What to consider when building a home cinema room

As the chilly winter nights draw closer, many of us are looking forward to spending our evenings cuddled up watching our favourite films and TV shows – now imagine how much more appealing that scenario is with your own luxury home cinema! Building a home cinema room has become a bit of a trend during the pandemic and we can see why – being able to enjoy a top-quality film using top-notch technology in the comfort of your own home sounds pretty ideal.

But when it comes to how to make a home cinema under a certain budget or in a certain space, there are some considerations to keep in mind. Keep reading for our definitive guide to building your own home cinema, from screen sizes, seating options and potential costs.

The first thing you need to consider is the space you want to work with – do you want a dedicated home cinema room, or more a of a multi-functional space?

Another consideration is how many people will be using the space – is it just for you and your partner, or will the whole family and your friends be piling in to watch the latest blockbuster? This will determine how much seating you will need and also the type of seating required.

The size of your space will also be important in determining the size of the set up you can afford to put into the room – remember, you should sit between 1.5 to 2.5 times the diagonal screen measurement away from your screen, so if you have 40” TV, you need to be around 6.5 feet away from the screen. This means you can’t have a huge screen in a narrow room, because it will be both bad for your eyes and impossible to see everything that’s going onscreen at one time!

If you are going the whole hog and having a purpose-built room constructed, then it would be advisable to opt for a rectangular room to support better acoustics from your speakers.  A tall ceiling can also help with acoustics whilst offering room to accommodate tiered seating if desired.

It’s crucial to remember where your satellite and TV ports are in the house, and whether you will need to build new ones to accommodate the equipment you’ll play your media from, like a gaming console or TV box.

A lot of the work in building a home cinema room lies behind the scenes, with hiding equipment, rogue wires and creating discreet nooks for your projector/media player/Wi-Fi box.

There are a number of different considerations you need to bear in mind when it comes to choosing your home cinema screen size, including those we’ve previously mentioned like the size of your room, the height of your room and if you have raised furniture, and also how many people will be using the room.

One of the best options you can go for is a large projector screen on one wall – these screens are great space savers, and can be removed or pulled up to make the space multi-functional. They come in a number of different sizes and can be a much cheaper option than a large screen television.

You can also opt for a wall mounted TV with manoeuvrable TV brackets, which again, helps to save space and means you can move the screen to different angles to suit whoever is watching at any one time.

There are a few more limitations on size here though, as the strength of your wall brackets will dictate how big of a television you can have, so you might not be able to have the big screen of your dreams if you go for a wall-mounted screen.

Another option is to get a larger TV and place it on top of a credenza or TV unit. This will provide you with the means to have a larger television, however, will require a room with a lot of space.

Available in a massive range of colours and finishes, a TV unit can be an amazing addition to a home cinema, not least because it can be handy to have some extra storage in your home cinema for all the DVDs you will inevitably want to watch. TV units are not the only furniture options that are important to consider when planning your home cinema room.

The ultimate home cinema room would have everything in it that you could need so that you don’t have to miss a minute of the action. Side tables are an important addition to any seating room, but in a home cinema they are practically vital – where else would the popcorn go?

Credenzas and sideboards are also an excellent option for home cinema rooms, because they are perfect for storing all the entertaining serveware you need for hosting the perfect screening night of new film or your favourite TV show!

Accent chairs like barstools and chaise lounges can prove to be a spectacular and dramatic addition to any room and can make a home cinema feel particularly glamorous and Old Hollywood.

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Another great furniture option is footstools and pouffes, because who doesn’t like to watch a film with their feet propped up? Designed to pair perfectly with all our chairs, the extensive VonHaus range of footstools can complete your aesthetic and bring both comfort and style to your home cinema room!

Speaking of putting our feet up, there are quite a few ideas to consider for your home cinema seating, the first of which is: should you opt for one big sofa or separate chairs?

In our opinion, only those who don’t want to sit too close to their neighbour should opt for chairs in a home cinema – after all, you’re in the comfort of your own home! If you and your kids can’t all squish together on some home cinema sofa seating to watch a film, then where can you?

The next question to consider is: should you opt for a sofa bed over a sofa? We took a look at some of the different pros and cons to both to help you decide.

With a sofa, you are guaranteed to be able to pick more layouts and styles to suit your aesthetics, and you’re also able to customise your sofa a lot more to include more sections or optional add on elements such as a footstool that you won’t have to move every time you want to pull the bed out.

Sofa beds can be ideal for home cinema rooms, especially when your kids (or even parents!) are prone to falling asleep during movies – no need to turf them out to bed when everyone can be comfy together!

However, sofa beds tend to be less common, and this could limit you in terms of your aesthetic or could potentially cost you a lot more money if you wanted to create your ideal sofa bed.

There are a few different considerations to bear in mind, but once you know your options, you can have your pick of which furniture best suits your home cinema room.

The cost of designing a home cinema room is going to vary greatly depending on the extent to which you want to create the perfect space.

If you’re just looking to improve the quality of your television and audio setup, then you could be looking at only a few thousand pounds to upgrade to some good quality equipment. On the flip side, if you are looking to furnish an entire room and create built-in storage, you will be looking at a lot more money.

Whether you just want to upgrade some of your equipment to improve the quality of your set-up, or if you’re going the whole hog to build a home cinema room from scratch, you can find the perfect TV and audio equipment, furniture and entertaining ware to make your space perfect at VonHaus. Alternatively, for more interior design tips and inspiration, head on over to our blog.