Taking on a building, remodeling, or renovation project in your home requires that you make a variety of decisions. These decisions are typically based on a list of things you both need and want, while also taking into consideration your personality and your home’s overall design and décor before adding in the final touches.
In some cases, this involves picking out just the right cabinets for your kitchen or choosing the perfect flooring for your bedroom. Other times, the decisions homeowners must make revolve around a room that is designed solely to help you enjoy life a bit. The room we’re talking about is an Orange County home theater or media room.
However, before you can decide what you want this room to look like or the ways you want it set up, you must understand which of these two rooms you want, since one is very different than the other. What’s the difference between putting a home theater in your Orange County home versus creating a dedicated media room? Let’s begin by first explaining what each one is.
Descriptions of Home Theaters and Media Rooms
Perhaps the best way to think of a home theater is to first envision a full-size movie theater. Picture its big screen and its larger than life sound system that makes you feel like you’re in the middle of the storyline too. Imagine the comfortable chairs arranged in tiered rows and acoustic panels on the walls. Have that image in your head? Okay. Now, if you scale that type of room down and place it inside your Orange County home, you would have a home theater.
Not only are home theaters good for watching movies, but they’re also good for watching regular TV too. So, if your goal is to use this room to take in your favorite sports games, catch up on your pre-recorded shows, or just watch the latest Netflix series, a home theater is great for all of these purposes.
Conversely, if you decide to create a media room in your Orange County residence, instead of this room being optimized solely for the watching of television and movies, it is also ready-made for you, your family, and friends to engage in multiple other types of media as well.
That makes this type of room more suitable for Orange County homeowners who also want a dedicated space in their home that is good for:
- Streaming music videos;
- Listening to music with friends; or
- Gaming
Put simply, a home theater is designed to enhance your at-home movie and television-watching experience whereas a media room enables you and your family to engage in a variety of additional activities that also require a top of the line audio-video system.
Now that you’re more clear about the difference between a home theater and a media room, you may be wondering what you need to know before installing one over the other. Let’s go into that next.
What You Need to Know When Creating a Home Theater or Media Room in Your Orange County Home
Because each of these rooms serves a different purpose, there are a few factors to consider—a few decisions you have to make—when creating the perfect home theater or media room for your Orange County residence.
For example, Orange County home theaters are often designed with cinema-style lighting. This type of lighting design is one that is soft enough to provide some assistance with vision, yet not so bright that it interferes with the clarity of the picture on the screen.
A home theater also commonly has other features you’d expect to find within a full-size cinema. Among them are surround sound and seating in rows. Though, if you prefer your seating area be set up differently, that can be accomplished as well! Additionally, the one change that many Orange County residents make to their in-home theater (and the one thing that you generally don’t find in a cinema-based movie theater) is plush, comfortable seating.
Instead of installing thinly padded seats that collapse upward to allow a passerby to squeeze past, for instance, Orange County home theaters are often equipped with a row of thick, soft, and durable recliners that enable you and other movie-watchers in your home to settle right in and remain comfortable for the entire length of the show or film.
Because of the multiple uses of a media room, creating the right environment often requires setting up the space a bit differently. Take seating, for example. In a home theater, seating is often fixed and in rows. Yet, in a media room, it is typically preferred to install seating options that can easily be moved around based on the room’s use at the time.
For example, if you and your family want to use the room one night to watch TV, you may decide to place the seats side-by-side. The next day, you may want to use the media room for entertaining friends with a bit of music. By choosing seating options that offer this type of flexibility, you can change the room around based on the specific activity and number of people.
And if the room will be used for multi-person gaming or to entertain larger groups, some Orange County residents choose to utilize comfy sofas or loveseats over single-person recliners. This gives a more personal feel, while still providing a cozy and relaxing place to sit.
Certain aspects of the room’s interior may change with a media room as well. As an example, fluffy carpeting may be installed to help enhance its sound or the configuration of the equipment may be altered to better support the streaming of live content.
Which is Right for Your Orange County Home: Home Theater or Media Room?
If you’re struggling to decide whether to create a home theater or media room in your Orange County home, there are a few questions you can ask yourself to make this particular decision easier. They are:
- Will you use the room solely for watching television and movies? If so, a home theater will suit this purpose. Otherwise, if you plan to use the room for additional purposes (such as streaming videos or gaming), you’ll likely be happier with a media room because this type of room is set up to better support a variety of audio and video options.
- Do you intend to use the room by yourself (or just you and your immediate family) or will you use the room to entertain guests as well? Media rooms are more equipped to handle group functions than home theater rooms, making them better-suited for Orange County families that like to entertain.
- Do you want a fixed room design or a static room design? Put another way, do you want to be able to move things around in this room or would you prefer that all of the interior items stay in one place? If you want the flexibility to move furniture to better accommodate a specific activity or function, a media room is more in line with this particular goal.
Keep in mind that there is no right or wrong answer here. In the end, the type of room you decide will fit best within your Orange County home—a home theater or a media room—depends largely on what you intend to use the room for and how you decide to use it.
If you’re still unsure, the knowledgeable and professional staff at Good Sounds can help you decide based on your individual situation and desired goals. There are many different types of Orange County home theaters and many types of Orange County media rooms from which to choose, enabling us to help you select the perfect layout, equipment, furniture, and even décor for you and your family’s new room.
If You Decide You Want a Home Theater in Your Orange County Home
Maybe you’ve already made up your mind and you’re sure that it is a home theater you want in your Orange County home. Great! But what do you do next?
The next step is to contact us and we will work with you to design an in-home theater that offers you and your family the best movie-watching experience possible. Have a specific layout in mind or certain pieces of furniture you want your Orange County home theater to hold? No problem. We’ll work with you to come up with a home theater that suits all of your interests, as well as your needs.
The way we do this is by creating a room that contains only high-end equipment and products. This involves using items that you can’t find in just any retail store because these products and pieces of equipment are only available to professional designers and installers.
We will also work with any other professionals you may be using to complete your new build, renovation, or remodel project. This makes it possible to give you the highest-quality finished product. We specialize in collaborating with architects, general contractors, and interior designers to create the Orange County home theater of your dreams.
What to Do If You Want to Create a Media Room in Your Orange County Residence
Alternatively, if you’ve decided that a media room is more in line with the vision you have for this particular room, we can do that too!
In this case, the same basic steps apply in that we will work one-on-one with you to get a better idea of what you want and need. This entails learning more about:
- the type of activities you plan to use the media room for (watching movies, gaming, listening to music, etc.);
- if there is a particular layout that you had in mind;
- all of the items the room will contain (such as recliners, sofas, and end tables); and
- your budget.
We’ll also work with you to help you select the best audio and video equipment for your Orange County media room. Because we offer only high-end, custom installations, you can’t find many of the products and equipment we use in electronics stores. They are only available to professional installers, which means that you’re getting a state-of-the-art system that is capable of supporting a variety of audio-visual functions.
Already have general contractors, interior designers, or architects hired to help with your project? That’s great! We’ll work hand-in-hand with them so your media room turns out just like you imagined. (Maybe even better.)
Good Sounds Is Here to Help
Whether you decide that you want a home theater in your Orange County residence or that a media room is more in line with your desired use, Good Sounds is here to help.
Our expert designers and installers can handle both of these types of jobs from start to finish. What does “start to finish” mean?
From creating the initial design of your home theater or media room to actually installing the customized high-grade audio and video equipment of your choosing, we’ll work with you every step of the way to ensure that your new room turns out the way that you desire. And it will have the picture and sound that so many other Orange County homeowners have come to know and love after using our company’s services.
We also offer our Orange County customers the option of installing smart home features in their home theaters and media rooms. Want to be able to control the room’s lighting or adjust the volume without ever leaving your chair? We can make that happen.
The systems we install aren’t complex either. With a short training session offered by one of our expert technicians, you’ll be able to control a variety of your new room’s features right from a tablet or your phone.
Nothing is off limits when working with Good Sounds to put a home theater or media room in your Orange County home, so call us today at (949) 722-7718 with any questions you may have or to get started. We also have an online form you can fill out if you prefer to reach us by email.
We look forward to hearing from you and learning more about how we can help you create a home theater or media room that suits you and your family’s wants and needs.
