The houzz site I asked about earlier today has lots of pictures of media rooms.

Here is a link that might be useful: [Home Theater Rooms[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/home-theater-ideas-phbr0-bp~t_719)

Thanks artlover, but I am looking more for built in cabinetry that I would put the tv on. I dont think I want the "theater" atmosphere of just a screen, even though I did write theater in my heading. Its also a play room. I wanted cabinets so we can store away the toys.

Lindy I do remember yours. My room is a bonus room with no fireplace. I am hoping someone posts a picture from a basement custom built wall unit. Today we bought a new tv....55 inch, its sitting on my sons old train table....really stylish. I feel like I have seen what I wanted so many times but cant seem to find a picture now. I do like your setup. I think that will be similar to the center cabinet, then I need to put something on either side. I really want storage, not so much display area. Are your tv components in a wire front cabinet? Our family room has a similar built in and the inside of the cabinet gets SO hot from the cable box. I definately want something that has venting.

Here are some inspiration pics I've collected...

Here is an outdoor projection screen home theater:

Gk, the heat was a concern of ours too. We did the black mesh fronts for ventilation. Sometimes the remotes have difficulty through them though.

I don't have a close up on the TV side but have one on the left closer.

Thanks Lindy, the mesh hardly looks like mesh from here.
Oceanna, thanks for the eye candy. I did see a few of them while searching the internet all day. There was a batman room which was very cool. Our room originally had a projector screen and the projector broke a few months back. Now the tv we brought with us when we moved has died, so we are starting clean. Since the kids play wii and playstation in there, a movie screen is not practical. We couldnt get the room dark enough with the palladian window. We could only watch the movie screen at night. It was fun but not worth fixing. The new tv has a beautiful picture so I am anxious to get something built and finish the room. Thanks for the responses, hope some more people show me their built ins:)

gk

Took some searching

Pics of our basement playroom under construction

this is the cab where the large LCD tv went

children's desk area w/upper & lower cubbies

Game & toy storage

I did a lot of soundproofing prior to this stage, both in walls & ceiling + I wired for speakers before the drywall went up

Sorry I don't have completed pics - it's been done for over 2yrs!

Good luck

GK you're very welcome. I'm glad you enjoyed the pictures. Thank you for mentioning them! That means a lot to me. It's depressing to spend extra time and effort trying to help someone and just be ignored. :/

In my last home we had a 10' diagonal screen with an overhead projector, so I know how ultra-cool that can be. And yes you do need a way to make it dark during the day. Our projector burned out too, and was too expensive to get repaired, so like you we went to wide screens.

I couldn't afford the more lavish looks I posted above, but I figure I could take ideas from those pictures and reproduce them. I hope you see some good ideas there that you can incorporate into your room.

I love wall sconces in a home theater -- on a dimmer, of course. I also think rope lighting can be very cool in a home theater. I've seen rope lighting mounted just above crown moulding that is just shy of the ceiling -- it was a wonderful look.

I hope you'll be posting pictures.

gk... we're having our custom built-in entertainment center installed this week. It will house a 57" flatscreen as well as several speakers behind doors with speaker fabric. The components will be in lower cabinets with wood doors (to hide all the wires... i hate wires!)and venting. We will be using an infrared repeater so the remote signal can go to the components in the cabinets. There will also be a panel behind the TV to hide those wires as well. The entertainment center will have 2 glass door cabs for cd/dvds and 2 bookcases. I will post a pic once they are finished(hopefully by next weekend!)

in the meantime, here was the preliminary cabinet design(a few things have changed since then...)

Wow....some of those theater rooms are really neat!

Here's our humble one in our basement. We didn't want to do a projection type because I sometimes like to read while hubby watches a movie, and I knew lighting would be a problem, so we got this 70" Sony a couple of years ago and have really loved it. It has some depth to it, so we had to move these standard built-in cabinets out about 5" from the wall to allow for clearance. They're just stock cabinets of the "office" type (they're not as tall as kitchen cabs).

The two middle cabinets are individual ones (since office/desk units didn't come in the width I needed for double doors). We just had the installer cut out the side-walls between them to make it all one cabinet for the components and had glass doors put in. It does get warm in the cabinets, so I open the 2 doors when we use it. I've been meaning to remove those 2 top center drawers and add speaker mesh for ventilation.

Behind the cabinets are all the necessary connections put in before we dry-walled, and we drilled an opening in the countertop for the TV wires to do down below.

Oceanna, glad to hear I wasnt the only one with bad tv luck. When we moved in we hemmed and hawed over building a media center around the 4 year old out dated clunker tv and movie screen or waiting. So glad we waited. Sad thing is a little over a year ago we dumped $400 into the old tv and now it died:(
Lishanna, please post pics when you are done!!!!! Send me an email reminder to look at them gk5040@aol.com That is exactly what we are looking to do, only I want some cabinets doors going up to the top (that you cant see thru) so I can store stuff in them, like toys. My kids will one day out grow the toys but this house has no storage, so I need to conceal things. I want a few shelves but really more concealed storage. How much extra room did you leave in the tv area. I keep thinking I should leave enough for a 60-70 inch future tv. Once its built its there for the next 20 years!!!
Tracey, thanks for the post, I like the uniform look on the bottom, do you use the drawers for cd and movies? Wow a 70 inch that must be amazing!!! Can you tell me the width and length of your tv? Pretty wall color.
Thanks again:)

Lishanna, did you get your entertainment center installed??? We had our cabinet man come out to give us an estimate....he measured and now I am waiting.

gk- they're not quite done yet(just a few more trim pieces and shelves left to install)... I'll post pics as soon as the TV and speakers are installed in the unit(hopefully by mid week). We only left a few inches around the TV and we mounted an articulating arm so we can angle as well as pull out/push in etc.) We didn't plan for a bigger TV as 57" is the right size for our viewing distance. Anything else would be overkill.

How exciting. I can wait to see your pics. I am hoping for our estimate to come in this weeks mail. This guy also did our kitchen and family room, so I know he mails the sketch and quote.

So the AV guys haven't shown up yet, but the built-ins are finished, so i decided to post the pics for you now.Excuse the speakers lying in the middle of the FR and the off-kilter TV(the cab guys hung it wrong). The room still needs a lot of work... We're going to buy our new couches this weekend(yay!)

here's the before:

And the after:

It's a little hard to see the details because of the glare...

Oh, its beautiful. Love the color. It looks like furniture! Ours will be in a bonus room, instead of the family room. I emailed you a picture of the drawing our cabinet guy sent to us. Mine will have a little more hidden storage to it. Thanks for posting:)