Create an exclusive family entertainment zone.

Given the hectic work schedules of modern days life and the recurring traffic jams during peak hours and on holidays, the trend of recreating the theatre experience at home with an exclusive entertainment zone is really catching on.

Keeping in mind the fact that you are making a significant investment in time and energy, doing your homework, and mapping out your project plan will certainly pay long-term dividends.

This, according to the home theatre design guide, will help to ensure you get what you want out of your home theatre and possible help to avoid some otherwise costly mistakes.

Start off by clearly identifying your personal objectives. For some enthusiasts, the design concept may translate into something that mimics as many aspects of a real movie theatre experience as possible. For others, this may mean partitioning a space in their home for casual television viewing and gaming.

As long as you know what the end game is, you’ll at least know where you’re headed.



 Analyse the space

Before determining your requirements, it’s helpful to first make a sketch of the space you’re working with. Additionally, you should spend some time looking at other home theatres for features that you would like to replicate. Many aspects of a home theatre planning and design are interdependent. For example, your choice of video equipment may affect the placement of your seating. The placement of your seating may affect the layout of other things in the room, such as speaker placement.


Plan it right

Make sure you devote plenty of time during the planning stages of the process to map out not only the location of your home theatre lighting, but what purpose it will serve and how it will be controlled. Ultimately, this can have downstream effects on what type of lighting you select to fill those needs, which will also impact your budget for the project.



 Design and layout

Deciding where to put components is just as important as which ones to buy. The home time website points out that many times there are features to a room that dictate where a home theatre can go. Built-in shelving, wall length, size and shape of the room, windows, etc. can eliminate an entire wall or half the room as placement possibilities.

Quite often, it is observed that the equipment itself dictates its location. For instance, larger screens will obviously require more distance from the viewing area.



 Take it forward


Those who have the space can create a custom-built screening room, with cinema-style chairs and high-grade sound equipment designed to mimic commercial theatre performance. Higher-end home theatres commonly also have sound insulation to prevent noise from escaping the room, and a specialized wall treatment to balance the sound within the room. These more advanced installations often include sophisticated acoustic design elements, including ‘room-in-a-room’ construction that isolates sound and provides the potential for a nearly ideal listening environment.