John Sciacca

During my many years in the custom installation industry, I've been involved in hundreds of projects of all sizes. These are some of the pearls of accumulated wisdom that I typically share when new customers come in to my shop with plans, or we are walking together through a jobsite.

In my last blog, I discussed the many clients I meet with who have no idea how to begin the design process when planning a new home theater or media room installation. Instead of focusing on specific technologies and performance, I have found it best in these cases to work the design process back from how they would like the room to look after the installation is completed.

In my two previous blogs — Top Home Theater Design Mistakes, Part One and Part Two — I described basic home theater/media room design mistakes that I’ve repeatedly encountered during my 20 years of doing custom installations.

I’ve spent the past 20 years in the custom installation industry, and it would be no exaggeration to say I’ve worked with more than a thousand clients during that time. A regular part of my job is consulting with clients on the design and installation of media rooms and home theaters. (The difference between the two: a media room is a social, multi-use space, while a home theater is a purpose-designed room for watching movies.) Sometimes the project is a new build (the best). Other times it involves repurposing a room or trying to fix and improve an existing room.