There are many reasons for adding a media room to your home, but the most important reason should be the fact that it is the room you and your family will find yourselves relaxing in most of the time. Whether you are Netflix bingers, Xbox addicts, or music aficionados, having a space that is not only dedicated to these activities but is specifically designed for these activities will enhance your media experience. 

4 Steps to Building a Media Room

If you are adding a media space, re-designating an area in your home as a media space, or purchasing a new home and are deciding how to design your new space, we have outlined the 4 major items you will need to take into consideration in order to create the perfect media oasis. 

Pick the Space

It may seem like a no brainer that the first step should be picking the room or location of your media space, but it is just not that simple. Picking the right space sets off the entire path of all the other decisions you will make in terms of the layout of your lighting, audio needs, and furniture. Some quick tips are utilizing rectangular rooms in terms of acoustics and avoiding rooms with a lot of natural light if you will be gaming or tv watching. 

Light the Space

We like to think of setting up your lighting strategy as a map for the entire room. At this stage, you will not just be determining where to place your lighting, but also where your furniture will be best utilized. 

Start with the room’s total square footage and plot out exactly where your television, couch, stereo, bar, pool table, etc. will go. From there, you will know not just where you need lighting, but what kind of lighting. For example, the lighting you have above a pool table will vary greatly from the lighting above your couch. 

Tech-nify the Space

Now that your optimal lighting plan is in place, it’s time to get the bones of your setup in place. We strongly suggest adding an audio-visual component rack. This will be the central hub of all your source components (DVD, media streaming, cable box, etc.). Adding a central hub like this will give you more options for hiding cords from view. 

In this stage you will do the tedious job of wiring all your equipment, including your sound system.

Furnish the Space

In our opinion, the last stage is picking out your furnishings. To some, this might seem backwards. But considering that most of us don’t have a lot of spaces in our home to choose from for our new media space, you will likely be making do with the one space you have. Since lighting, acoustics, and television size and placement depend more on math and science in order to be optimized than furniture, we think those are the more important items to prioritize. More than likely, you can more easily find a couch that suits your tastes and fits your space requirements than being able to fit your sound system around the furniture you want. 

This stage will either be your favorite part or your worst nightmare. Tech nerds will probably dread this part while design nerds will love the opportunity to give the space some of their own personal flare. Whichever camp you are in, have fun with this process as your media room will not just be highly utilized but a focal point of your home!

That’s it – the four most important steps of building your media room. We hope you have a blast designing this space! As always, Home Theater Solutions is happy to assist you in any way possible.