Choosing Home Theater Furniture to Suit Your Style

What could be more fun than shopping for home theater furniture for your new media room?  Not much unless you hate shopping altogether.  The fun part is in the wide variety of choices available these days.  With home video equipment now available in the more moderate price ranges, furniture manufacturers have scrambled to offer new designs for a new type of room.

There are two areas to choose from - furniture and furnishings.  The furniture can be found in almost any price range.  Used seating from various lecture halls, performance halls and old time theaters is widely available online and can be purchased for as low as $90 per chair.  Using these low cost selections, you can have your own 50's style adult play room.

If you are feeling more expansive (and richer), manufacturers have redesigned traditional recliners, rocking chairs and row chairs to give the ambience of old theater styles.  Do you have fond memories of an elegant movie venue of your childhood with real balconies and filded frescoes, plush red velvet seats and the huge velvet curtain than opened slowly as the lights dimmed and the movie began?  Now you can recreate that same feeling of opulence in your own home. 

Using a projection system, the thin, flat screen on the wall can be easily covered with a rich tapestry or velvet curtain to open when you want.  Luxurious recliners will be much comfortable than the old type seats you remember but you can find those old seats that fold up and down if you want.  No balconies?  No problem.  In a room with a high or cathedral ceiling, a mural artist can create those balconies using trompe l'oil techniques.  Don't forget to add some wall sconce lighting.

If you are concerned that the lush velvet might have a bordello effect in your home, you can choose from a wide variety of leather seating that is comfortable, good-looking and easy to care for.  Add a side table or two and maybe a set of row seating right in the center of the viewing area, and move on to furnishings from there.

In the furnishing area of decor, you can get as creative as you like.  Using row seating instead of recliners?  Get some platforms designed to turn row seats into stadium seating to provide an unobstructed view of the projector screen.  They are available in a variety of heights.

In past years, choosing an entertainment unit was important, but that's no longer true.  Even with freestanding high def or plasma TVs, the products are meant to be seen rather than hidden and the simple stands are nothing more than an accessory.  A more upscale alternative is a designer stand that had simple clean lines and two glass front wood cabinets to hold additional audio video equipment, CDs and DVDs

With your chairs, couches or other seats all pointed toward the screen, you have at least one, and perhaps two, corners behind them to add goodies to.  How about a bar in one corner with comfortable bar stools?  Or perhaps a game table with chairs where family members can work on puzzles or play cards while still watching the screen?

One last flourish to furnish that last corner.  If you have used a game table in another area, you might consider adding a jukebox or pinbal game.  If choosing home theater furniture strickly for movie and TV entertainment, you can't bea a full sized popcorn machine and a home-sized coke machine.