Turn Your Garage Into A Media or Home Theater Family Room
Family RoomsMedia and private home theater screening rooms are becoming more and more popular with homeowners because of the lower cost of media electronics, greater availability of local companies specialized in the remodeling and renovating of rooms designed specifically for media and home theater use.
The Media Room is where you can put all those video game consoles, computers, DVD players, plasma screen TVs with surround sound and all electronic gadgets find their home in this room. Generally, this room combines games, computers, music and TVs. A Home Theater screening room is often dedicated as a room where the entire family can sit down in comfort dig into some popcorn like the movie theaters and watch movies on a very large wall screen.
In today's economy with the rising price of tickets just to see a movie combined with the cost of popcorn and drinks are often equal to the cost of a complete meal in any near by restaurant. It makes real sense for homeowners with a family to consider remodeling ideas that include utilizing the garage as a home theater, media room, or just an expanded family space. The one consideration most homeowners openly express are they do not want to sacrifice any of their current living area for home entertainment. This makes the garage the ideal remodeling space to consider for additions to your home.
If the garage already exists and is attached to your home it becomes the prime remodeling candidate for a new media room or home theater family room.
Remodeling your garage into a family media or home theater screening room could well be your dream come true. Remodeling the garage into a usable family room requires the displacement of everything currently in the garage including the car. Do not let this scare you. Look at the garage as an empty space, walls, floor, and open ceiling offer a lot of unused storage space area for the many things you may be now tripping over.
During the planning and design stage some things you might consider based on how finished or unfinished your garage interior space is and if weather conditions are an issue. Within your planning stage, an important consideration is plumbing and electrical for your new room:
Do you need a bathroom in the garage?
Is your washer and dryer currently located in the garage?
Do you need a kitchen or food service area?
Do you need heating and air conditioning?
Here are some important storage considerations to get you started:
Flooring
The cement garage floor - allows you a wide choice of coverings such as wood flooring, carpet, and many types of tiles. The garage floor needs to be sealed with a primer coating and a vapor moisture barrier coating applied to the floor. This step prevents mildew and moisture buildup under whatever final floor covering you have selected.
Walls
If the garage walls are unfinished, they will need to be covered with drywall and possibly insulated, painted, and trim added. The walls offer the largest area for storage cabinets, shelves, and wall organizer systems. A well-designed wall storage solution will get most of the boxes, bags, tools, bikes, and holiday decorations off the garage floor.
Shelves
Your new remodeled garage will look much more organized and homey when everything in the room has a place where it belongs. Shelves come in many decorative styles and sizes. You can easily add shelve space to your room without the cost of adding square footage.
Overhead Storage
Overhead storage is a very popular option used in homeowners garages. Most home garages have an open ceiling. This upper ceiling area is very much the same as the main house attic - If you cover the beams in the garage with drywall and paint the drywall you have a finished ceiling. Put in a drop down ladder and even an electric hoist and you can lift and store almost anything you don't need on a regular basis in the attic.
A media room or a home theater remodeling project involves good planning and design to create a family room that becomes a comfortable and natural part of the entire house.
Robert Christian is a freelance writer and published author specializing in garage renovation and remodeling for the DIY home owner. To learn more, contact Robert at http://www.garageenvy.com