Tips for Building the Perfect Home Movie Theater Room

Make Your Movie Room a Dedicated Space

A dedicated home movie room is a space solely dedicated to watching videos on a big screen. This means that little else happens in that home movie room except for screening-related activities. And today, screening means far more than it ever did, with streaming services like Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Hulu in addition to Blu-ray movies, video gaming, and conventional cable TV.

When the home movie room shares space with other activities, the cinematic experience is lessened. When the non-dedicated home theater shares open floor plan space with the kitchen, cooking sounds and smells invade. When the movie room is the living room, other people may interfere and light is difficult to control.

Control Ambient Light

Ambient light is unwanted light. Ambient light means light from sources outside of the movie room, like light coming from windows, under and around doors, and from artificial light within the room.

With most home remodeling, you're always trying to add more natural light. Home movie rooms are spaces where you want to do the exact opposite. You want less light, not more.

Light-bleed kills video projection images. Even flat screens, which are far brighter, benefit from lower room lighting.

On the video projector side, you will need a projector with a high lumens rating if you have some ambient light that you cannot control. But the best way to deal with ambient light is simply to stop it before it starts, by choosing a space that already has little light, such as a basement. If you cannot do this, limit the light with light-blocking curtains and shades.

Control Ambient Sound

Ambient sound is the unwanted sound coming from outside of your home movie room. Even if you do manage to find a dedicated space for your home theater, sounds from outside of that space often ruin the viewing experience.

The dishwasher, clothes washers and dryers, people in other rooms, kitchen noises, plumbing noises, and sounds from outside the house are just a few examples of ambient sounds that can crash in and destroy your home theater's audio.

Establishing a dedicated space is the first step to controlling outside noise. But you do need to take it a few steps beyond that:

• Soundproof your room by adding a second layer of drywall or replacing it with special sound-reducing foam or wallboard like QuietRock.
• Replace your hollow-core doors with solid doors.
• Put up thicker curtains that both block light and absorb sound.
• Seal cracks with caulk.

Build a Proper A/V Component Rack

The audio-visual component rack, or A/V rack, is the central point for your source components. Consider the A/V rack to be the central brain that controls all entertainment-related activities in the movie room.

Source components such as a Blu-ray player, cable box, network media streaming box (like Roku), and home theater tuner will operate from here.

The A/V rack (or stack) must be located near an electric outlet and you should be able to bring in an Ethernet source wire for a reliable, unbroken connection. It may not be best to put the A/V rack components on a GFCI outlet unless required by electrical code.

Properly Ventilate A/V Rack

The A/V component rack should be well-ventilated​ since components create heat and can be damaged if the heat build-up is excessive.

Metal A/V racks are available for purchase that are open-air in front and back. You can build your own A/V rack, as well.

The rack needs to be sturdy enough to hold the electronics. It also should be open in front, back, and even the sides, if possible. Use a metal grid as a platform for the electronic devices to promote ventilation.

Make the Movie Room Look Like a Cinema

What is your vision of a home movie room? For some homeowners, it's the classic movie theater with red velvet walls, sconce lights, tiered seating, and a popcorn maker.

Older commercial theaters have sloped floors and contemporary ones have elaborate, steeply tiered seating. 

Home cinema seat tiering is relatively simple to build with a framework of joists of 2x6 or 2x8 boards set on edge. Three-quarter inch interior grade plywood forms the top, and carpeting goes on top of the plywood.

Plan a Robust, Flexible Lighting System

Cinema light control means the ability to turn lights on and off or to graduate that light within the cinema space. 

Soffits, rope lights, dimmers, and recessed lights form the backbone of many owner-built home movie rooms. Soffits are long trays near the ceiling that run around the room's perimeter and are often inlaid with rope lights.

Small recessed lights may be added to the bottoms of the soffits or in the ceiling to shine downward to form the classic home theater look. Keep the majority of these lights behind the viewer to avoid degrading the viewing experience.

Limit Reflective Objects

Anything that isn't the screen itself and which reflects light back at the viewer should be minimized or avoided.

This means that your paint should be kept to flatter sheens, preferably matte or flat. Shiny doorknobs, hinges, light fixtures, recessed light trim kits, countertops, heating registers, and fireplace inserts should all be avoided in the crucial zone between the screen and the viewer.

If you do have reflective objects, consider reducing their shininess by spray-painting them with dark-colored matte paint. With outlet and light switch wall covers, lightly sand them with fine-grit sandpaper to reduce the glossiness, then clean them off well. Follow with two light coats of matte spray paint.

An even easier idea is to sand the wall covers and not paint them. Sanding removes the visually troublesome gloss.

Plan for Proper Viewing and Seating

No one in the movie room should have their view of the screen blocked or be too close or too far away. Tiered seating is a true luxury and one that can only be accomplished in a dedicated cinema space. The problem of blockage is solved by raising rear seats on a platform. Even a modest 6-inch boost can be enough to clear the sight lines.

Distance from the screen is determined by room size in conjunction with the size of the picture you want to display. For flat-screen TVs, your small converted bedroom space might be able to accommodate up to a 55-inch screen before the closest row of viewers begins to feel overwhelmed.

Seating does not need to be specialty home theater seats costing thousands. Any comfortable seat that faces forward, without a high back to obstruct viewers behind you, will do the job.

Control Sound Within the Home Movie Room

Home theater audio bounces around the walls, ceiling, and flooring. Limiting that bounce is key to achieving the perfect home movie room sound.

• Even if wall-to-wall carpeting isn't your thing, you'll love it for your home theater since it reduces audio-bounce.
• Draperies and other soft materials can be installed on the walls.
• Soft, cushiony seating absorbs sound better than furniture with hard elements.
• Picture frames with glass bounce back sound. Consider framing those pictures and posters without glass.

Plan for the Flow of Signals

Your entertainment experience depends on the flow of data. This data is carried by wires and through the air.

The days of the entirely self-contained home theater are gone. You may retain your Blu-ray player to show discs.

Still, more and more entertainment is delivered ​through hard-wired connections and Wi-Fi signals. Wires need to be hidden as much as possible. Wires that extend to the front and sides of the home movie room can be hidden in the soffits. Some home theater audio systems throw signals to the speakers wirelessly.

Add a Drop-Down Movie Screen

If you have a video projector, one perk is that you can tuck the screen away when you are finished watching your show. Flatscreen TVs, on the other hand, cannot be hidden away.

Movie screens can be manually lowered and raised. Or you can invest in an electric movie screen that lowers and raises at the touch of a button.

Keep Your Home Movie Room Simple

Avoid the temptation to load up your home movie room with curios and tchotchkes near the screen. You may have purchased those movie posters at auction and want to display them, but they are only a distraction when they are mounted near the screen.

Where can you display your vintage movie posters? In the back of the movie room, where they aren't visual distractions.

Suspend the Projector

To protect your expensive video projector purchase, suspend it from the ceiling rather than placing it on a flat surface. Generic suspension kits are available that attach to most video projectors.

Projector suspension mounts have gimbals that allow you to tilt the projector to perfectly fit the image on the screen.

Use a Dark Paint for Walls and Ceiling

Home movie room lighting can be controlled by using dark-colored paint for the walls.

Home movie rooms even benefit from darker ceilings near the screen. White is usually the color recommended for ceilings because it reflects maximum light. But with home movie rooms, light reflection is not desirable. So, consider toning down the color of the ceiling with a gray or another neutral paint color.

Close Up Windows

Consider closing up windows. Transforming a window into a wall is the ultimate way to block light and sound transmission from the exterior.

Your room may have certain egress requirements that prevent you from closing up all of the windows in the room. Check with your local permitting department.