The chances are that, if you’re reading this, you’re considering installing an entertainment room in your home. Whether you’ve lived in your home for years and you feel it’s missing a sort of je-ne-sais-quoi, or you’re looking at the blueprints for your dream home and want to build a space where you and your family can relax and have fun together, an entertainment room seems to be the solution to your problems.
After all, even in the coziest and most comfortable of homes, we tend to want our lives sectioned off, to have different spaces in our home that are dedicated to different activities. It’s why experts recommend having a separate workspace in your home, especially for those who are currently living a work-from-home lifestyle: having areas of our home that are delineated especially for certain actions makes performing those actions much easier in those spaces.
So you’ve decided to section off a part of your home solely for the fun of yourself and your family. And that’s brilliant: especially as quarantines go back up and the virus continues to mutate and spread, finding ways to entertain ourselves at home will be paramount to maintaining our sanity in the future. But people who are less familiar with interior design might wonder, now that they have decided they want said entertainment room to exist: how should they furnish it, and what activities can they expect to enjoy in their new entertainment-only space?
If this is your first time designing an entertainment room, have no fear: while what you put in your entertainment room will likely diverge from what’s written below, depending on your family’s specific needs and the activities they enjoy, this guide will seek to give you a blueprint of what kinds of features are must-haves in any entertainment room.
Let’s get into it.
A Home Theater System
If you haven’t already purchased the largest flat-screen TV you can afford, as well as high-quality speakers that have the ability to make the walls pound with bass, that might be a good place to start. Your entertainment room should be a place where the members of your family can go to watch their favorite movies, programs, and sports events, whether they choose to watch by themselves or as a community.
In that spirit, you should also have plenty of options for on-screen entertainment available, so make sure you have subscriptions to the major streaming services, plus ways to watch additional content on demand. However, streaming services can get expensive month to month, especially if you aren’t paying a bundled price for them: so don’t be afraid to look into free streaming options for your favorite sports, TV series, and films.
A Board Game Cache
Your entertainment room shouldn’t just be a home theater, however (unless you and your family decide that’s all the functionality they want out of it): it should also be a place where your family can gather round ye olde wooden table and collaborate (or compete) to win any variety of board games. With younger generations slowly rediscovering the value and the fun of board games, there are any number of board games that can provide hours of family fun: Catan, Monopoly, Mysterium, and the like.
As such, you might want to get a sturdy table and place it in one of the corners of the room, or perhaps a fold-out table if space doesn’t allow for anything more permanent. You can also consider installing shelves on which to place your board games, adding a visually appealing element to the area.
Places to Read and Relax
Entertainment rooms aren’t just for family fun. They can also be a place where a member of your family can get away from the hustle and bustle of daily life, recline in an isolated place, and enjoy quieter pastimes. As such, you’ll want to include lots of comfortable seating in your entertainment room, incorporating easy chairs and lounge furniture as well as your more typical, communal couches. Also include different lighting options and fixtures, giving your family members the opportunity to switch from more brazen illumination to low lighting as well as using lamps to illuminate specific areas, making it easier for them to read and do similar activities.
Your entertainment room will be as unique as your family: if you come up with an idea that may benefit your family more than what’s written above, don’t be afraid to consult them. Remember, these are just blueprints, and you are the architect: you can customize as needed to make your entertainment room the fun, freeing space your family needs.
