Whether you plan to retrofit or build a home theater room, you need to take into account many factors related to your project. And the truth is that there’s a lot involved when it comes to building a home movie theater room. The most important considerations? There are three. The space, the cost, and the human aspect. Should we take a closer look?
No 1 consideration, the home theater room space
Many home theater rooms are built from scratch. Some homeowners retrofit an existing room, which is empty or useless now, or take advantage of their basement to create a home movie theater room. There are several concerns in both cases.
Transforming a room to make it a home theater room
Say this is a retrofit job. For perfect sound isolation, you need to properly sound-proof the walls – the ceiling too. The room must be renovated to isolate all sounds coming from outside and the sound from the theater room going to the rest of the house. This takes quite some hard work, while you also need wall paneling to optimize the acoustics.
And although enhancing the acoustics and isolating the sound are the crucial things when transforming an existing room into a home theater room, there are other considerations too. For example, you need to eliminate the light coming from the windows. But for that, you can use dark home theater curtains. Perhaps, the initial step in retrofit projects is to find a room which can be used exclusively as a home theater. If not, it won’t be a home theater room.
Building a home theater room from scratch
Whether your home is being built right now and you decided to include a home theater room or you can have an addition, the location is a consideration. You need to have this room adjacent to the home for pure convenience but preferably in the most isolated part of the house to enhance the overall sound isolation.
Another important parameter to consider in terms of the space is the size and shape of the room. While this is a custom home theater, the room cannot be any size you want. Too small, it will be inconvenient. Too big, the sound won’t be good. The room must be big enough to fit a number of home theater chairs with comfort, while leaving ample space for traffic. The shape of the room is often rectangular for optimal acoustics, but the exact size (length & width) is calculated by taking into account the height.
No 2 consideration, the cost of building a home theater room
Let us be straight-forward here. To build a custom home theater room, you need to have a certain budget. Even the cheapest version costs a considerable amount of money. Whether this is a new home theater construction or retrofit, there’s a lot involved.
Have you ever thought of what’s involved apart from finding a home theater builder, apart from thinking this project through, apart from finding the location, and apart from planning the design? What’s also involved is the acoustical wall paneling and all techniques required for perfect sound in the room and complete sound isolation. And then, you need to get home theater loveseats, perhaps a bar, flooring, the media (screen, speakers, cables, etc.), and much more. All such things cost money.
No 3 consideration, the human aspect. Who will be watching movies?
You build a home theater to enjoy movies alone, with the family, with relatives and friends – maybe, with colleagues too. So, the human aspect shouldn’t be ignored on any level. Everything you choose, everything you decide has to do with the comfort of people – the home theater sofa, the traffic lanes, the acoustic – everything. And then, you may need to consider factors, like the presence of children or enough space for wheelchairs. Take, for example, the case of transforming the basement into a home theater room. But if a member of your family is in a wheelchair, they will never gain access to the room. It is such things that make such projects difficult but then again, it’s only a matter of good home theater planning. So, pay attention to that.
