Make Your Own DIY Basement Theater Room

We’ve set up a theater room twice- once in our old house and once in our new home.

As our new home already had some wiring run, this was a fairly simple project so I’ll stick with explaining how we set it up in our other house.

First, we wanted to purchase quality products as the setup was relatively ‘cheap’ compared to going to the movie theater

Supplies for a Home Theater System with a Projector

My husband is a tech geek so he likes the ‘good stuff.’ He’s leaning over my shoulder giving me some of this info and scoffing when I say stuff like “a sound bar is fine.” Bear with us!

I picked up the mini projector recently because my husband hates taking down the Epson projector for outdoor movies.

You need to mount your screen or sheet first. You could also project onto a wall, you just want to make sure it’s absolutely blank.

Setting up the Projector and Screen

Once you have that item placed, you can move the projector around to find the perfect location.

Separate speakers will give you a better quality sound and you’ll feel more like you’re at a movie theater. It will also be louder.

Setting up the Sound System

For outdoor movie nights, we brought a boombox out to run the audio for our Epson projector. There are different speaker arrangements. For 5.1 surround, you have two front, two rear, a center speaker, and a subwoofer (this is the “.1″… it’s the bass).

You want a room large enough so that you can pull your projector back to hit the screen size you want to use.

The Basement Room

The room also needs to be dark. Basements are perfect for home theaters, particularly if you have a small room with no windows. You can get high quality blinds and such, but a naturally dark room is really the best.

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Danielle Pientka

Danielle is a DIY/craft/sewing blogger on DIYDanielle.com.  She loves to write about projects that she makes for her small farm, her children, and her home.