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How To: Create Your Home Theater For Under $5k

Epson Ultimate Home Cinema Experience : Welcom...
Image by Craig Grobler via Flickr

A home theater was previously a luxury only the rich could indulge in, but is readily available for your home today. A beautiful, well-appointed and comfortable home theater can be had for well under $5,000. This is especially true if you’re the DIY type.

There are several compelling reasons to have a home theater. Statistics show that American families are returning to bonding by dinner together in the dining room. A home theater is similar in setting aside a formal space for getting together to watch a movie, educational program or sitcom.

Another fun advantage of a home theater is its application in gaming and other media. It becomes the hub of both home recreation and learning. In addition, a well-designed home theater can raise the value of your home. Even though a home theater is affordably within reach, it is still impressive to step into a nicely appointed one.

There has been – and continues – rapid growth in the technology of home theater systems. The evolution of Plasma and LCD televisions has brought a superior audio-visual experience into the home, inclusive of 3-D application. Sophisticated projectors are capable of showing wide-screen beautiful films you shot yourself, that people really do enjoy watching.

DVDs can be shown at home on a large screen television with the same viewing ratio as sitting in the best seat in the house in the movie theater, with stunning clarity and amazing surround-sound.

So, if you’re convinced that you’d like to have an affordable home theater, the place to start is with the basic decisions of where to put it, how to lay out the space, how to decorate it, along with the decisions of which audio visual equipment to purchase.

This first stage of arriving at the goal of a home theater for under $5,000 requires careful planning. Sit down with pencil and graph paper and draw up some plans. Even if you’re going to hire someone to do some of the work, the more you do yourself, you’ll save money and the end result will be what you want. Don’t forget to include storage space for equipment and media, which needs to be both easy to access and attractive.

It’ll be helpful and fun to take a look at home theaters. Visit a Street of Dreams housing development to get ideas of what professional designers have done. There are also many resources and examples of beautiful home theaters online.

Do comparative shopping for the audio and visual equipment. You’ll easily save hundreds of dollars by doing so.

In addition to the quality of sight and sound, other factors that make a home theater a place everyone loves to be are the lighting and decoration. Again, savvy shopping can provide an absolutely first-class environment on a shoe-string budget. Consider fabric for walls. It can be purchased at mill end stores for pennies on the dollar and adds to the acoustics. Places like Habitat for Humanity have all kinds of lighting and decorating components. You might go to a retro or antique hardware store and find gorgeous period light fixtures that make you space look just like an Art Deco period theater.

The important point is that you have as much fun designing and constructing your home theater as you will have during the many hours of entertainment with your family and friends. And don’t forget the huge savings you’ll realize on concession stand goodies.

Pass the popcorn, please!

Chase Sagum covers the Home Theater Screen Paint section of ScreenPaintHD.com. He also covers Organic Internet Marketing on his personal blog ChaseSagum.com.