What are the essential ingredients that go into a premium home theater? A huge television and comfy seats are all no-brainers. What about home theater lighting, though?
Believe it or not, your home movie theater lighting will influence the quality of every viewing experience greatly, and it should never come at the expense of the usability of the space when you're not watching a movie. Here's how to set up a home theater for movie night, game night, or even just a relaxing evening at home.
1. Work With the Space That You Have
The size of your home theater is one factor that will weigh in heavily on the type of lighting scheme you should lean toward.
The lay of the land may also play into your hands, as well—scope out your space and identify any opportune nooks or crannies where you could easily stash a subtle accent light or LED strip.
Column lights tucked behind any cornerstones in your home provide an indirect, scenic glow. Cove lighting from behind any lofts or rafters above will illuminate the room subtly without stealing the show. Sconces are lights that illuminate the wall that they're attached to, as opposed to a spotlight that would throw light elsewhere from the same type of mount.
Every feature of the room may be utilized with all of these different types of home theater lights. If it's time for an overhaul, we recommend getting creative with it.
2. Familiarize Yourself With All the Possibilities
There are so many home theater lighting ideas to choose from—recessed lights, fiber optic lighting, LED strip lights, and even mellow, diffuse accent lights may all offer your home movie theater lighting design something unique. Even small projected effects like ceiling starfields may be used laterally for environmental impact.
Truly, this part will be up to you. Do a little searching online for ideas and try out anything you take a shine to.
3. Use App-Friendly Smart Lighting to Customize Every Session
Your family's home entertainment area is likely used for much more than movie night—if you and your brood spend a lot of time in your home theater area, you should be lighting for more than just screen-based entertainment.
If you're using a smart lighting system, you have a lot of power in the way of fine-tuning every setting to perfection, as well as in your ability to save a multitude of different presets. One for game night? One for a party? You can create a home cinema lighting design for literally any occasion, calling it up at a moment's notice with your smartphone or smart speaker.
This also gives you one quick and easy way to switch back into a slightly more chore-friendly lighting scheme in your theater space's off-hours. Somebody's got to clean up all of that popcorn, and if it's going to be us, we'll sure need enough light to see what we're doing. One single recessed ceiling light will likely be more than enough. You can outfit any standard light with a smart bulb for instant access at any time.
4. Alternatively, You Can Utilize Multiple Lines and Circuits
This is one old-school approach that can be used to adapt even cheap home theater lighting into something agile, adaptable, and easy to control. If all of your accent lights are on the same dimmer, for example, you're able to adjust them regardless of what you have going on elsewhere in your DIY home theater lighting system.
If you choose this route, you might be interested in tamping down or cutting back the lights that you choose with gel filters or diffusion material. These allow you to set a polished and professional-feeling vibe without investing in an entire collection of color-changing LED lightbulbs, as awesome as the technology may be.
5. It's Not All About the Lights
One of your main objectives when planning your theater room lighting design will inevitably be preventing light spill from falling onto the display or projected picture area.
Half of the battle will be training any accent lights away from the screen, if at all possible. The other will be managing light leaks with curtains, blockers, or anything else that you have on hand. If you're feeling fancy and have the equipment and the ambition, you may even opt for home theater curtains that can be operated remotely by way of a motorized rail.
If you've got a big window or entryway leading into your home theater area, you can use thick blackout curtains to create a lightproof partition. Some types of home movie theater lighting includes its own tracking system, which keeps the light right where you want it and out of the audience's face.
6. Is Safety a Concern?
In a small home theater, lighting for safety won't usually be anything to concern yourself with. If your home entertainment area includes even simple hazards like a couple of steps down into your den, for example, you might want to incorporate these considerations into your home theater lighting design.
Safety lights for home theaters shouldn't spoil the show—ambient sources like small LED strips won't shine onto the screen, offering your guests just enough light to make their way safely back to their seats.
7. Make It a Show-Stopping Experience
Is home theater lighting important? If it were all so simple, you may as well just be watching the movie in a completely dark room.
Think about the nicest movie theater or stage venue that you've ever visited. Purposeful DIY home theater lighting heightens the drama greatly and ultimately makes for a much more satisfying binge.
Are you familiar with that feeling of anticipation triggered by walking into an empty theater with the house lights still up? Your own home theater lighting should enhance each watch before, during, and after. Give yourself something exciting to look forward to every single time with any of these home theater lighting tips.
Home Theater Lighting Ideas That Deliver Big-Time
There's an art to DIY home movie theater lighting. If you've got the space and the vision, however, you've already got everything you need to succeed.
These home theater lighting ideas cover the majority of what you can do, but this list is far from comprehensive. Trial, error, and experimentation will all make finding your ideal home theater lighting setup an exciting challenge. Soon, you'll have the entertainment oasis of your dreams right in your own home.