Need some Home Theater Ideas for your DIY Home Theater Design?

And DIY Home Theater Design can be intimidating for sure...

The primary reasons that homeowner’s get involved in their home theater design plans is because they would like to understand how the systems work.

And would like to save on costs...

For some folks DIY Home Theater Design will work quite well. You will learn more and probably get a better product because your understanding will help you to troubleshoot and fine tune the system.

For other home theater enthusiasts; this will be a train wreck.

Consumers whom are impatient and want everything to work perfectly the first time should not try DIY Home Theater Design.

Some basic troubleshooting skills is almost a necessity.

They will only become frustrated and angry when the inevitable happens- problems occur... A negative experience will not be fun for anyone; your spouse, your home theater equipment supplier, the equipment that you smash on the floor, or the family dog.

But you can do this!

I am not implying that you can not do this.

You CAN put together your own home theater ideas and execute a very well built theater room.

But it may take patience and perseverance.

I believe that the average person can indeed build their own home theater or even their own speaker system. But this project must be entered into with the right frame of mind.

You need to be realistic with yourself. The project must be started with the right attitude.

Home Theater Interior Design plans - How to Begin:

How do you want your theater to look.

What is the 'theme' of your theater?

Many of us have no clue as to how to make a theater look good. But it makes absolute sense to work this out before you begin construction.

Have your home theater design and interior design plan completed exactly the way to want it to look or it may be nothing like something you would want.

• In my opinion it is best to focus on the construction phase of the home theater first. This would include specifically the size and shape of the room. Go to Home Theater Layout and acoustics .

• After the dimensions of the room are established you will have a fairly good idea of the problems your room is likely to face from an acoustics standpoint.Go to Home Theater Plan.

• Then you can address the type of room treatments such as drapes, absorber panels, bass traps, or even a Helmholtz resonator installation.Go to Home Theater Plan.

• When these topics are understood you can delve further into how you want the room to look or the Home Theater Interior Design. At this stage you will be aware of the hardware and components that will be necessary to achieve the performance that you desire.

• The seating layout can be determined by understanding how loudspeakers disperse sounds.Go to Home Theater Seating Layout.

Choosing the right Home Theater Equipment for your DIY Home Theater Design:

This is such a broad topic I nearly didn’t write about it.

The primary problem here is that there are so many choices available it can make your head spin. Generally speaking you get what you pay for in the home theater industry. So spend as much as you are comfortable with on your equipment.

• The easiest way to do this effectively is to make a list of everything that you want in your theater. Projectors, receiver, amplifiers, DVD players, Blu-Ray players, etc. make sure you write out every last component that you think you may need.

• Then make a list of every type of cable for connecting them. Include power strips, or power stations, necessary power supplies, and supporting pieces.

• For every 8 to 10 components you will need a dedicated circuit to the panel box. For amplifiers, depending on the current draw at full power you may need several circuits to provide power to them.

It is best to err on the side of too many circuits than not enough. For an amp that can provide 500 watts per channel (stereo) I would put that amp on its own circuit even though an electrician would say it unnecessary.

Home Theater Supplies for the DIY Home Theater Design:

You can purchase your home theater supplies from many different locations. Such as buying your curtains from a material store and making them yourself, or having a seamstress sew them for you.

Other places that will have cheap parts are online stores such as Parts Express. They have a wide selection of home theater equipment and supplies that you may need.

If you buy all of your home theater supplies from a high end retailer you can expect to pay up to twice for some of the equipment like a network switch.

A friend of mine is an installer and he said they sell a switch that can be purchased at Best Buy for 120.00- they sell it for 400.00. They can get away with this because it is rolled into the cost of the install. They just mark it up as much as they want. The customer pays the price because they don’t know any different.

DIY home Theater Design ideas:

Okay, let’s get down to brass tacks. Developing your home theater design will be determined mostly by the four walls you have to work with.

There are a few things to consider here:

1. Could you use an existing bedroom to become the theater room? This is an option that could save you thousands of dollars. Home theater acoustics are determined by the existing walls and their distances from one another. You can calculate if this bedroom will be a good fit for a home theater installation. Go to Home Theater Plan for the room measurement calculator link.

2. Could you use the basement? The basement is one the best places for a custom home theater installation. It’s already dark and the windows are usually smaller bringing in less light. The room sizes of a basement home theater are often large enough to build false walls to make the room exactly the size and shape you need for optimal acoustics.

3. Are you planning to build an extra room onto the house for the theater? This option is obviously the most expensive but offers many advantages for optimizing the room acoustics.

4. Could you install the theater into the garage? Your imagination is really the only limiting factor as to where and how the home theater could be installed.

DIY Home Theater Design:

1. The most overlooked factor in home theater design is getting the home theater room acoustics right. .And usually missed by the high end home theater installers too!

2. If the idea of DIY Home Theater Design is appealing, you could also build speakers that far surpass competitive retail speakers.

3. Consider using an HTPC or home theater computer in your DIY home theater. There are numerous reasons to do this. The least known reason is using the computer for ‘room correction’. Room correction programs are becoming fairly common in the pro recording industry and now this technology is making its way into the consumer market as well.

4. Think of your Theater as a work in progress. Build what you can afford to build now. Get the best components your money can buy. But have a long term plan for finishing your DIY home theater design using the latest in technology breakthroughs. You do this by building your room and your system to always have an upgrade path. Such as opting for separates instead of a Home Theater receiver. This allows you to upgrade the amplifiers as your budget allows for example. Go to Home Theater Receiver.com.

5. Put your best home theater ideas together on paper. Make some preliminary drawings of the floor plan layout. Use measurements of the room to get a feel for the size and shape of the room.

6. Use a program such as Google sketch up to make your drawings. You can draw your theater plan out to scale on a program such as this.

7. Begin to study building techniques such as framing and drywall. There are a number of these building projects that you could do yourself. You may be comfortable doing the framing but prefer to hire out the electrical wiring, or drywall finishing etc.

There are many other articles about home theater installation and home theater acoustics on this site. This article is just the beginning of the information overload. Better get started now!


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