Help figuring out Home Theatre layout for new home

[deutchy]

I'm in the process of building a new home and I'd like to setup the Living Room with a Home Theatre system. Since the walls are all exposed, now is the time to figure out the best way to layout the room with furniture and wire the room accordingly. The room is very large and actually attached to the kitchen off one side and another room (den/family room/whatever!) off the other side.....I'm afraid that b/c it's not a small seperate room that I'll layout the TV and speakers incorrectly - also take note of the fireplace on the left wall (in red) AND that the short wall or cabinets in the middle of the room kind of seperating the kitchen and living room will NOT be built. (see the attached diagram) Oh, one more thing, hardwood floors and 10 ft. ceilings......

I was thinking the speakers could be wired and mounted off the top of the walls or ceilings???? If you want to mark up the diagram attached and email it to me that'd be fine too.

David
daveydeutch@yahoo.com

 

[plhart]

Acoustically your room layout is quite challenging. I would suggest you contact a trained professional in your area to assess the possibilities at www.cedia.net. With exposed walls a pro may be able to come up with an acceptable solution. As it is, your description sounds as if the soundspace may be very reverberant which makes for poor dialogue intelligibility.

 

[garman]

If your house is still in the construction phase, I would strongly recommend closing the doorway between the family and living rooms. You have very little wall space in the current design, which makes placing furniture and speakers problematic.

While I am not sure of the size of your living room, it appears to be a better shape for a home theatre. By closing the above-mentioned doorway, you will have the entire back wall of the living room for placing your TV and front speakers. Your couch can then be placed in front of the windows on the front wall and the rear speakers can be placed in the corners, behind the couch.

A family room adjacent to a kitchen is better suited for social gatherings, game playing and sitting by the fire. A home theatre should be more isolated and cozy, ideally with only one entrance and a door that can be closed to isolate it from the rest of the house. Too much light will also be a problem in the family room that will be virtually impossible to correct.

I moved my own home theatre from a family room with a fire place to a smaller living room that is 12.5 x 15. I have a wide-screen 55” rear projection television that was quite ugly in the family room. The dust and heat associated with a wood-burning fireplace was always a concern when my TV and components were in the same room. Now that they are separate, dust accumulates much more slowly on my A/V equipment.

My new home theatre in my living room is more cozy and darker. I now have four walls on which to place speakers and furniture. It is also a nice room to utilize a space heater for the winter months. It is much cheaper to heat a small room in the evenings, rather than the whole first floor.

When you close the doorway, the space can be converted into two storage closets.

 

[BMXTRIX]

The very first item that matters if this is a video room, which of course it will be... WHERE DO YOU WANT THE TV?

The most common answer is: A plasma will be mounted directly above the fireplace.

This is a common and typical placement point for a TV in a decent 'home theater' environment in a modern living room.

I am also building a new home and here was my priority: DO NOT HAVE THE FIREPLACE ON THE WALL THE TV GOES ON! It took a while, but I finally found a builder who had a home that met my needs. The fireplace is on the rear wall with windows on either side and a window above it (gas fireplace). Lots of light, but still left me the back wall to properly mount my plasma and position speakers.

Okay - you may not have that option, so do you have the means to put a 42-60 inch plasma above the fireplace? Making darn sure that a mantle directs heat away from the plasma or the display will overheat and burn itself up internally.

You also need to get into some WAF issues and decide how intrusive the video setup can be in the room. For me, my wife LOVES television so not only does our video have to be prominent, it has to be easily viewable from the kitchen, dinette, and family room. We have a similar setup to what you have going in.

Now, if you can't do a plasma above the fireplace, the option is to put a display on the South (staircase) wall directly across from all those windows. This should accomodate a nice size display flanked by speakers with good center channel placement. Surrounds are still an issue, but really can be place on the walls behind you. This offers you a nice 5 channel setup. I would not over compromise on speaker placement though.

Quality speakers can be had for in-wall on on-wall mounting. Newer speakers like the Definitive Technology Mythos 2 speakers really are desiged with high WAF in mind as well as good sound. So, you can wall mount some nice looking speakers that aren't intruding on the room to much.

Do you have a basement?

I would definitely not put all the equipment directly under the plasma/tv - or I would recommend you wire for the ability to move the equipment.

Wire, wire, wire, wire. Conduit, conduit, conduit, conduit!!!

New construction is a rare event for so many aviophytes. So, use it to make sure that everything you want to do, or MAY want to do is covered. If you can't afford to buy thousands of dollars in speakers and do thousands of dollars in wiring, then DO THE WIRING! You will have money for better speakers/video later on, but this is your only solid chance to get your home wired correctly.

ALSO CONSIDER: How about audio and/or video distribution for the rest of your home if you have not done so already. If you can wire yourself especially, you can run speakers to you kitchen, dining, family rooms, deck (front and rear?), garage, and all upstairs bedrooms (don't forget the bathroom!) along with a piece of CAT5 for a control system later on. It'll take about a day or two to run those wires and you probably want a friend to help, but for a couple hundred bucks or so, all that wiring can be done by yourself easily during construction. Then the wires are there when and if you need them.

NOTE: Take photos of your home prior to drywall going up. Walk the entire house, double check wiring, and take photos of studs, wire placement, distances, etc. This will help you find old wires in a year or two if you add stuff.

Finally: Conduit... If you have a basement, getting to the main level is easy if you have an unfinished basement. But, getting from the basement to the attic may be a real nightmare. But, you should be able to run a couple of pieces of 2 to 2.5 inch conduit from the basement to the attic. This way if you add a roof antenna, DSS dish, or top floor wiring, you have access from the lowest level to the furthest level quickly and easily.

Lots to consider - have fun!