Build your home theater: paint colors for your walls and ceiling
Choosing paint colors for your dedicated home theater system should be an enjoyable part of your building experience. I mean, think about it, you can paint your walls black. How many people can say that they painted the walls of their house black? Not many.
When choosing paint colors, you need to understand that bright colors reflect more light than dark colors. Since your main goal is to choose paint colors that minimize light reflections, stick to darker colors. When you turn off the lights to watch a movie, the last thing you want is light from your video source reflecting off the ceiling and walls. There’s nothing more distracting than a glare out of the corner of your eye when you’re trying to enjoy a movie.
If you walk into a real movie theater, you’ll notice there are some basic dark colors that they used to minimize light reflections. The walls and ceiling of the theater are usually painted black, gray and dark red. When used correctly, these colors will also minimize light reflections in your home theater system.
In my most recent installation, the colors that were chosen were black and gray. The walls were painted matte gray and the ceiling was painted matte black. The rug had a combination of gray and black speckles and everything matched perfectly. When we ran our video tests, we were pleased to see that the black ceiling not only looked good, but the reflection from the HDTV was almost non-existent.
Don’t be afraid to experiment with the colors of your unique home theater system. You’re building this room like a theater, so make it look like a theater. The first thing your visitors will see when they walk into your room is the color of the paint, so surprise them.
Once you’ve chosen your colors, here are a few things to consider when painting:
- Before painting, be sure to prime the walls. In fact, use a tinted primer that is the same color as the paint you are going to paint. This will minimize the number of coats you’ll need and will hide any plaster patches you may have done during wall repairs.
- Use a good paint. Don’t use cheap paint because it will discolor when you try to clean it. Cheaper paints have larger gaps between the pigment and don’t stick to the wall properly.
- Use flat paint. Glossy and semi-gloss paint will reflect much more light. Flat paints are also better at hiding minor wall blemishes.
- If you have to paint plastic ceilings, be sure to sand them first. Paint will not adhere to a plastic ceiling tile, nor will primer.
- Don’t worry if the paint job on your walls isn’t perfect. Remember that the walls of your home theater system can be covered with movie “stuff” such as movie posters, photographs, props and other objects that will hide your paint job.
Ultimately, you should be happy with how your home theater looks with the lights on or off…so if you don’t want to go darker, that’s up to you. It’s not essential that all home theater systems be painted black and gray, but when choosing lighter colors understand how they can cause light reflections in your room.
