First published April 2021. Rewritten and last reviewed 24 August 2026.
A home cinema installation is not a purchase. It is a small building project with a picture and a sound system at the end of it, and the quality of the result is set by decisions made on the drawings, not by the equipment list. This is how we design and install private cinemas across Scotland, in the order the decisions have to be made.
Start with the room, not the projector
Three things decide whether a room can be a good cinema, and none of them is for sale. Its proportions, which govern how bass behaves. Its isolation from the rest of the house, which governs whether a film at reference level wakes a child upstairs. And its noise floor: a room with a boiler through the wall or a fan coil in the ceiling will never be quiet enough for the quiet parts of a film to work. We assess all three before a screen size is discussed, and in a new build we settle them with the architect at RIBA Stage 2.
Then the geometry
The seating positions are fixed first. From those come the screen size, using viewing angle rather than fashion (our screen size and viewing distance guide gives the figures), the projector position and throw, the height of the picture, and the speaker positions for every channel. In a dedicated room the front speakers sit behind an acoustically transparent screen, at the height the sound engineer intended. Ceiling and surround speakers are placed by angle from the seats, not by where the joists happen to be. All of it goes on a drawing that the builder, the electrician and the joiner can work from.
Then the fabric
- Isolation. Independent wall linings, a floating floor or a resilient ceiling where the room needs it, with doors and ventilation designed so that the isolation is not undone by a gap.
- Acoustic treatment. Absorption and diffusion placed by measurement, concealed behind fabric so that the room reads as a room. Room correction such as Lyngdorf’s RoomPerfect reduces how much is needed; it does not remove the need.
- Ventilation and cooling. A sealed, insulated room full of people and electronics gets warm. Quiet ventilation is designed in, not added when the room is found to be stuffy.
- Containment and power. Cable routes, an equipment location with cooling and access, and clean power, coordinated at Stage 4 with the M&E package.
- Lighting and blinds. Dimmed scenes for arrival, viewing and cleaning, blackout where there are windows, all on the same control as the cinema itself.
Only then the equipment
With the room designed, the equipment almost chooses itself. Projector brightness follows screen size and gain. Speaker size follows room volume and the level the client wants. Processor and amplification follow the channel count. We are authorised to supply Steinway Lyngdorf and Lyngdorf Audio, MK Sound, and control from RTI, Control4 and Lutron, and we specify from those and others on what the room needs. A cinema built this way is calibrated on completion, its measurements are recorded, and a support agreement keeps it that way.
Media rooms and living rooms
Not every client wants a dedicated room, and a living room that doubles as a cinema is a legitimate brief. The principles are the same, the compromises are different, and we are honest about them: a large television or direct-view LED wall instead of a projector, invisible or architectural speakers instead of a screen wall, blinds that make the room dark enough. We discuss the choice in our article on direct-view LED and our article on invisible speakers.
Questions we are asked
How big a room do I need?
A good two-row cinema for six to eight people wants a room of roughly six metres by four with a ceiling of 2.6 metres or more, but a well-designed smaller room beats a badly designed large one. The garage conversion is a common and often excellent starting point.
Can this be done in an existing house?
Yes. A great many private cinemas are built in existing houses. The isolation and containment are harder and sometimes the ceiling height sets the limit, but a survey tells us quickly what the room can be.
Who do you work for on a project?
Normally the client, with the architect and interior designer. We produce the drawings the trades work from and we attend site at the stages that matter.
Home cinema design and installation in Scotland
The service is described in full on the home cinema design and installation page, with our garage conversion cinemas as a separate page. Completed rooms are in the residential projects archive. Start a conversation and we will tell you what your room can be.