How to Create a Home Cinema Room in Your House

Make a home cinema room the perfect place for your household to unwind and relax.

It’s no wonder so many households up and down the UK have decided to create a home cinema room. We’ve all learned the value of our living space in recent years. Coupled with the rising costs of going out for leisure activities, it makes perfect sense to create a comfortable, relaxing space in which to spend time.

But how do you create a home cinema in your house? There are a few key considerations — and we’ve rounded them all up into this guide on How to Create a Home Cinema Room in Your House.

What is a home cinema room?

A home cinema room is a space in your home that is designed to give you a cinema-like experience in the comfort of your own home. This typically involves a large screen, high-spec audio-visual systems and comfortable seating for you and your household to enjoy movies and other entertainment.

You can create a home cinema in your living room as your main way or watching TV or create a dedicated cinema room elsewhere in your home, such as another reception room, a spare bedroom or a garden room.

Benefits of a home cinema room

There are many advantages to creating a home cinema room in your property. These include:

Create a family focal point

A home cinema room makes a great place for the whole family to gather, bringing people out of their rooms and away from their own devices.

Cut down on expensive nights out

If you can create a space that's more comfortable and cosier than a trip to your local multiplex — while creating a big screen experience — your home cinema room will help you to cut back on cinema tickets and overpriced popcorn.

Add value to your home

A home cinema room is an incredibly sought-after feature in a modern home. Adding one to your home could add value or make your property easier to sell in the future.

What to think about when making a home cinema room

Whether you’re creating a dedicated cinema room in your home or you want your living room to double-up as a home cinema space, there are some key things to consider when planning how the space will look. Let’s look at those in more detail now.

Screen

It makes sense to start with what is clearly the key element of any home cinema. That means the screen on which you will view the latest blockbuster movies and binge-worthy series.

Some households still favour a projector, which can be used in tandem with a blank white wall or a pull down projector screen. This has pros and cons. It removes the need for equipment to be prominently displayed in your room. On the other hand, it does mean you’ve got equipment permanently attached to your ceiling. A dangling projector and a blank wall can both create a cold or corporate look.

Given the rising quality and falling prices of large smart TVs, most households instead opt for a television rather than a projector. High-quality 4K HDR TVs deliver crisp visuals at the scale of a projector screen.

Sound

Whether you opt for speakers or sound bars, sound is an important element of recreating the cinema experience at home. Choosing the right audio equipment for a cinema room means picking speakers that can deliver the desired sound while also working within the 

Wall mounted, built-in and in-ceiling are some of the ways you can achieve high home cinema sound quality without ruining the aesthetics of the space.

Media Wall

An optional extra but one that’s highly recommended. Building a media wall provides a neat yet homely place to house your screen and other audio-visual equipment. Your speakers or soundbars could be subtly installed or even recessed within a media wall.

We mentioned that the projector and screen look can be a bit corporate — and that’s especially true if the room has other uses beyond being a cinema. 

A media wall helps to put the ‘home’ in home cinema. The addition of a media wall fire brings extra cosiness and comfort. If you choose an electric fire with a front-facing heater, you won’t need a flue and you can easily place a TV above it.

The cost of building a media wall will vary depending on the size and scale of the unit you want, the materials you use and whether you’re able to do the build yourself. Find out more in our guide to creating the perfect media wall.

Storage

Following on from the media wall considerations, you also need to think about storage — and you might be able to combine the two. Your home cinema might include speakers, consoles, wires and other equipment. These can all be neatly hidden within a media wall.

Many people expand their media wall beyond the TV screen and fireplace to incorporate alcove shelving, cupboards and other storage space. This is hugely practical but can also help to soften your home cinema with artwork, ornaments and other decor.

Seating

A key part of home cinema design is comfortable seating. Rows or armchairs or recliners create a more authentic cinema feel, while sofas off a more snug atmosphere. It just depends who is using the space and how they’re going to use it.

For cosy family film time, sofas might make more sense. If you’re hosting guests for the full cinema experience, armchairs could be the better option. It’s just down to personal preference. Your choice of seating might also be influenced by the dimensions of the room in which you want to create a home cinema.

Lighting

Lighting is another area in which it has become far easier and much less expensive to create a home cinema that really looks the part. LED lighting has really opened up the options to be as creative as you like with your home cinema lighting.

Spotlights above your screen or in adjacent alcoves. Recess lighting behind your TV or in other recesses. Strip lighting along the edge of the wall. Strip lighting to guide people to their seats if you really want to go to town! The options are almost endless. Choose a colour that matches the ambience you want to create — or opt for LED lighting with multiple colour options so that you can change it up whenever you want to.

Personal touches

It’s hard to give an exhaustive list here but if you scroll through the photos here, you’ll get some inspiration. It’s the little touches that make the home cinema yours or make it work for your household. The ideal spot for a favourite piece or art, or functional storage for a gaming console or something that’s so completely you that we wouldn’t even think to mention it.

Start to Create Your Home Cinema Room

If you’re ready to create a home cinema in your house, download our guide on Building the Perfect Media Wall to form the focal point in your cinema room.

Or why not discover the easiest way to make a home cinema room. A self-build media wall kit gives you a built-in electric fire, space to recess your TV and handy storage space. Best of all, it can be constructed from flat-pack in just a few hours. Take a closer look.