If you’ve always dreamed of owning your own home theater, actually designing one can be exciting but overwhelming. Creating a home theater is an investment in your future, and you want to design a theater space that lives up to all of your dreams. But how do you take your dreams from vision to reality? We’ve got some tips for home theater designers that will help you stay on track as you plan and build your dream space.
Focus Your Color Scheme
Your movie screen should be the most eye-catching element in your home theater design. A colorful home theater space can be fun, but too many different colors, or colors that are too bright, can detract from the experience. Try limiting your color palette to 2, 3 or 4 shades, and consider choosing black as the primary color. It’s a classic for a reason!
Choose a Guiding Aesthetic
Theaters have been around a long time, and they’ve endured through many artistic eras. Putting a name to your dream theater design scheme can help focus your vision and guide your design choice. Want to channel the early days of the film industry? You might be going for an Art Deco aesthetic vibe. Looking for more of a classic profile? Consider a Mid-Century Modern room design. Want a sleek, uncluttered space? You might want to channel some Minimalist inspiration. Once you have a design aesthetic in mind, you can mix and match flooring, seating, and lighting options to bring it to life. Remember that your room design can be eclectic–mixing and matching two different aesthetics can create a unique style all your own!
Define Your Priorities
Every home theater enthusiast has a different set of priorities for their space. For some of us, it’s all about the artistic experience. Sound quality, and screen size and quality might be at the top of our priority lists. For others, interacting with friends and family is the top consideration. Ambience, room lighting, and a comfortable space to socialize could be more important in this case. When you understand your own priorities regarding your home theater, you can decide which elements deserve the most investment, and which ones are less important to you.
Go For Rectangles, Not Squares
A good rule of thumb to follow is to use a rectangular space as the base for your home theater. Cubes don’t tend to work as well acoustically. Adding or removing walls can help to create a rectangular space, if necessary. Make sure your space includes a large wall for your screen: when it comes to home theater screens, bigger really is better.
Position Seats Comfortably
Be sure to position your screen so that viewers’ heads are tilted slightly up while watching movies. Many people find a 15 degree angle to be the most natural for long-term viewing. Before making any permanent decisions, try watching a few movies using different screen positions and see what feels the best for you. As a rule, your screen should be about twice as wide as the distance between the front-row seats and your screen.
Eliminate Reflective Distractions
The last thing you want while watching a good movie is a bright, distracting light in your face. Be sure to keep windows, mirrors, glass frames, and other reflective surfaces out of your viewing area if at all possible. What seems like a minor amount of reflection during the day can become much more significant once the lights are dimmed!
Control External Light and Sound
You probably want movie-watching in your home theater to be an immersive experience. Look for ways to block out external distractions as much as possible. What seems like a great space for your theater might turn out to be a mistake if it’s near a noisy area of your home. Consider what time of day you’ll be most likely to use your home theater, and what the light and noise levels are typically like at this time. Keeping the entrance to your home theater sound and light-controlled as much as possible will dramatically improve your movie nights.
Are you designing a home theater? Looking for the perfect seating, lighting, flooring, furniture and more to create your dream space? Home Theater Mart has everything you need to equip and personalize your space.