In a perfect world, your home theater would be a regular rectangle with proper measurements of 14 x 20-feet topped by 9-foot ceilings. But there is no perfect world, and few basements are built from the ground up with ideal home theater proportions in mind. In this New Jersey project, structural columns interrupted the space where the theater was to go, so the homeowners adjusted by building a theater “nook.” It ended up ing well with their plans to isolate the room from the rest of the house to keep noise to a minimum, but it required acoustical tweaking to tailor the sound to the space.

Originally, the owner was set on a 103-inch plasma TV for the wow factor. EDG convinced him that a projector would deliver the big-screen experience he wanted at a price within his budget. For the amount of money a 103-inch plasma TV would command, the family could get a DLP projection system, including a 110-inch screen, pad the room with acoustical panels and get a secondary 55-inch plasma TV in the rear of the room to boot — while still having money left over. at decision had to be made before the room was framed out, so EDG personnel cut out a piece of plo ing paper with a diagonal measurement of 110 inches and placed it on the wall where the screen would go. The owner gave his thumbs up when he positioned himself in what would be the prime seating location and imagined the view.