If you love movies and have a mediocre-sized spare room in your home, what can be the best way to use it than by turning it into a fabulous home theater? A personal home theater isn’t just for studio heads and billionaire mansions these days, but something you too can have in your home with just a little bit of extra space and money. 

Contrary to popular belief, installing a home theater isn’t going to cost you an arm and a leg. Although there are differences between a multi-million-dollar home theater proposal and the one that you can have in your home for reasonable means, they are both great ideas for enjoying some good movies by yourself and with your family. 

For a home theater, you need a good plan; if you know where to start and if you start with the right plan, you can have a home theater for your family within reasonable means and a short time. Here are the steps you need to follow for making a home theater: 

  1. If you want a professional-looking home theater – the kind you see in movies and in the homes of stars – it is better to call in the experts. There are professional companies who can install everything you need in your home theater, including the appropriate lighting, the right seats for your family. Just let them know your particular style of choice, and the professionals are going to keep your preferences in mind while designing the room. 

However, professional help is going to be expensive. In you don’t have an unlimited budget, home theaters can be created in your extra space by anyone. 

  1. For your home theater, it is important that you find the right room in your house. If you have options, the ideal room for a home theater needs to be at least 15 feet long and 10 feet wide. Instead of a square shaped room, a rectangular room works better for a home theater, as you can place more chairs in it for your friends. However, if you have a typically smaller family room, you can still use it as a home theater. 
  1. This should be a room with a wall that has no windows or doors. With a wall like that, you can use it to put up the largest television or screen that you can afford. Everything else in the room will be decided on the size of your screen, including your seats and other furniture. 
  1. The room for your home theater should also be a room with relatively higher ceilings. This helps to put the speakers high enough so that you get the right sound waves for every kind of movie that you watch. This is why rectangular home theaters are the perfect size for getting the right acoustics and sound. 
  2. Movie theaters are usually sound proof, so that you are not disturbed by any external noise while you are engrossed in a movie. Home theaters, ideally, should also be sound proof; it is harder to achieve in a home, but not impossible. 

If you are serious about soundproofing your home theater, it is easier to set up the whole thing in your basement. Basements are easier to soundproof than any other rooms in the house. You just need to make sure there’s no windows that are open in the basement, and that the doors close completely and doesn’t have any cracks on them. 

  1. Irrelevant of how many you put in your home theaters, the seats need to be comfortable. There’s nothing worse than watching movies in uncomfortable and rigid chairs, so the seats need some special attention. If this is a room for just your family members, a large and wide couch can be enough. However, if you are thinking of inviting your friends over, they would probably prefer their own seats. 

Any kind of seats work in a home theater, as long as they are comfortable and wide. Leather sofas, family-sized couches, wicker chairs – anything that works with the rest of the décor of your room is probably fine in the home theater. 

  1. Lighting in home theaters are usually hidden and subtle. Bright lights aren’t necessary in a home theater; even if they are in the room, most lights are kept off when you are watching a movie. If you use the same room for reading, working or some other activities, you might require some lamps or spot lights. However, when a room is used exclusively used as a home theater, you won’t need more than a few hidden lights scattered around the room. 
  1. You can use both a massive television or a projector screen for your home theater, but they should ideally be attached to the wall and take up almost the whole wall. Also, it is important that everything else the television needs to operate – cables, switch boards, Wi Fi routers, etc. – are hidden away from view. If it’s not possible to hide them behind the television, these extra devices and wires can at least be hidden inside a cupboard or a cabinet. 
  1. Preferably, nothing in the home theater room should be reflective or shiny. This includes lights that are directly opposite the screen, mirrors, transparent and open windows, or even shiny door knobs and handles. Even the walls should be dark toned or matte-colored, as well as the countertops, hinges and decorative light fixtures.  
  1. If you are planning on more than one seating arrangements in the room, especially if the seats are in a row just like in a movie theater, the seats at the back should be placed in a higher area than the ones in the front. Ideally, this is done by making the room slanted, or by adding steps towards the back. However, if this is not possible in a private home, the seats can be bought accordingly so that some of them are higher and taller than the others. This way, the people sitting at the back will get just as good viewing as the people in the front. 
  1. The size of the television or the screen depends on how big your room is, i.e. how far the seats can be spread. If you have a relatively smaller room, you cannot put in a massive television or screen without putting too much strain on your eyes. 

This is why rectangular rooms are preferable for home theaters instead of square-shaped rooms. With rectangular rooms, you can put up a comfortable distance between your screen and your seating arrangement. 

  1. If you are using a projector screen, suspend the projector from the ceiling instead of keeping in on a flat surface in the middle of the room. This way, you won’t be taking up much-needed space in the room, and the angle of the projector would give you a better viewing experience. 
  1. A great way to balance the sound ambience is to place a wall-to-wall carpeting on the floor. If you are allergic or don’t like the idea of carpets, you can also add heavy curtains to the room or wrap the walls with draperies or soft materials. These kind of fabrics and materials absorb sound better than bare walls or floors, and significantly reduces audio-bounce. 
  1. If you already have a medium-sized television in your home theater room, you can enhance your viewing experience by adding another massive projector screen to the room. Projector screens can be tucked away when you are not watching movies or the game, and brought down when you are. They are usually hidden away from plain sight unless you want to use them, so they are never a nuisance. Most projector screens need to be manually raised and lowered, but you can also invest in an automatic one. 
  1. Finally, it is very important that you do not crowd your home theater room, especially the area around the screen. The area around your screen needs to be as simple and empty as possible, instead of filled with souvenirs, curios, photographs or painting. If you want to decorate the room, do so on the other walls but not around the screen for the best viewing experience. 

Only a few years ago, home theaters were something you could only see in the homes of movie stars, billionaires or industrialists. However, everyone can afford their own rooms for watching movies or just plain old television now. Most of us already own quite large television sets that we enjoy movies, news or sports on; but if your house has a spare room, it can be easily turned into a home theater for our family and friends. In fact, if you are an avid movie lover, this is definitely something you should do.