Looking for room size ideas (1 Viewer)

[SteveLeach]

An area that has some room sizing information. I'm planning on building a HT soon, and would like to get some ideas to start from. Like if you want to seat 8 the room should be 8ft by 10ft.

My HT will be a new room added to my house. So it can be any size I want, within the limits of local building codes & no WAF to worry about. I'm thinking 9' x 16' x 20' or 9' x 16' x 22'. All of the dimensions are adjustable, including the possibility of a vaulted ceiling. But these sizes will fit nicely on my lot, and not over dominate the house in general. Something like 8x10 seats 2, 16x20 seats 8, 18x24 seats 12, without stuffing people in the back corners on on a wall.
Is there a FAQ on this somewhere? I've looked and come up empty.

thanks in advance
-steve

 

[Dave Milne]

Steve,
It depends a lot on your seating. In a 16x22 room you could probably cram 24 or more "commercial-theater-style" seats (say, three rows of 8 seats each). However you're planning super-comfy, reclining, high-end theater chairs with big armrests and cupholders, you might only get 6 (two rows of three). Probably the best thing to do is do a simple layout (on graph paper or computer) and play with various seat sizes/arrangements.

I generally don't like seats against the side walls, so plan on two feet minimum on each side for walking clearance. Reasonably comfy seats are at least 30" wide; probably best to plan on 34-36". That gives you four seats max, per row, in a 16' wide room. You should be able to do two rows in either 20' or 22' depth. The limiting factor here is really screen size. If you have a huge screen, say larger than 100" diagonal, and deep chairs, the front row would probably be too close in a 20' room.

Dave