Hello June,

How much of an add-on is it? It may be worth to budget for it now, when everything is easier and the material / labor costs can be packaged with the rest. Something always comes up in the field and when it does, it might be an easier decision to lose the room to keep something else.

Good luck & have fun,

-f

Much easier to run all the needed video and speaker wires now and also address sound control than trying to retro fit it later.

Spare bedrooms are a bad idea. Most likely close to other bedrooms and sound will carry too those spaces.

Depends on the layout of the house and if you truly need a media room.

What will you be doing in a media room...?

I've never quite understood the need for a "media room". Watching TV or a movie on TV in my library has always been quite adequate. I don't want to feel as if I'm at a movie theater. I like being in my home.

I do have a college friend who has one and in addition to the typical media room enormous recliners, there is a bed right in front. According to her, she and her husband (now deceased) liked to watch porn in there and used the bed when it was stimulating to them both. I was gobsmacked when she told me this as casually as she would about an outdoor kitchen! I guess I really am an old dinosaur. It was not what happened that shocked me, it was her telling me about it and having it out there in the open. I guess nothing is very private anymore.

how much do you consume media? tv, movies, and music? if it's a lot then a media room is recommended.

a good media room will have sound treatment so you get the best out of your sound system-

it can be painted dark or black so you can have a projector (which is a far better watching experience than a tv)

some of the best affordable loudspeakers are not furniture quality. you can have these in your media room without worrying about the aesthetic-you can even hide them behind an acoustically transparent wall.

watching movies in a dark colored media room with a 120" screen and a nice sound system is a completely different experience than doing the same in a living room.

I think it depends how you live, more than anything else. We have a "theatre room" which is not a full blown media room but gives us a room which can be closed off from the rest of the house for tv viewing. That, for us, is its primary advantage: one person can be in there watching football without disturbing the other person.

The room doesn't have any special wiring, beyond the antenna and cable outlets (we have a soundbar that also works off wifi instead of speakers) and it doesn't have theatre seating, just a couple of recliners. It also houses our "library" so, like most rooms in our house, it's dual purpose.

It suits our needs: it might not suit yours.

Need to see the rest of the floor plan, and this option. Could always consider it a flex room or guest bedroom etc?

Personally I don't like sitting "theatre rooms", I like watching my movies in the family room. While I used to be quite the audiophile that would blast every movie/song, I guess after having a few kids it's just not at the top of my list anymore lol

Make a list of rooms you need in your house. If "Media Room" is not on it, don't build it.

Need to see the overall floor plan to form an opinion.

We have a theater room, but we have weekly movie nights as a family so it was a must have for us. It was much easier to get all the wiring done during construction.

The media room will be on the 2nd floor on top of our kitchen, the cost will be extra 14k. If we decide to convert a bedroom to media room will be bedroom 2 (picture below).

As this moment, we don’t have kid and not really have a use for 2nd floor yet other than a guest room. So right the only use for the media room I can think of is watch movie from Netflix or my husband use it to play his xbox one. But when we have kids later on, we going to let the kids to it as their hang out room with friends and what not as we don’t want to have a tv in their room. But as the same time, we do have a game room that can do the job for all listed above.

A Great room to have for resell value.

We had one in the last house and we didn't use it all that much. It was dark, had good speakers and motorized reclining theater chairs. It was great for movies (once a month or less) and for HQ TV - Game of Thrones. But it is a lot of space for all that. We never did get to 20 uses per year. Better to design a house with TV consumption planned in - a well designed LR. IMO.

Not sure a fully fledged media room is all that big a resell value. There are probably stats somewhere, but I know I wouldn't pay anything extra to have one, and I also know a guy who invested around $80k to put one into his house (he loved his movies, so the investment was for him, not for resell) - but when he did sell, the new owner tore it all out and put in a pool table.

No one can tell without more information.

How many in the household, ages, current habits, entertainment style, budget, other to-be-built areas, actual houseplan...

But I would guess, if you're asking, you think you can leave it out. You may be right.

I've never had a media room but I have lived with children and TV obsessed adults. IMO the most valuable feature is having two living areas: noisy/quiet, adult/child, clean/messy, etc. The way the spaces are used over time can change as the entire household ages, i.e. media room becomes a music room becomes an office becomes a home gym, etc. Two spaces can save your sanity.

I would get it. I had one in my first house and used it all the time. I’m looking forward to having one again in my new house.

How can anyone tell without floorplan... I mean if you have hearth room, family room, living room, a loft... Media room could be excessive...

Will you have a basement? Could you put your media room there rather than add on to your house?

Mark - as a non TV watcher, I don't think you quite appreciate the advantage of having a separate "media room," even if low tech like mine. My hubby loves Aussie rules football (a winter sport) and cricket (a summer sport ). The average Aussie rules game lasts a couple of hours, which I can deal with. Cricket 20/20 also lasts a couple of hours. I can deal with that. One-day cricket lasts, well, a day. I can just about deal with that. But an international test cricket match can last 5 days/days - and end in a draw. I need a media room with a door in my house. I suspect Australian architects have learned to adapt!

"But an international test cricket match can last 5 days/days - and end in a draw. I need a media room with a door in my house."

Lol!! We have an open plan living room. The family has varying degrees of interest in a five day - I love it. They don't much mind so the tv stays on with volume low most of the time. Disappointing when it lasts less than the full 5 days

my question I have is...is this an additional bonus room you're adding (calling it a media room) to be additional square footage? Like...an attic space that would otherwise be left unfinished? If that's the case, it may not be finish-able at a later date due to trusses used. If the choice it finish/don't finish the space you may want to check with the builder to see if it will indeed be able to be finished later.

Sarah - I live in the south so we don’t have a basement.

Peanna1 - the room is convert from a attic space to a usable room. I will ask the builder about it and see if it is a possible to add it in a later time.

Thanks everyone for your input. We will have to discuss more ourselves on the pro and con and decide if we want to add the media room.

What exactly is that 14k getting you? Was it not going to be finished?

My guess is that if your roof is framed with trusses that adding additional attic space would be very challenging at a later date. The same goes for if the media room is in any way changing the roofline. Chances are in any case that if the cost to build it is 14k now, you will spend a lot more in both cash and headache to go back and do it later. To the point that's it's not likely to happen, so I would go into this thinking you are making your final decision now.

If you wanted to save some dollars now though, you might ask the builder if it's possible to build this more like a bonus room with all required framing, window, door, and stubbed in electrical without doing any finishes. You might be worth few thousand, but still expect to pay more than that when you get around to finishing.

The nice thing about this particular media room for resale value is that you could sell the house as a 5 bedroom in the future.

That media room... I'd add in an extra two windows (you can black out those windows with appropriate blinds or drapes) and it will be sellable as a room that could be an extra bedroom for some future buyer who doesn't need a media room.

And to be absolutely honest, I watch TV with the lights on, so I can read magazines or do something else during ads or the boring bits. So having those necessary windows will help any future home owners, and people who need to watch in the dark can have the dark blinds/drapes as they choose.

PS, bedrooms 3, 4 and 5 NEED another window apiece anyway, assuming the illustration is of all outside walls.

(if some are interior walls, of course that's different. But wherever you can, DO put in a window on at least two walls, each room!)

Frankly you have no kids yet and have no use for the media room. Don't build for what you might need 10 years from now. It may or may not happen or you may move or...

Build for how you live now and for the next 5 years. Meaning don't waste $14,000 that could be used for savings, or for when that first child comes, or...

Building rooms just for the sake of rooms is never a good idea. And you already have a game room and 3 bedrooms upstairs.