HT002 – Home Theater Design – Color and Paint Selection
Episode #002
Host: Mike Deckys
Guest: Kristin Hannah – Hannah Interiors
Topic: Home Theater Design – Color and Paint Selection
Download Full Transcript here
Mike – On this episode of the Smarter Home Theater show we have part one of a two part series on Home Theater design with Kristin Hannah of Hannah Interiors. In part 1, we will cover paint and how it affects your home theater experience and in part two we are going to talk about some exciting new options for fabric wall coverings that will help you maximize your experience. Kristin Hannah is well known for her work as a designer on HGTV where she was named one of the nation’s top designers after being featured on Country Style and Designers Challenge. She has also been featured in many publications including the New York Times and Dream Homes Magazine. Kristin and her team have developed a unique approach to decorating by taking their local interior design service 100% virtual. Her website virtualinteriordesigners.com allows you to virtually have a professional designer come into your home and make expert recommendations. Welcome to the show Kristin.
Kristin Hannah – Thank you so much Mike I’m very happy to be here.
Mike – We’re glad to have you Kristin. Could you tell us just a little bit more about how your virtual design service works?
Kristin Hannah – Yes, Hannah Interiors has started a concept called virtualinteriordesigners.com where a team of designers who are able to help you design your home all through pictures, so you can just send us pictures and inspiration ideas and we are able to give you advice and suggestions and everything we would do if we met with you we can do all over email and fax and we can send you packages of suggestions that we have without ever having to walk into your home
Mike – Neat
Kristin Hannah – So it is really a neat affordable way to do design
Mike – Yeah, that sounds great. Well you know one of the most crucial decisions people are going to make regarding their home theater is going to be the color. Whether it is going to be a paint or a fabric, whether it is going to be a gloss or a texture. In a home theater you essentially have a giant spotlight with a bullhorn sitting at the front of a dark room shooting off light and sound. This light and sound is going to reflect off of the walls, the ceiling, the floor, and everything as it travels to your seat. What it bounces off along the way can make a huge difference in the quality of the picture and sound. Too much reflection of light and it is going to diminish the contrast of your picture. You get too much reflection of sound and it is going to muddy the tone and the localization. So Kristin, your job here is to give us some insights and ideas on how to make our home theater experience a great one. So let’s start talking about color, in our walls specifically for right now, and give us some suggestions about some colors to use and why you would use those colors and also maybe some colors we should be avoiding and why should we avoid those colors
Kristin Hannah – Yes we do a lot of home theaters and the suggestions we always give to our clients is that it is really important not to go too wild with the colors. The focal point of the room is the television and you want to kind of keep the color subdued. But it is important to go darker; if you stay with lighter colors then it is a distraction from the television. So darker colors such as maroons, darker blue is good, something like that. We do also suggest to do matte paint, not gloss. Gloss reflects, if you put anything that has the gloss such as wall art you want to make sure that it has a non reflective look to it so that your focal point is the television, not so much what is on the walls. It is good to have some sort of color to give it that feeling of a dark theater.
Mike – Right, now I know that red and black are your primary theater colors when somebody thinks of a theater it is red and black but you mentioned maroons. Shades of red, dark blues, so really it is more of a personal preference thing so long as you stick in the darker palettes
Kristin Hannah – Exactly, you can even do green if you wanted to. There are all sorts of different earthy, what I would suggest and our team usually does, the earthy colors representing some of the older theaters. The dark woods is really good, maple is one of our favorites to do, there is maple and cherry, which maple is actually a little bit less expensive than cherry. Cherry looks really nice. The woods really warm up the room and make a big difference. Crown moldings, also the baseboards kind of tie in all the elements together and give it a feeling of theater rather than just a big room that has a television
Mike – Right, right now you had suggested also a matte finish. There are many different finishes the ones I can think of off of the top of my head are flat, matte, eggshell, any of the less glossy ones will work or is there a specific one that really works the best?
Kristin Hannah – I would say that the best is the matte. There is the satin and eggshell, both of those are about the same, each manufacturer has their own words for that middle paint which is sort of the gloss which is the shiniest of them all then there is the eggshell of the satin and then there is the matte. And the Matte is really the best for a room where there is going to be a lot of bright lights coming out of the television. So what is going to happen is when they have the television on and their watching their movie it is going to shine against the walls and reflect all over the room. So the matte is really the best to have in a home theater
[ad#Google Adsense]
Mike – so matte and flat are essentially the same it is just a difference between manufacturers?
Kristin Hannah – Yes
Mike – ok now if you are going to be doing your room you also need to take into account the ceiling, are there suggested colors that you can customize your ceiling with, suggested colors to use and avoid, and suggested finishes to use and avoid
Kristin Hannah – Yes, there again I would suggest to use as dark as possible if you keep it white it is going to be an eyesore in a lot of ways because everything else is going to be darker in the room. If you wanted to do a black ceiling that is no problem. If you wanted lights, you could do a brown color, a darker brown. When you have the room as the main purpose of the room is to have a theater room to have the lights off it is important that it feels dark, and that it feels like a theater. One of the big mistakes that a lot of people do is that they end up trying to make it look showy when the theater lights are on rather than when the theater lights are off. That’s the purpose of the room. So wallpaper, any thing with patterns is not a good idea to put on the walls
Mike – so something that looks terrific with the lights on can be a complete distraction and eyesore when the lights go down for the show
Kristin Hannah – Exactly, so a lot of people put a couple different finishes, they put like the gloss and the matte together thinking oh this will look really neat when the lights are on but then when the lights are off you notice that gloss and matte together when maybe with the lights on you don’t
Mike – Right. Should you ceilings be darker than you walls? I know that you said black is a possibility for your ceiling and I know that the star ceiling kits are a big option that people use, but generally should your ceiling be darker than your walls?
Kristin Hannah – you could do both really. We’ve done everything from the black ceilings to the lighter ceilings and I would definitely suggest whatever you keep white will be a focal point so if you keep anything white, that will be a focal point. So it just really depends on your space and how you want the room to feel. The biggest thing that I’ve noticed with clients is that they’ll leave the speakers white or the doors or storage doors, things like that. The purpose of speakers is to feel the sound around the room but not to see it, so anything you keep white will be a focal point so you will see the speakers is you have them on the walls
Mike – Ok, and sometime doing the floors is an option and sometimes you are just stuck with what you have, but if you do have the luxury of redoing your floor I imagine the same color principle applies, but how about materials, are there any suggestions for materials, and like I said I imagine the color principals apply but if you can just talk about that for a second that would be great
Kristin Hannah – Sure, yes, for a lot of our clients we usually suggest carpet, it is really the best, it is the best for the sound. It holds the sound in, tile or anything hard will bounce right off the material and kind of vibrate in the room and it is best if it doesn’t do that. The carpet is really nice and if you want to be creative and you wanted to make it look like a home theater it is neat to do some of the carpet that you see in the old fashioned original theaters. The red diamonds is a really neat print if you want to be creative. But there is a lot of flat plush carpet that you can do that kind of represents the old fashioned theaters
Mike – Right, now let’s say that you have and existing room and it is tile or something hard and reflective, is throwing an area rug a good option to help
Kristin Hannah – Yes, definitely yes I would highly suggest putting an area rug down or you could put runners in front of your chairs. That would be good because that wouldn’t look like it was kind of just there. It would feel like it was part of the designing of the room. So the hallway runners you could put two of them if you have two rows of chairs or sofa or whatever it is that you have for your furniture
Mike – right ok, so in general terms why should you use a designer? What are the advantages of using a designer versus just surfing the web, trying to come up with some ideas and just doing it all your self
Kristin Hannah – We always suggest to use, especially with this virtual interior designer concept that we’ve come up with, we feel like we can help people with the small details for their theater. A lot of people think of just the equipment as the most important but the small details such as the accent lighting and we can help you find neat great priced sconces that just give the feeling of a theater. We can give suggestions on curtains and what you can do if you have a window in the room. The trim work and the woodwork as I have mentioned, we can figure out what you have in the rest of your house so that it flows right into your theater room. Also, another thing that we have done recently which made a really big difference in a home theater which was just a real small inexpensive thing was that they had a little step up in their theater and we put a handrail, a small little handrail, and it was just a really neat little detail that people go oh wow that is really cool and those are the things that we can give to your theater. We can give suggestions that are kind of out of the box, maybe you don’t need the handrail but it give a design detail that you wouldn’t have thought of. Also, if you have posters, or movie prints, or anything that maybe you’ve had in the past that we could frame for you and make it look neat in your room, give it personal
Mike – Ok, because I know people a lot of times get involved and they are thinking 720p, 1080i and all the other technical jargon that sometimes the design elements are something that is often overlooked and could definitely, as you said, make a room
Kristin Hannah – Yes
Mike – What are some of the common mistakes that people make in home theaters?
Kristin Hannah – Just that most people are worried about the room and how it is going to look with the lights on but they don’t consider it with the lights off and what it is that is the focal point. You want to keep those two elements together when figuring out how you want the room to look when you show people but also how does it feel when you are in it
Mike – All right well I can see definitely why having an interior designer would be a definite asset and having a virtual interior designer would be a cost effective asset at that. So we would like to thank you very much for your time today Kristin. We appreciate your insights and your expertise. Hopefully this information is going to be helpful to people when they are making one of their more critical decisions in their home theaters, and that is color and palettes. So if you would like to see more examples of the work done by Kristin and her team or if you want to learn more about the virtual design service and products that she offers go to www.smarterhometheater.com and click on the show notes for this episode. Is there anything else that you would like to share with our listeners before we depart today Kristin
Kristin Hannah – I just think it is such a neat thing to put into your home and that just make sure to pay attention to the details and not get too involved in just the stereo equipment but also realize that it is a room that you are creating in your house that is different and unique and that the small details really make a humongous difference
Mike – Yes they do
Kristin Hannah – Enjoy
Mike – We certainly will and we’d also like to take this opportunity to remind our listeners to support the Smarter Home Theater show by shopping at our sponsor. You can do this by starting at www.smarterhometheater.com and clicking on the sponsors banner at the top of any of our pages. This will tag your purchase with our code. We get a small commission and best of all it doesn’t cost you a penny extra. Or if you prefer to call them on the phone be sure to mention that you heard about them on the Smarter Home Theater Show. Go to www.smarterhometheater.com and click on Support The Show to learn more. So thank you again Kristin we definitely appreciate your time today
Kristin Hannah – Thank you so much have a wonderful day today
HT001 – Home Theater Seating – A Reference Guide
[ad#Google Adsense]
Home Theater Seating Introduction. Today we spoke to Dave Cribbs, Senior Director of Sales and Marketing for the Berkline Company, the recognized industry leader in Home Theater Seating. He was kind enough to share his years of experience with us, and provided some great information.
Episode 001 Resources
Topics - Basic HT Seating Questions – Sectional or Lounger – Eyeball Distance – Wall Distance – Power? – Cover Options – ButtKicker
Show Notes - Full Transcript
Pictures - n/a
