When I was a little kid, I was watching TV, and I was truly impressed by a home theater from a TV show. In the TV show, this wealthy family was watching a movie on a huge screen at home.
I was fascinated by those cool recliner chairs, the lighting, and the massive screen at home. I didn’t even know that people could have such a thing in their house!
Since that moment, I have always dreamed of having a home theater once I become an adult.
I thought being an adult meant I could spend money on whatever I want. However, as we all know, life is not easy, and adults don’t have as much freedom as we imagined as a child.
Of course, my dream didn’t come true as quickly as I wanted because I had to build my career and pay bills first.
Then a few years ago, my husband Tony and I bought our very first house in Texas. The house was a little outdated, but we found potential for modern home improvements.
We especially liked the house because it had a perfect family room to set up a home theater in the future.
As a homebody, I love spending quality time at home with family and wanted to make our house a perfect place to live my desired lifestyle.
Over a few years, we slowly had house renovations and finally set up my dream home theater.
Keep reading this blog to get more information about how to set up a home theater and our home theater makeover story.
Table of Contents
6 Things You Should Know Before You Build A Home Theater
What Is A Home Teater?
In general, a home theater is a dedicated space to watch movies at home. The home theater can be set up with a screen, sound systems, comfortable seats, or a snack bar.
You can easily personalize your theater from a basic set up with a TV and front sound system to an advanced set up such as a big screen, projector, and 3D surrounding sound system.
The price can be varied but if you build one yourself, you can save a lot of money. My husband and I built most of our setup to save money and hired professionals for only the sound system.
3 Reasons Why You Need To Have A Home Theater
There are many reasons why I like to have a home theater.
1. A Home theater can be a great place to spend quality time with friends and family
2. A home theater can be a unique center piece and gives your home personality
3. You can choose any movies you want, whenever you want to
Does A Home Theater Increase House Value?
Yes, a home theater can increase house value.
A lot of people want to have a home theater but setting one up can be overwhelming so they might prefer a house that already has one.
One important thing is that you need to balance out the cost of the home theater and the house value. Let’s say you spend $20k for a movie room, this doesn’t always mean you directly added $20k on your house value.
Therefore, it’s very important to set a certain budget range if you are considering reselling your house in a few years.
Home Cinema Renovation Costs
Setting a budget is very important before you start your project. A home cinema renovation costs can be very affordable, like a couple of thousand dollars, or luxurious as a couple hundred thousand dollars.
If money is not your concern, you can easily hire professionals to install everything for you. However, if you are willing to put some work in, you can save a huge proportion of the total costs.
For example, I designed my movie room and ordered the best value products on the market, and my husband painted the walls and built a barn door, seat riser, and projector screen himself.
What Do You Need To Build A Home Theater?
In general, you need a designated space for a home theater, a movie screen, a projector, recliner seats, and sound systems.
Home Cinema Installation Process
1. Pick a place to install a home cinema.
2. Measure the room size and plan layout of the home cinema.
3. Build a riser for theater seats if you desire.
4. Order all the materials and electronics you need for your home theater.
5. Make the room dark: paint the room with a dark color, cover windows and entry with curtains.
6. Set up a sound system, projector screen, and a projector.
7. Set up theater seats and adjust the room.
8. Install a snack bar if you desire.
9. Test out the sound system and projector.
10. Enjoy your movie theater!
How To Build A Home Theater: Step By Step How We Built Our Home Cinema
Find The Right Space For a Home Theater
We picked the upstairs family room of our house for the home theater. The family room was shaped vertically, and measurements were perfect to install everything.
It depends on your desired layout of your home theater, but you need to make sure you have enough space between each row of recliners, and between the recliners and the screen.
Home Theater Lighting
There was a traditional fan light on the ceiling, and it was going to disrupt the projector. Then we removed the ceiling fan and installed a very flat LED light.
Recliners And Recliners Raiser (Home Theater Seatings)
We decided to set the seating area as a double row. We wanted to install a raiser for the second row.
I asked to my husband to build one. He bought woods and hardware at Home Depot and built it himself.
He measured the dimensions of the room and recliners then customize it. We had some leftover carpet from the previous owner, so we used it to cover the raiser. It turned our amazing!
Home Theater Curtains
There were huge windows in our family room. Installing curtains wasn’t enough to block all the light.
Therefore, I attached blackout velcro linen covers directly to the window that are easily removable. On top of the cover, I purchased dark blackout curtains to cover the window.
Using double layers of curtains was a great choice and they completely blocked all the sun light.
Barn Door
Originally, the family room didn’t have a door at the entry. Sunlight from the other side of the house came right through the entry. I couldn’t make the room completely dark without covering the entrance.
Therefore, we decided to install a barn door, and I asked my husband to build one instead of purchasing one. He customized the size of the door and built one from scratch.
He stained the door with dark color and installed it with hardware that we purchased from Amazon. It turned out super professional, and we got a lot of complements.
Sound System
My husband really wanted a Dolby Atmos sound system which is high quality 3D sound system just like commercial movie theaters.
He wanted to hire professionals to install the sound system because it required a lot of work in attic for wiring and cutting holes for speakers.
Therefore, we hired professionals for the installation. The quality of the sound system is amazing, and we were 100% satisfied with the result.
However, most of our budget went to the sound system installation. If we ever install it again in the future, we would like to do it ourselves to save money.
There are a lot of valuable information online and you can definitely do it yourself.
Projector Screen
Since we spent a lot of money on hiring professionals for the sound system, we decided to hang a screen up on the wall by ourselves. We purchased a 120-inch screen from Amazon, and it turned out amazing.
We were able to save more than 50% of the price from the professional installer.
Projector
There weren’t many 4K projector options on the market at the time. The good quality ones were way out of our budget like $10K and we didn’t want to spend that much on a projector.
Then we found a decent 4K Epson projector and we absolutely loved the quality.
Home Theater Furniture: Modern Media Station
I wanted to get a minimalistic and dark media station under the screen. We found a modern designed black furniture with accent LED lights. The size was perfectly fit and looked minimalistic and customized.
Home Theater Snack Bar
A snack bar is an extra accessory to the movie room. I set a snack bar for my husband and he really loves it. Check this article for detail information.
