Tips on Shopping for Home Theater Seating
Design Planning Tips
When you are shopping for home theater seating, you need to look at all the different brands, options, sizes, materials, and most importantly, comfort. First you need to measure your space and look at chairs that will fit in that space. Remember they require extra room in back for reclining, although there are many that only require 2 to 4 inches of clearance. You also need to measure the chair fully reclined to see if you still have walking space when reclined. Then measure the width of the chair and the space you need for all chairs when assembled.
We had a certain amount of space to work with, so that eliminated some of the chairs. You also can buy chairs in a straight row or slightly curved. The curved seats will require more space in both width and depth. The height of the chair is very important also. If you are tall you will want to have a back that is around 42 inches, but make sure that if you have two rows of seats, you can still see over the front row when the chair is upright.
Options on the seats are power recline, lighted cup holders, and butt kickers. We opted not to get any options. We felt the power recline was pricey, the lighted cup holders would be annoying, and we did not like the feel of the butt kicker. Everyone has their own opinion on options. As for material, you can get fabric/polyester blends, leather/vinyl match, or 100% leather. This is mainly an individual choice, but we felt the leather/vinyl match was the best choice. It is 100% leather on the seat, back, foot rest, and arms, and vinyl match on the sides and back. The price difference was pretty significant compared to 100% leather, and you could hardly tell the difference.
When it comes to actually buying theater seating, you really need to shop around. We shopped at many different stores, and then shopped on the internet. The internet prices are by far the cheapest way to buy theater seating. But don’t buy before you sit in the seat. If you are going to buy online, then find that particular seat in a store so you can sit in it. We went to many different stores until we found two seats we really liked. One was a Palliser and one was a Berkline, both of which are excellent chairs. Then we researched the internet for the best price. We found some great discount theater seating web sites, and some of those manufacturers are listed in the products page on this website.
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