Family Room Ideas with Home Theater Seating

Designing the best

If you're building a home theater from scratch, your options for home theater seating are nearly limitless. When you think of ideas for home theater setup, choose wisely. Careful design is essential for an enjoyable home theater seating setup.

How will you use your home theater?  Whether planning to use your home theater as a romantic retreat for two or a hangout to watch the big game, be sure to consider the number of people enjoying your home theater seating. 

 What size and shape is your home theater? Rectangular rooms work best for family room home theater seating.  They offer the best acoustics and most seating arrangement options for your family. Avoid square rooms. They limit your seating options and generally don't provide adequate acoustics

 What is the "sweet spot?" The "sweet spot" is the optimal place in your family room for visual and audio quality. The sweet spot, or "money seat," is generally centered in a 30° viewing cone directly in front of the screen at a distance twice the diagonal measurement of the television. Family room ideas that place home theater seating too wide from this sweet spot will encounter problems like viewing distortion and poor surround sound quality.

Seating ideas for your family room home theater

  Movie theater chairs. If your ideas for home theater seating include authentic movie theater chairs, make sure to measure carefully. First, calculate the width of the seating area to determine how many chairs you'll be able to fit in a row. Then, decide how many rows you'll need to accommodate your number of viewers.

 Multiple rows of home theater seating. If you're planning more than one row of home theater seating, you'll probably want to stagger the rows.  You can create stadium seating by building a riser to elevate the back rows. With risers, all viewers can properly view the movie.

 Home theater seating sectionals. If you're using a reclining sectional as theater seating in your home, allow extra room behind for the chairs to fully recline.

Combination seating. Some of the most innovative family room ideas with home theater seating incorporate both theater seats and sectionals. Some home theater designers place reclining sectionals on risers behind traditional home theater seats.

More information on home theater sectionals