The term “Home Theater” gets tossed around a lot these days. So much so that the lines between a TV connected to a couple of speakers and an actual theater have become blurred. I recently built a full-blown movie theater in our basement for less than $10,000. The cost was so high only because the basement wasn’t finished and I had to drywall and carpet the room. But you can create a theater in any large area for a few thousand dollars.

The Projector is the Heart and Soul of Any Theater
I started with the projector and designed the room around that. Since the width and depth of the room determined what type of projector I was going to get, I decided to find the projector I wanted and build the room around it. One advantage of building the room in the basement was that I could eliminate the windows to keep it as dark as possible. So I partitioned the basement in such a way that the room was pitch black.

When building a room on this scale, you simply must go with a true 1080p HD projector. I chose the Epson 1080p, as it supported the 1920 x 1080 resolution I wanted and it was affordable at $2400. I decided to go with a theater wall paint with reflective specks in the paint for the screen. The image area is twelve feet with a black 12-inch border along the sides and bottom. In that black space I have my two front speakers (painted black) and the center speaker built into the wall.

Since the audio is 7.1 surround, I put two 6″ speakers in the wall behind the seating and another two 8″ speakers on either side of the seats. The sub-woofer went on the stadium-style platform I constructed. I placed it directly in the platform because I wanted the seats to feel the reverberation of the deep bass.

For the seats, themselves, I went with six leather chairs. I was considering going with actual movie seats, but in the long run you want to be comfortable. Also, do whatever you have to do to insulate the walls and keep it dark. You really want to be able to crank the volume to get the full effect of a movie theater.

Here’s what you’ll need to do a killer home movie theater system:
High-Def Projector
Blu Ray Player
7.1 Surround system w/ HDMI pass-through
Quality sub-woofer
Large screen area. (I highly recommend painting the wall if it’s smooth)
Comfortable seating
Carpeted floor to absorb sound wave
Warm color on walls to reduce reflection
Can lights in the ceiling and a dimmer switch to create atmosphere

You can spend as much as you want when creating a home movie theater. So depending on your budget, you can add more to the list above. You can skimp on the aesthetics, but the hardware is really essential.

So before you go out and buy that 42″ plasma, stop and consider the grandeur of a 144″ home movie theater. If you enjoy movies or just want to TV on a really large screen, a projector is the way to go.