Building The Basic, Badass Home Theater

Home Theater Feature Articles Other

Written by Jerry Del Colliano

Wednesday, 01 February 2006

Article Index Building The Basic, Badass Home Theater  Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 3 of 5 Furniture What you park your butt on is sometimes overlooked in a theater. In my current theater, I got caught up in the idea of furniture as art. I bought some really beautiful modern sofas and chairs from a designer in Paris that cost a fortune and took seven months to arrive. No joke – seven months. While what I bought looks cool, it wasn’t a good fit for sitting for three hours watching the back nine at The Masters in HDTV. My mistake was treating furniture like art, not like fashion. In 10 years, you will want a new sofa, so it is crazy to invest in a couch that you will need to own forever in order to increase its value. In my new theater, I am using dedicated home theater seating for six adults. While I find some of what the theater seating industry has to offer is tacky (think cup holders in your armrest), there is no denying the comfort you can get from even an affordable home theater chair. I recently sat in a $1,200 home theater chair at a La-Z-Boy showroom. I was impressed with the quality of the chair for the price. What is most important, no matter what the brand, is to get a seating configuration that allows you to suspend gravity. In other words, you need to be able to get your feet up off the ground. If you have a sofa that you like, consider adding an ottoman. Consider where your primary seating positions are and budget a little more money for those spots. Consider having some pillows made that allow guests to be able to crash on the floor for a movie. Plush carpet is also a smart move if you think people will sit on the floor. Modest theaters today more and more use another surprisingly affordable trick: creating a stage that is six inches high for the seating in the rear of the room. For a few hundred dollars in two-by-fours and plywood and a day’s worth of labor, this can be built into your theater, creating a dramatic effect and really good sightlines for your guests or kids who want to sit in the back of your theater. << Prev - Next >>