In 2017, I set up my family’s first home theater projector in my extremely small 8ft x 10ft room. Having a dedicated home theater room of any scale is so fulfilling once you get the fundamentals right.
I can say for a fact that if I was able to create a home theater in my small bedroom, I promise you can too and this article will help you understand how!
These are the best tips for creating a small home theater room:
- Install an AC vent next to projector
- Buy a lightweight projector screen
- Elevate seating on the back half of your room
- Have Best Buy do an in-person consultation
- Route audio cords underneath furniture
- Get a CineGrey projector screen to reduce ambient light
Steve Crabb: Owner of Home Theater Enthusiasts
“My first home theater was a 13 x 18 but very comfortable! We elevated the back end of our room to allow for more seating. This also made it easier to put the seating closer together without feeling too tight on space! “
Jessica L: Valued Responder in Home Theater Enthusiasts
“Mine was 11 x 18ft. Because our room was small enough, we routed our audio cords under our furniture to get true surround sound! When you have a small room, you can more easily hide the cords by running them along the wall or taping them down before you install home theater seats.”
Nikhil Singh: Small-Room Home Theater Owner
“My room is 8 x 10! I’m glad I got a sealed subwoofer with my 5.1 system. The acoustics in a small room bounce all over the place and reduce the dialogue quality in most movies if you don’t have these. Getting a sealed subwoofer improves audio quality in small rooms and are more affordable.”
Alex B: Valued Responder at Home Theater Enthusiasts
“Get a grey screen if you have bright colored walls or a lot of ambient light coming from other parts of your house. In a small room with a white screen and white walls, you’ll have ambient light bouncing off and making your images too bright. You can also put a black border around your screen to reduce this.”
Erin H: Small Room Home Theater Owner
“Consider installing an AC vent near the back of your room / near the projector. In the summer, projectors will heat up small rooms more unless there’s sufficient ventilation. Good air conditioning also keeps the projector nice and quiet. “
Brian S: Small Room Home Theater Owner
“Before you buy anything, map out how much seating you’ll be able to accommodate as Steve said then choose the furniture. From there, you adjust your projector screen, speaker setup, viewing angles, and all that good stuff. If you don’t do these steps in order, your viewing experience will not be satisfying and you won’t know why!”
More Tips for Your Small Home Theater
- Short throw projectors for small rooms are just as good quality as a normal projector. You can purchase one that is actually even higher quality than most such as the VAVA 4k Short Throw
- Get a projector with at least 2,000 lumens. Lumens are a measure of how bright the bulb is. If you don’t get a projector that’s bright enough (usually the $100 budget ones are lower than this), then it won’t be powerful enough to project a good image onto the screen. You want to be able to turn the projector brightness down rather than wish it could be brighter.
The projector I use for my small room: Epson 2040
- My family bought this one a few years ago and we absolutely love it. We put our home theater in a small bedroom (my old one at the time) and this projector absolutely blew us away with how good it was. I never wanted to go back to viewing movies and playing video games on a TV again. And it’s super affordable for the quality that it gives!
My video review of it here:
The Screen I Use and Love: Elite Screens
- Give your screen enough buffer space between the walls. Make sure its at least a foot smaller than the wall dimensions from each direction. As you can see from the picture below (my family’s set up), we made sure to have enough space on the side and above and below the screen.
- Make sure set up and disassembly is super easy and that the screen is lightweight. Screens that are too hard to set up are frustrating, and you’re going to want to play around with the orientation of it before you’re satisfied. You might even want to take it outside for an outdoor movie night. Having a heavy projector screen is super annoying to adjust and implement. It also wears down your wall from its weight.
Audio:
- Buy long audio cords. You have to route your speaker cords to your projector or media device, which often will sit in the back of the room. For my set up, my family routed the cord around the side of the room in a conservative manner so it wasn’t a distraction. It’s a feasible solution if you have a wall mounted ceiling too. Professional consultants can give you better advice on this if you need it.
- Try to get a subwoofer even if you only have front speakers. Subwoofers have an awesome effect on movies and video games when you’re in a small room. It makes sound effects even more enjoyable and you really feel like you’re getting the true movie theater experience.
Our Speakers: Bose CineMate GS Series II
We’ve used these speakers for years and they’re perfect for our small room. While it’s not not surround sound, it’s an affordable option until we decide to upgrade. Bose is one of our favorite speaker company (not sponsored by them at all) because it’s easy to use this system and adjust the base and treble volumes with ease. Some movies you’ll want to slightly adjust these settings so you can hear the audio better.