Building a home

[Asher]

Yes, it's yellow birch.

[DanS]

Your hardwood floors look ugly, why aren't the planks colour matched?

Having the colors matched is called "select" and would cost more. In the US and Canada (apparently) having mismatched woods is perfectly acceptable nowadays. I'm about to put select ash wood in my apartment for a more modern look, but a slightly more rustic look doesn't need it.

As always, you must suit your own tastes.

[Asher]

For the Great Room (across from the nook/kitchen), just placed an order for this 55" bad boy:


I also ordered a wallmount to go with it. To go above the fireplace.

[Hauldren Collider]

What model is that?

Is the Bonus Room where you will have your home theater setup?

[Asher]

Yeah, the Bonus Room will have the home theatre. That room is already wired for surround sound through the walls.

It's a Samsung UN55D7000.

It's going to look like a piece of art when it's wall-mounted.

[Hauldren Collider]

They also say 'yinz' over there as an improper pluralization of the pronoun you... like instead of yall or youse, they say yinz.

Bunch of weirdos if you ask me.

Just started re-reading this thread from the beginning, found this gem.

I've been in Pittsburgh for months now and not a single person has said this ever.

Yeah, the Bonus Room will have the home theatre. That room is already wired for surround sound through the walls.

It's a Samsung UN55D7000.

It's going to look like a piece of art when it's wall-mounted.

Yep, awesome

I actually wired my bedroom at home for 5.1 sound...you can actually slip a wire between the carpet and the wall so no one will see it. Easy way of wiring up a room after the fact. Not as good as having it actually run through the wall of course.

[self biased]

I might take a picture of our natural hardwood floor tomorrow. It's rather old, but the planks are all more or less of the same tone. Your floor must be yellow birch; common birch or paper birch do not have such a marked difference between heartwood and sapwood; even unstained.

my floors are mahogany.

[Asher]

Was out doing the last bit of TV/electronics buying for the new place. Stopped by Soundsaround (an electronics store around here). Some really, really pushy salesman came over and tried to push me to some high-end Plasma instead of the 55" LED I was looking at. He "wanted to show me something", I told him I knew what I wanted and I was okay. He persisted. Again and again. He asked me if I knew what the difference between Plasma and LED/LCD was, and I responded "Yes." Because I do know.

He responded with: "Really?"

After a pause, I replied "Uh, yeah. Thanks, I don't need any help."

He walked over to another shelf and sorta yelled towards me, since I wouldn't come with him. He indicated one TV (which was a cheap LCD) was a "high end LED" while the other TV (which was a pricey Panasonic Plasma) was a "low end Plasma", and he invited me to look at the difference in contrast.

"Yes, Plasmas have better contrasts." I then told him about other features of Plasmas vs LCDs, down to sub-pixel construction, screen material and reflectiveness, power & heat use, and longevity. I also told him it was very clear to me that the brightness of the LCD was cranked up unreasonably high, probably for the sake of this very demonstration.

He ended up walking away with a somewhat sarcastic smile, saying something like "Ah, well good. Seems like you are okay."

Pretty sure I knew far more about the products than he did. I think he was a high-school drop-out.

pwn3d.

[Hauldren Collider]

You know, I've never actually had a problem with pushy salespeople before. I go in, ask if they have what I want, and they either say yes or no. Maybe it's just you pushy Albertans or something

Of course, I don't buy really expensive things...

[Asher]

It's not a problem until you get older. They don't target younger people because they assume you don't have money.

Once you start considering expensive items they jump all over you.

[Asher]

I ended up going to another store across the street and met the manager right away. I gave him the spec sheets for the two TVs, wall-mounts, and soundbar I wanted and told him I wanted his best price on all of them because I'm shopping around today.

He asked if I was just joking around, or if I was really going to buy all of that today...I insisted I was going to.

He went to the computer and showed me the invoice cost of all of the stuff I wanted. He said he'd give me cost + 5% on everything, no questions asked. The prices he gave me were awesome -- I got a slightly higher end 55" TV shown above (UN55D7900) than what I was looking for (the 7000 originally), and he gave it to me at a price a couple hundred bucks lower than I've ever seen advertised for the base model. He also gave me $100 off their sale price for the soundbar (which was already $200 cheaper than anywhere else I could find), he gave me a higher end model of the 46" TV I wanted for $200 less than the lowest sales price I saw elsewhere also. Then he threw in a free mounting bracket for the soundbar, $100 total for BOTH services wall-mounting and setting up the soundbar, and free calibration 3 months after possession (to permit some break-in).

I also mentioned I paid $3200 for the 70" 240Hz Sharp. He told me he'd give it to me for $2800. So I cancelled my original order and got the same TV for $400 less through him (this is $1200 under MSRP).

I was out of there in 30 minutes spending way under my budget with higher end gear than I went looking for. Extremely happy.

So, the final electronics haul:

Bonus Room TV:
Sharp 70" LED LC70LE734U


Bonus Room Speakers:
Definitive Technology ProCinema 800:




Great Room TV:
Samsung 55" LED UN55D7900:


Great Room Speakers:
Polk Audio SurroundBar 6000 (3.1 system with virtual 5.1, wireless subwoofer, ultra slim):


Great Room Wallmount:
Sanus Tilting (up/down, left/right) wallmount, only extends 1.3" from wall:



Bedroom TV:
Samsung 46" LED UN46D6300:


Bedroom Wallmount:
Sanus Tilting (up/down, left/right) wallmount, only extends 1.3" from wall:

[Hauldren Collider]

No bedroom speaker system? I'd at least get a 2.1 instead of using built-in TV speakers.

Also, that's awesome. Buying them all at once is clearly the way to go.

[Hauldren Collider]

Also, are all of your TVs going to be plugged into some network media center?

[Asher]

We're going to go without the soundbar in the bedroom to try it out. It's not going to be used too much, so we're not overly concerned. Can always add one later. (FWIW, we got that 46" Samsung for the bedroom for only $899)

All of the places we're putting TVs have Cat-6 outlets (and the one on the bonus room has fibre, which is currently unterminated and in the wall). I have a Drobo which is a Samba/DLNA/UPNP server for content (and I've TBs of content, mostly HD). All of these new TVs have built in DLNA clients. I also have a Boxee Box I'll use in the bonus room, because it'll play 100% of all my content and I'm not sure the TVs can decode all of the formats.

For TV content itself, it's all hooked up to a Shaw Gateway system. There's one large 6-tuner HDTV box in the basement, then each TV gets a small terminal. All PVR content is recorded on the mother box (up to 6 shows at once), and can be accessed from any TV. We can start watching a show in the great room while we eat dinner, then pause it, go upstairs, and resume watching it from the bigger TV.

I put a lot of thought into the digital goodness of the house.

[MRT144]

Was out doing the last bit of TV/electronics buying for the new place. Stopped by Soundsaround (an electronics store around here). Some really, really pushy salesman came over and tried to push me to some high-end Plasma instead of the 55" LED I was looking at. He "wanted to show me something", I told him I knew what I wanted and I was okay. He persisted. Again and again. He asked me if I knew what the difference between Plasma and LED/LCD was, and I responded "Yes." Because I do know.

He responded with: "Really?"

After a pause, I replied "Uh, yeah. Thanks, I don't need any help."

He walked over to another shelf and sorta yelled towards me, since I wouldn't come with him. He indicated one TV (which was a cheap LCD) was a "high end LED" while the other TV (which was a pricey Panasonic Plasma) was a "low end Plasma", and he invited me to look at the difference in contrast.

"Yes, Plasmas have better contrasts." I then told him about other features of Plasmas vs LCDs, down to sub-pixel construction, screen material and reflectiveness, power & heat use, and longevity. I also told him it was very clear to me that the brightness of the LCD was cranked up unreasonably high, probably for the sake of this very demonstration.

He ended up walking away with a somewhat sarcastic smile, saying something like "Ah, well good. Seems like you are okay."

Pretty sure I knew far more about the products than he did. I think he was a high-school drop-out.

pwn3d.

Asher, not all high school dropouts are electronic stores hucksters (FD: I worked at guitar center in the pro audio dept when I was 21 and I am a high school drop out)