You can't make the basement longer, unless the house above it gets longer. Personally speaking I think basements are for tots and teens. If you don't want me on your first floor, I can stay home to watch a game or a movie. I grew up in the basement and no matter how glam I am NEVER going back down. Unless I am your thirty something peer, babysitter, nanny, or MIL, or mom, ...I can also do without the toys lol. Pour me a glass in the kitchen.

Skip the bar for now, don't overdo the space, and let your kids beat it up. : )

Jan I believe what OP is saying is that the room is a rectangle and the option is to close off part to be a media room or keep as one long rec room. I’m pro long rec room. Our basement rec room will be tv room, play area, gaming area, arts and craft station. Kid heaven

All one.

I think this really depends on how you intend to use the space. I have a dedicated theater with a game room right next to it. For us it has worked out really well. I spend a lot of time in the theater watching tv, movies, sports and playing video games. Being able to close the space and contain the sound and having full light control is great. plus it allows someone else, ie kids to use the game room if they want and neither party is on top of each other. My entry to theater is only a normal 30 in door. I think a barn door with 4-5 foot opening would provide a little of both allowing privacy when needed but also the option to open things up. Though sound will most likely spill over from both spaces. I did double wall, double sheet rocked and used exterior door to my theater to contain as much sound as possible.

If sound control is not a factor, then open is fine. If it is, then I'd opt for a closed room.

A friend who made it a large room said she regretted it b/c when a group wanted to chat the tv viewers were disturbed by chatter, so wishes she had a separate media room.

I've had both the separate theater room, and a combined media room with the bar open to the projector & screen.

If you haven't broken ground yet, make sure you get a deep-pour basement. That is, at least nine foot ceilings in your unfinished space. This will make a huge difference.

I think the decision on which way to go is going to depend on what your ultimate use is going to be.

Primarily movie night? Then have the separate theater space. That will let you build the space for better surround sound, and better light control.

Primarily sports? Then have the room open to the bar.

Well, I guess I am a teenager at heart. I like basements, even more so the non-walkout and non-“daylight” cozy kinds. My bedroom for most of my teen years was in basement so I guess it fits!

As for your query the answer is...it depends? If smaller I’d likely leave if open and use moveable screens to keep toys out of site. But If basement is really large I’d want to define the spaces more rather than leave if just like a cavernous open space: always looks kind of uncomfortable to me with that “we had no idea what to do with this place” vibe with random groupings of furniture etc around. I see this latter a lot!

One large space without a permanent wall between them but "divided" by deep floor to ceiling shelving with a back on the media room side -- shelving units that could be either left in place or moved to one side or the other or removed entirely as family use of the space evolves.

Use shelving deep enough and bottom heavy enough so toppling over is not an issue and attach the shelving to floor and/or ceiling as well. Putting cabinet doors on the bottom shelves will help discourage toddlers from trying to climb the shelving and enable some storage to be hidden.

If you want a great movie experience then separate rooms and have a good theatre designer do your home theatre. We did a really good home theatre in our house about 20 years ago with sliding pocket doors (very heavy on industrial tracks) between it and the rec room. This worked well as we could close the room for the ultimate movie experience or open the doors for larger groups. It did provide fairly good sound isolation between the theatre and rec room if people were talking in the rec room.

Our theatre has/had a 13' greyhawk screen, Sony G90 projector, M&K 150 speaker system (initially powered by Rotel and more recently by Anthem). The floor was floated with the walls and ceiling built on the floated floor. There are no parallel surfaces nor 90° angles. Walls were fully insulated with two layers of sheetrock + green glue. It was designed more as a studio screening room than a typical home theatre and really does provide an exceptional visual and auditory experience beyond what any commercial theatre can do.

Though we really enjoyed it we found that over the past 5 or so years we've not used it as much and instead often watched movies in our family room next to our kitchen. Easier than going downstairs. So, we're not doing a dedicated theatre in our new house but instead a rec room / bar designed to work fairly well as a theatre.

I like a fireplace in the LR and a TV in a family room and even better is the media in a separate part of the house. We live in our basement media room it works well , has great sound and when we have company in our LR some idiot doesn’t turn on the TV while we are trying to have a conversation, just to see the score of some game.

Floor plans, please!

Let's stop the guessing and get down to reality.