The 5 Top Home Theater Trends for a Dynamic Media Room
Design trends are not just for kitchens, bathrooms and living rooms. Interior design trends now include things like home gyms, work-from-home stations, and home media rooms. One of our favorite parts of creating home theater furniture is seeing what our customers do with their media room projects. We’ve seen everything from custom media room recliners in two contrasting colors, to rows of entertainment room seating upholstered in Parisian velour that are evocative of that classic movie theater feel, video game rooms outfitted with our high-end reclining entertainment room chairs and decked out with memorabilia, and so much more—it’s one of the best parts of the job. We love it so much that we spent time making a list of the top home theater trends we see to help you plan your own luxury home entertainment hub.
Multi-Use Entertainment Rooms
In today’s age, more spaces at home are now used for a variety of different activities. As more people recognize that they don’t need endless amounts of space in their home, some rooms have become more multi-use as a result. Your home office might have become a low-key homeschool room now that working from home has been completely normalized. Or maybe your work station has bled into your living room. The point is, rooms that were previously dedicated to one purpose now function as multi use spaces. And that absolutely holds true for home theaters becoming more of a multi-function entertainment room. Home theater recliners have even followed suit, becoming more and more design forward and modern as a result.
Maybe your house has the room for a dedicated home theater. But if that’s not the case, your movie room likely has to do double duty. While lots of people still do build dedicated home theater rooms, many people have chosen to use their budget to build multi-purpose entertainment hubs. What was once the home theater is now the home-theater-video-game-family-night room that also has a pool table in it. Those exceptionally comfortable to sit in home theater recliners have now become everyone’s favorite entertainment room sofa that can fit the whole family but still give you plenty of space to sprawl out when it’s just you watching a movie or gaming.
You can do this in a few ways:
- Leave open floor space for interactive gaming.
- Choose quality projection screens to use in a variety of lighting types.
- Incorporate modular furniture for entertainment rooms to create a custom layout.
- Furnish the room with wall-hugging reclining cinema seating to save space for other activities.
- Choose alternate types of multimedia furniture like home theater sectionals, sofas, couches, and loveseats.
Modern Design Lines
Home theater designs used to show luxury with rich textures and featured almost Old-World, upscale décor. You know, kind of like that overstuffed pair of entertainment room reclining chairs your parents or grandparents had. They were almost too utilitarian, failing to be anything appealing to the eye. But now that home theater spaces are used for multiple uses, fancy textures and décor may not suit a space that is for home movies as well as gym equipment and a game table. Instead, people are opting for more of a modern feel—you can still have your upscale multimedia room chair wrapped in black leather, but it’s going to be a lot more design-friendly. Think simple, inoffensive silhouettes, premium materials, and of course, pure comfort and luxury.
Clean, subtle lines that make a room feel open and calm are the most contemporary design trends seen in home theater design today. People like sharp angles, neutral colors and contrasting textures. By sticking with neutral colors for your entertainment room furniture—think multimedia room recliners upholstered in premium white leather or an entertainment sofa upholstered in grey microfiber fabric—you’re not only making sure it plays well with any of the other items and furniture you have scattered around the room, you’re also ensuring that your furniture stands the test of time. These colors are timeless for a reason.
Coordinate the furniture throughout your movie room, like if you have a curved row of theater chairs in front of a screen, and a multimedia sectional sofa facing a gaming TV at the other side of the room. This both brings a space together and makes it feel more spacious. While doing this, it also creates some slight separation between the activities. Just because you have a multi-hyphenate room doesn’t mean the furniture and electronics also need to be multi-hyphenate. Maybe at the front of the room, it’s a row of entertainment room recliners that sit four people, but the video game chair is just a single media room recliner because only one of you plays video games. Consider models of theater seating that aren’t the typical cushy, plush vibe, but still offer all the comfort, like Euro-inspired seat designs. They tend to look more like regular home furniture and perfectly blend that line between the two.
(Click the photo to see Valencia’s Oslo XL multimedia chair.)
Media Room Themes
As a recreation center and entertainment hub, the home theater showcases the hobbies and passions of the homeowner. The room becomes the place where the imagination lets loose and interior designs get creative. We’ve seen everything from huge, ornate home theaters with classic rows of entertainment room seating propped up on risers and LED lights galore to more nuanced and niche themes that can say a lot about a person.
Love classic films? Maybe a black and white Hollywood colour scheme becomes the feature of the décor of the media room. You can even up the noir vibes with a classy two-toned pair of leather home theater recliners with white and black contrasting stripes.
Live and breathe video games? Try memorabilia shrine full of your favorite games, box art, and merchandise with a wide-screen television and some high-tech, extra comfortable black leather recliners for multimedia rooms.
Passionate about cars? How about featuring posters of racecars and racing stripes incorporate into the wall paint? You could even get customized entertainment room seating that has two contrasting colors to make them look more like a racecar.
Into observatory vibes? Try dark blue-themed décor with a starlight ceiling you can recline your theater chairs to enjoy.
Making the home theater a creative space gives the feeling of stepping into a whole new place and time. Many modern home theaters embrace theme designs and reflect the homeowner’s personality. It’s a leisure room; it should look and feel exactly like you. Home theaters are one of those rooms you can have an entire theme going in, and no one’s going to bat an eye. It’s a modern-day sanctuary for you to escape to at the end of the day, and you can get as eclectic as you want. Browse a website like Pinterest and get inspired—you’ll be able to find tons of great inspiration for home theater furniture and layouts when you see some of the seriously impressive theater rooms out there.
(Click the photo to see Valencia’s Venice home theater recliner.)
Family-Friendly Function
Home theaters are no longer simply “man caves” like they used to be. With the use of modern design features and more comfortable seating, the media room is now an activity center for the whole family. The evolution of the place that was simply meant to view a screen to a place where all the members of the family play games, relax and watch media together has emerged. The desire to completely emulate a movie theater is gone, and home theaters have evolved to have a more social aspect where you can hang out and have fun together. The man cave chairs of old need to be replaced with something a little more modern and palatable for a family room.
This is another great reason to consider seating layouts for your media room that look and function like living room furniture but keep with all the features of home theater furniture. Instead of stadium seating in elevated rows, use a couple loveseats, a sectional and two recliners, or even one row of seating and a couple couches. With the right seating layout and the right brand of theater seating, you can have it all.
Modular furniture works fantastically in this scenario too—if you’re wanting that curved row of five reclining entertainment room chairs to flow better in what is now the family media room, break them up. Modularity allows you to fully customize the layout of those fabric media room recliners so you can make something that works for you… and then you can do it again, and again. With it being more of a family media room, you might have friends or guests over where you need to create a new seating arrangement that makes sense for the occasion. Maybe you have a media room sofa that sits up to three in one part of the room for the adults, and you’ve got a straight row of four reclining home theater chairs around it for all the kids.
Comfortable Lounge Seating
Just as the traditional home theater has evolved into a place for the whole family to enjoy multiple activities, the furnishings have also changed. Comfort is key and old style flip up cinema chairs don’t offer the level of relaxation the modern family desires. The trend is to feature large, comfortable sectionals that recline and even have USB ports, head rests and LED lighting. You don’t even have to do an entire home theater build – upgrade your entertaining space with a couple pieces of multimedia furniture and huge flat screen.
If you’re going to be watching movies or shows for extended periods of time, comfort is key, and you’ll want to keep yourself—and your back—feeling relaxed at all times. You’ll definitely want power recline and a nice, plush headrest to lay back on out of your home theater recliners. Similarly, if you want to take the relaxation to the next level, media room seating with heated cushions are all the rage right now too. Set it to the temperature of your choosing, sit back, and let the heat melt away the stress from the day. It’s the perfect coupling of modern functionalities with classic seating that help you easily create a home theater decked out with comfortable lounge seating.
(Click the photo to Valencia’s most popular seat: The Tuscany)
Movie Theater Seating for the Home: Modern Solutions, Timeless Design
Valencia provides the best in comfortable, quality, designer home theater seating. Offering a wide range of models, features and seating accessories, each design delivers the best in leather upholstery, stitching, high-quality foam cushioning, and touch pad controls. Valencia even has a custom build option that lets you explore multiple colours and configurations. No matter what your needs are—whether that’s a media room chair upholstered with vegan leather or a bright red home theater recliner with Italian leather cushioning—we can help you make them a reality. Browse our online shop and contact us for a consultation today!
