The Rage
For decades, media rooms have been the rage. They started as bonus space above the garage and morphed into massive spaces with a dozen speakers, multiple seating levels, 120" screens, $5,000 leather seats, wet bars, popcorn machines and much more.
The desire to recreate the theater experience at home was a powerful motivation for families to pour money into these rooms and for audio/video companies to develop entire lines of premium equipment, lighting and furniture to fill up these spaces.
Over The Garage
In the first generation, media rooms stared out over the garages as it was cost effective to finish out and helped isolate the sound from the rest of the home. They were first referred to as bonus rooms; however we quickly started to wire them up for all the audio/video goodies, then added equipment closets and some builders even installed the projectors and screens to sell with the homes.
Over time, we started moving the rooms into other areas of the upstairs in search of larger spaces and more architectural elements. This helped with the space but it added costs to the home and moved the "noise" further into the home's interior space.
Dirty Little Secret
As more of these rooms were built to accommodate all the new media equipment that was being offered, a dirty little secret was starting to become known. If a media room was upstairs, the adults almost NEVER used the space. Even more interesting is that younger children were still preferring to watch movies/TV with their parents in the family room so they seldom used the rooms either (accept for slumber parties but that is a whole other story).
Our experience is that about the only folks who routinely use media rooms are teenagers. Now maybe I am just an old fuddy duddy but teenagers in a dark room designed to keep sound isolated from the outside located away from the rest of the family is not the best idea.
Move It On Down
As families started to realize the limitations of upstairs media rooms, they requested builders to move these rooms downstairs. This did make them more accessible however a whole host of new issues was created.
Space Utilization- Unless you have an acre to work with, most home sites are modest in size, which can create some serious flow issues for a home. Trying to get every room in a logical location and trying to isolate the media room sound can be a challenge, add costs and crowd out space from other living areas.
Placement- Locating a media room in a floor plan is complicated. If you move it away from the main living spaces, the room's isolation can leave it unused. You must also account for bathrooms, refreshment centers, bedrooms, guest access, hallways, wet bars, etc... In EVERY case that I have worked with a family, a downstairs media room has dramatically increased the size and cost of a home. My rule of thumb is that you add a total of 300 square feet to a home for every 100 square feet in size of a media room on the first floor.
Costs - It is more expensive to put rooms on the first floor and these added costs are not often realized by families until the later stages of the design process. Other hidden costs include foundationn costs, exterior walls and mitigation of the sound from the other living spaces.
Noise - Media rooms are designed to create a theater experience including louder sounds than typical TV watching. This noise will travel through the house as few families can or will pay for a true media room sound mitigation system and/or the kids will leave the door open.
Complex & Costly To Maintain
Another challenge with these rooms is our very motivated audio video sales reps have been selling us systems that are so temperamental and difficult to operate that if one thing goes wrong you have to pay a $400 trip charge to get someone to tell you why its broke. Adding a new DVD player could require 3 hours or programming. If Direct TV swaps out your boxes, it will cost you to have your wires and programming repaired (yes it happened to me).
To this day I still can't get my Graphic Eye lights to work the way I want and my remote does not fully operate all functions. Even if money is no object, having a programmer camped out in your house for a week at a time gets old really fast.
The cool one touch controls you see in the show rooms or during the "perfect" demo at another customer's house are not always that perfect in your own home. All it takes is an incorrect battery change of a remote, your RF broadcaster to zonk out or a power surge that requires swapping out an amp and you may have to start all over with programming.
Out Of Date
Another aspect we have discovered is just like computers, these media systems are outdated before the install is finished. Even if a newer product comes out before your install (or the price drops) you have to order the equipment so early in the building process you are stuck with last year's model and last year's prices.
Kids Love Their Parents
If our family is typical, we find that most movies are watched in the family room on the main TV. Our media room has become a ghost town. As a home builder, I hear similar stories from other families. I can also witness the reality when I am at their home (yes we can tell how a room is used/not used by looking at it, kind of like a spooky esp thing they teach you).
Our daughters, even the 13 year old, like to watch movies with us in the family room. They can goof off, play with their younger sister, learn from their wise parents and camp out with the refrigerator door wide open all while watching the movie. When we give them a choice, 8 times out of 10 they prefer to be in the family room over the media room. We hear similar stories from other families.
$1,000 A Night
Regardless of how cool, convenient or complex a media room is, families seldom use these rooms as much as they anticipated. If a media room adds $100,000 to the cost of a house (very easy to do with construction costs, equipment, furniture, etc...) and you spend 20 nights in there a year (about every other week), then at $1,000 a night you would take 5 years to get break even on the room. This does not include utilities, taxes, insurance, cleaning, etc..
I have found that most families find their use drops off dramatically after a newness wears off. What kind of night on the town can you have for $1,000?
Fast Forward To The Past
So, we spent two decades trying to recreate the movie experience in our homes and are now seeing that no matter how much money is spent, it is not easy to change the fundamentals on how families live. The family room is called a family room for a reason, that is where the family congregates and watching movies together is part of that experience.
There are exceptions to every rule and I do know a few families who use their rooms weekly but they appear to be in the minority. There will always be a place for media rooms, however, I do think many of the families who insisted on having them only to use them as closets will now pass on media rooms in their next home. I also suspect that you will see more flexible spaces being designed so that a family can utilize it as they see fit.
The Next Trend?
The coming trend seems to be to make multi-purpose rooms where the media room is combined with a game room. In some cases we see "media corners" where a portion of a large game room is darkened (paint, curtains, etc...) so that it can be isolated for a movie or opened up while the game room is in use.
Others Soon To Follow
Media rooms are not the only endangered rooms. We are seeing the death of the formal living room and suspect the formal dining room is not far behind. Other rooms that have had some popularity but are seldom used include climate controlled wine rooms, craft rooms and exercise rooms (come on, if you don't exercise now do you really think building an entire room will be a motivator).
The larger homes will most likely hold on to these spaces, but for families looking for value, there maybe better places to spend your money than rooms that are seldom used. Flexible multi use spaces seem to be where many of our families are heading towards in their future home designs.
No Worries
At this point you maybe saying to yourself, dang, I want Mike to build us a house but he won't put the rooms in we want. Please have no fear! I will build just about any room you want in your new home. I only want my families and friends to know the pros and cons of every decision they make. If after learning that you still want a media room with all the bells and whistles, I am all in.
In fact I will personally put the room through extensive testing every Sunday from August thru February to insure your satisfaction. P.S. I like lots of butter on my popcorn.
My final thought, don't design a house based upon what you think people expect of your. Design and build a home that serves how your family actually lives. If you don't use a media room now, building a larger more expensive room probably won't change your lifestyle.
Please feel free to leave your comments, drop us an email at mike@garabedianproperties.com or call our office at 817-748-2669. I also encourage you to visit www.garabedianproperties.com to see our entire website.
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