While it’s a lot of fun to go out to the cinema for the evening with the kids, it’s also incredibly expensive. It costs around £8 per person, which means for a family of five a trip to the cinema costs at least £40, and that’s without popcorn or other snacks. That’s a lot of money when you think about it - it’s the majority of a week’s food shop! For this reason, more and more families are choosing to save money in the long run and build their home cinemas. Sure, these don’t come cheap, but they are worth the money because of what they save you in terms of cinema costs in the long term. Fancy creating your home cinema? Here’s how to go about it:

Convert or build

The first thing that you need to decide is whether to convert an area of your home into a home cinema, or whether to build a new area. If you’ve got an unused room in your home, this could be easily converted into a home cinema room. Or, if there is no spare space, then perhaps you could consider having a small extension added to the side or rear of your home, that can be used for your home cinema room.

Incorporate cinema-style features

The next step is to think about what features to incorporate into the space. What you want to do is incorporate cinema-style features into the room, to make it look and feel like a real cinema, so that the experience is authentic. This means investing in cinema-style chairs to sit in, complete with drink holders; it also means getting the lighting spot on. What you want to do is install a dimmer switch so that you can dim the lights like in a real cinema. You may also want to incorporate strip lights along the floor as actual cinemas have - you can find a huge range of strip lights online, so take the time to browse. You could also add a curtain to the movie screen that gets removed before the movie starts, just like in a real cinema. Use your local cinema for inspiration.

Don’t forget snacks

One of the best parts of heading to the cinema to watch a movie is the treats, so it’s important to think about what snacks to have in your home cinema. Perhaps you could invest in a small popcorn machine so that you can make cinema-style popcorn? You could also invest in a mini fridge that you can keep cans of soda in. How about having a pic and mix station too? Or, what about having little mini tubs of ice cream to give your little ones? Remember, the more authentic your home cinema is, the more your kids will love it.

There you have it, everything that you need to know to create the ultimate home cinema room that your kids are sure to love spending time in. With the cost of a trip to the cinema rising each year, it’s no wonder that so many parents are choosing to create their cinemas at home.