Home Theatre Design Basics Before You Start Building

There’s nothing like buying fresh movie concessions and sitting down to enjoy an awesome flick with your family. What if we told you that you can bring that experience into your home without the overpriced …

soundproof home theater in home cellar

There’s nothing like buying fresh movie concessions and sitting down to enjoy an awesome flick with your family. What if we told you that you can bring that experience into your home without the overpriced popcorn and sodas? If you have the dedicated space, it’s not too hard to build your own theatre.

Picking out a room to put your theater in is only the first hurdle that you have to overcome. You also have to buy your equipment and find a way to block outside light and sound. Yeah, there’s a lot that goes into home theatre design.

We can help you decide on your setup. Check out this guide to learn what goes into building your very own cinema.

Choosing a Room

The first step in your home theatre design plans should be to choose a room to set it up in. It should be a dedicated space where nothing else happens besides watching videos.

For example, the living room would be a bad choice for a few reasons. For one, it would be easy for anyone to come into the room and break the magic. For two, you might have to deal with a little too much natural light.

As far as room shape goes, rectangles work best. Square rooms tend to give off some noise distortions. The room also needs to be large enough for you to put some distance between the screen and the theatre seats.

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Ambient Light and Sound

When it comes to home theatre design standards, the less light, the better. Ideally, you should choose a room with very few windows, such as the basement.

If you don’t have a room like that in your home, you’ll have to invest in plenty of blackout curtains. Otherwise, you’ll have to deal with frustrating screen distortions.

Ambient light isn’t the only thing that you have to worry about. Sound is another issue that you’ve got to tackle. If you don’t take steps to soundproof your room, you’ll have to deal with a ton of noise echoing in and ruining your experience.

One of the easiest ways to drown the excess sound out is by installing an extra layer of drywall in your home theater room. You can also use a wallboard.

A solid wood door will do wonders for keeping noise at bay, and you can put up thicker curtains over your windows. This should be enough to keep things quiet.

Screen Size and Distance

The screen is the bread and butter of any great home theater setup. It’s for this reason why many homeowners like to go as large as possible. While that sounds good theory, it’s less pleasant in practice.

You don’t want to crane your neck to look at the screen or move your head side to side to see everything that’s going on. To this end, you have to pay attention to your viewing angle and distance.

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This will determine what sized screen you should get. For example, if your theater seats are a little over 7 feet away, a 60-inch screen will work best.

Put it at about a 30-degree angle, and you’ll be all set to have the most comfortable viewing experience imaginable.

Build an A/V Rack

Your A/V rack is the brain of your modern theatre design system. It’s where you put your cable box, Roku box, BlueRay player, and other electronic components.

As you can imagine, all of these cables and boxes let off quite a bit of heat. If your rack isn’t well ventilated, all this heat will damage the components.

Opt for a metal rack that’s open in the back and front. If you can swing it, having open sides wouldn’t hurt either.

Seating

Everyone dreams of having legit theater seats. They are nice to have, but they aren’t a necessity. Any comfortable seating will do. If you decide to take the tier design approach, you will need to make sure those seats don’t have a high back.

You’ll obstruct someone’s view if the seats are too high up. You’ve also got to figure out the best fabrics to use. All luxury fabrics come with their own special care instructions and comfort levels.

Suspend Your Projector

Projectors aren’t cheap. The last thing you want to do is place it on an end table in your theatre room. All it will take is bumping that table slightly to send your expensive device spirling to the ground.

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Depending on how high up it is, this can be a fatal fall. That’s why many homeowners elect to suspend their projectors from the ceiling. We suggest that you do the same.

Use Dark Paint

In many rooms, using white paint can reflect light around the room and make it look larger. You don’t want to have this effect in your home theatre.

Again, you want to have as little light as possible. You’ll be much better off painting the entire room black. It will keep light to a minimum and increase your immersion.

Home Theatre Design Tips to Live By

Do you and your family love going to the movies? You can’t beat the experience, but those concession prices really rack up. That’s why you should consider coming up with your home theatre design.

You’ll be able to bring everything you love about going to the movies right into your own home without dealing with all the annoying lines.

Installing a theatre isn’t the only improvement that you can make to your home’s interior. Check out our blog daily for a full list of projects you can take on.