw basement space with very little money.
It includes freebies from friends, finds on Cragslist, Pinterest and Facebook Marketplace and even a ceiling rescued from a miniature golf establishment.
This is the basement. Like we said, it's raw.
With the walls in, slightly more cooked.
And the floor shined up.
The back of the room, still pretty raw.
This was the temporary setup.
Cody's friend from work got married and didn't have room for his poker table, so he let Cody have it if he'd invite him to all future card games.
They used the theater like this for a while.
"I knew I wanted a drop ceiling and I waited for someone to list the materials for sale online."
As fate would have it, an indoor putt-putt place nearby decided to take out its ceiling. Cody was lucky in that they carefully disassembled the grid and tiles.
He scored 2,000 sq. ft. (enough to do this side and the other half of the basement) for 300 bucks!
"Good things come to those who wait," he says.
Some of the guitars that he's acquired through the years make nice wall decoration.
"The first one was signed by all the guests at our wedding instead of the traditional guest book," he says.
"I found four bar stools on Facebook marketplace for $50," says Cody. "I decided to apply a glossy wax to give the concrete a sharp look."
Cody says: "The place is taking shape. The ceiling is complete and found a wine cooler to put in the bar. Go Chiefs!"
"The projector we chose is a ViewSonic PJD5255. Great projector and great value. It is shooting at 110 inches."
Cody was given a small LCD TV from his grandfather's den that he hung above the bar.
He says: "I built a shelf out of an old pallet (wife saw it on Pinterest.) My grandpa passed away at the end of 2016. The black shelf is a tribute to him. While cleaning out his garage, I found old beer tin cans and an old Pabst beer tray. I found the Sky mirror leaning on a dumpster near my house."
They now have an area for nights full of card games.
Cody says he wanted decent-sounding surround sound without breaking the bank.
"I'm a reviews guy and for my price point Polk audio seemed to be the way to go," he says.
His boys saved up their money and pooled it to buy an Xbox One.
The surround speakers are the Polk T15 bookshelf speakers.
The center channel is a Polk T30.
The receiver is an Onkyo TX-SR373.
"I'm very pleased with the power it produces for our setup," Cody says. "The Bluetooth capability is a nice addition to listen to music playing games."
The subwoofer is also Polk. It's the PSW10. The left and right fronts are a set of old tower speakers that Cody got from his father-in-law.
Cody reports: "I found a bass drum and Tom at a yard sale on my way home one day. I thought for $5 it would be great decor."
Most of the other wall art is from paint-and-sip joints (where you paint while you have drinks) that Cody says his wife "drags me to." He prefers sipping to painting.
"As an added bonus, I built a bookshelf in a door opening and then put a piano hinge on one side," he says. "I then trimmed it out to make a secret door. Shhhh."
The view from the back of the room.
The view from the front near the screen.
Home theater chairs, in Chiefs red, natch.
The screen up close.
The chairs from another angle.
We'll leave it with the family cat, who enjoys coming downstairs to cheer for the Lions.
And that's a wrap on this DIY home theater. If you want to see more Show Us Yours showcases, we have plenty more here.
And if you want to submit your own home-theater photos, go here. We'll gladly take a look at what you've got, whatever it is.