Creating The Ultimate Entertainment Room

Does your home need an entertainment room? As the name suggests, this is a room used for entertainment. It’s different from the living room, which is for general relaxation – an entertainment room is for enjoying more purposeful leisure activities like watching movies or playing games. You can make both attractive spaces and visually appealing with attractive, comfy furniture or maybe a Custom Lighting Installation. 

The following post offers a few ideas that could serve as inspiration when creating an entertainment room.

Types of entertainment room

There are a few common types of entertainment room. These include:

A home cinema

If you’re an avid cinephile, test your surround sound capabilities with a home cinema, which could be a great place for sitting down and watching movies. You could buy a large TV or go old-skool with a home projector. A surround sound system could meanwhile provide that immersive cinema experience. 

A games room

This could be a great place for playing games. If you or a family member loves video games, you could create the ultimate gaming setup with gaming chairs and speakers. If you prefer card games or board games, you could set up a table for playing these games. Alternatively, you could dedicate it to more active indoor games like ping pong. 

A home bar

A home bar could be a great room for hosting parties with guests. You can make it feel like a traditional pub with an actual bar, a fridge and spirit optics. You could set up a mini dance-floor and maybe even add a karaoke machine. For a sports bar feel, you could even add a pool table or dart board. If you’re looking to take your home bar to the next level, you might find that you need a DJ stand to create a true nightlife atmosphere. A dedicated space for a DJ setup can elevate your parties, allowing you to seamlessly transition from socializing to dancing, while giving your guests a club-like experience right at home.

Which spaces are ideal for converting into an entertainment room?

You can convert pretty much any spare room into an entertainment room. A few spaces that can make great entertainment rooms include: 

Basements

If your home has a basement, this could be the ideal entertainment room. These rooms tend to be quite large while being naturally insulated, keeping them cosy. Sound is also likely to be muffled so the neighbours won’t complain if you’re throwing a party or watching a movie loudly. 

Garages

Garages can also make great entertainment rooms. They’re commonly used for placing pool tables and ping-pong tables. You could keep the garage door or block it off and turn it into a wall or window. 

Lofts

While a loft may not be appropriate as a home bar (it’s up lots of stairs and directly above the bedrooms), it could still make a great home cinema or gaming room. You could continue to access it by ladder or you could add some stairs leading up to it (this could be an outdoor staircase or an internal spiral staircase).

Sheds/summer houses

A shed or summer house could serve as the ultimate outdoor bar – which could be perfect for summer outdoor parties. It could also be a great escape for playing board games. You could also add a TV, however this does mean running wires from your home to the shed. Click now to see some great summer house inspiration.

Spare bedrooms

A spare bedroom could be used as a gaming room or a small home cinema. It depends very much on the size of the room as to the practicality. It’s probably not an ideal home bar. 

What features should I add to my entertainment room?

Once you’ve decided the type of entertainment room you want and where to place it, you can start thinking about how to decorate and renovate the room. Below are just a few features that could be worth looking into.

Cosy seating

No matter what the purpose of your entertainment room is, it’s worth adding some cosy seating. 

When decorating a home cinema, consider purpose-built home cinema seating. This typically includes armchairs and sofas with in-built drink holders. Consider plush options with features like recliner footrests. 

Gaming chairs could be ideal for a video games room. Alternatively, you could stick with armchairs and sofas. 

When it comes to a home bar, consider adding some cosy booth seating for huddling around with drinks. You could also buy some bar stools to place by the bar – look for bar stools with backrests and footrests if you want the utmost comfort.

You could look into other types of seating like bean bag chairs (a great option for kids) or even egg chairs. It’s totally up to you how you decorate. Just make sure that there is enough seating – for times when you have a lot of guests round, it could be worth keeping a few fold-up chairs that you can prop up. 

A decent TV

It’s worth splashing out on a decent TV for your entertainment room. The type of TV you choose depends on the type of space. 

When it comes to creating a home cinema, a large 4k screen might seem like the best option. However, you should take into account the size of the room – the distance between the TV and seating should be at least 1.6 times the size of the screen. For example, a 50 inch screen needs a minimum distance of 1.1 meter, while a 75 inch screen needs a distance of about 1.77 meters – any closer and you won’t be able to take in the whole screen. A 4K TV could allow you to watch films in amazing quality, but you should be careful of watching movies on a TV that comes with ‘motion smoothing’ as default, as this can lead to the ‘soap opera effect’.

The same applies when choosing a TV for gaming, although motion smoothing isn’t so much of a problem. When it comes to PC gaming, you should consider the same principles when it comes to choosing a PC monitor. Bear in mind that you can play with more than one monitor – which could create a more immersive experience.

When choosing a TV for a more general entertainment room, the size and quality may not matter so much. Mounting a TV on the wall will give you more space and could be useful in a poker room. Be careful of putting TVs in outdoor bars – try to keep the screen somewhere dry and warm so that it will not get damaged. 

Warm lighting

When choosing lighting for an entertainment room, you ideally want to choose something warm and intimate. 

Overhead spot lighting or track lighting can help to brighten up the entire room. Track lighting tends to be more affordable than spot lighting as it requires less electrical work to install. 

For a more ambient form of lighting, consider options like uplighting for a sleek modern touch or wall sconces for something slightly more traditional – this can be used to brighten up corners and walls. LED accent lighting could be a fun feature to play with too for adding a modern look. Such lighting could be placed around a home cinema TV to create a glow or it could be placed beneath a bar. 

The right flooring

You should consider which flooring is right for your entertainment room. Carpet is likely to provide a cosier feel, while laminate flooring is likely to be easier to clean.

If you do choose carpet, consider short-pile carpet. When creating a home bar, you could look for patterned pub carpet to fit in with the theme. 

Laminate flooring is ideal for most types of entertainment rooms. Be wary that gaming chairs and stools could mark this type of flooring, so you may still want to add a few rugs or mats. 

A good sound system

It’s worth adding some decent surround sound speakers. These will help to make movies more exciting and video games more thrilling. Alternatively, they could simply be used for playing music out of. 

Wireless surround sound speakers can reduce the need for trailing cables everywhere. You can also easily move them if you don’t like the location. An alternative option is a sound bar – this is placed beneath a TV and will help to project sound around the room (although not quite as authentically as a surround sound system). 

Blackout curtains

Blackout curtains could be a worthy feature for a home cinema. No matter what time of day you want to watch a film, you can block out the outdoor light and feel as if you’re in a real cinema. 

Alternatives to blackout curtains could include blackout roller blinds and shutters. Consider which option suits the style of your room the most.

Memorabilia

You could consider decorating the room with various memorabilia, so you then have a real memorabilia showcase. The type of memorabilia you choose could vary depending on the purpose of the entertainment room.

For example, when decorating a home cinema, you could consider adding some movie posters. These could be placed in poster frames to make them stand out. You could also consider adding other movie memorabilia such as models or toys on shelves.

When creating a home bar, you could consider adding authentic touches such as vintage pub signs, coasters and beer mats. If you’re opting for a sports bar feel, you could even add some sports memorabilia such as team banners and posters. 

Photographs

Your entertainment room could be a place for forming treasured memories. Consider taking photographs whenever you throw a movie night, a games night or a party. You could then hang these from strings, hang them in frames or create a collage on a wall. You could even keep a polaroid camera in the room so that you can take pictures and immediately display them. 

Becky

Meet the award-nominated UK lifestyle blogger behind Spirited Puddle Jumper – a mum of three living in South East London! Becky shares the real ups and downs of family life, parenting tips, and lifestyle inspiration, proving that being a mum doesn’t mean you stop being fun or having other interests! Follow along for honest insights into UK family life and opinions on a whole range of topics, from travel and food, to beauty reviews, home and DIY, business and health and wellness.