The Perfect Floor for a Home's Media Room

When decorating a room, people automatically think about things like wall colors and accents like area rugs, throw pillows and wall decor, whether they prefer tropical wall hangings, huge wall vases or tin wall crosses. Flooring however, is sometimes completely overlooked, even though flooring is one of the most important design elements in the room. As with everything in a media room, optimum flooring options should be durable, comfortable and absorb sound, so that the room has good acoustics. It is generally best to keep colors on the darker side, so that the flooring also absorbs light and does not distract from television viewing.

Installing Carpet

One of the most logical options for flooring in a media room is carpeting. Even though hardwood or tile is may be easier to maintain, they reflect a lot of light. The best solution is very dense carpeting in a darker shade installed over thick carpet padding. Especially if there is going to be video game play in the room, having the floor be a comfortable place to sit is very important because kids spend a lot of time on the floor. Having plush carpeting in a media room lets it work for kids as well as adults. Add a couple of beanbag chairs and floor pillows, and everyone is happy. There is special carpeting, which is custom made for media room applications; however any good, dense carpet makes a perfect floor cover for a media room.

Choosing a Color

As mentioned above, it is best to select darker colors when carpeting a media room, because bright colors or light colors tend to bounce light around the room, making a distraction for anyone watching the television. If an entire room of dark carpeting is too dark, then consider covering the floor with more than a single type of carpeting. Design a theater floor in the media room by installing darker carpeting in the corner where the television is, and then carpeting in a couple of shades lighter for the seating area. To really have the floors look like a real movie theater, add small recessed running lights around the perimeter of the room, which also offers ambient lighting to the room. The overall appearance of the carpet should be dark so that it absorbs light, and darker colors are also better at hiding stains making the flooring easy to maintain. Stain resistant carpeting is the best choice because spills will happen sooner or later.

More Options Down Under

While carpeting is generally the first and easiest choice for a media room, it may not always be in the budget to redo a perfectly good floor that is already in place. So if the floor is tile or hardwood, the easiest thing to do is to simply add an area rug to the room. Then try to bring in more elements that absorb sound in the room's overall design. For example, include upholstered chairs and couches to help keep the sound from ricocheting around the room. If the flooring is a light color, adding a dark colored carpet should also help to keep too much light from bouncing around the room.