Luxury Home Cinema Room
Brighton
Decadent home cinema room with Art Deco flare
When a previous client came to us asking for a cinema room at home, to be situated in the basement of his Regency townhouse on the Brighton seafront, we jumped at the chance to create something truly special. With the original front room making way for a beautiful ground floor kitchen, the basement which had previously housed the kitchen had sat unused for some time. Its lower ground location providing the perfect home cinema room setting, it was asking to be turned into a luxurious room in which to retreat from the world. The property, a spectacular townhouse, is full of period architectural features, giving us a basis in which to work and juxtapose contemporary elements, opulent fabrics, textures and colours to create a coherent space. The home cinema room design set it apart from the rest of the home, with a secretive exclusive art deco cinema interior, whilst remaining in keeping with the period features of the rest of the house. Our in-house team of upholsterers and curtain makers designed and made the upholstered furniture pieces, curtains and soft furnishings, while our joiner installed a bespoke media wall complete with panelled cabinetry and inlaid with natural cork wallpaper, in which to disguise unsightly AV equipment.
A Traditional Cinema At Home
Pfeiffer Design have had the privilege to work on this property over a period of a few years, and knowing that the client already had a lovely functional living room, we fully understood his brief that the cinema room needed to be akin to a traditional cinema, with rowed seating, rather than simply a living room with a big television. However, the layout and proportion of the room certainly made this a head scratcher. We toyed with the idea of introducing a projector, however owing to the space available, a bespoke media wall suited the space better and made the most of the proportions of the room and didn’t obscure the beautiful bay windows.
Being that the property is listed, we had an existing fireplace and chimney breast to consider, that neither fitted the cinema room practically, nor design-wise. Our design created a false wall and boxing around the fireplace, thereby covering it up and ensuring it remained protected and undamaged. The existing alcoves, that once housed kitchen cabinetry, became more pronounced, providing the ideal space for bespoke joinery in which to hide audiovisual equipment necessary for a cinema room. In order to bring the joinery doors to life, our design incorporated high-end natural cork wallpaper with brass inlay, which really glistens when it catches the light, bringing added dimension to the scheme.
Art Deco Glamour & Decadence
Our brief was to design a home cinema room that felt warm, cosy, traditional and something that really added value and intrigue to the property. We were heavily inspired by the Art Deco movement, as well as the opulence and exclusivity of private Gentlemen’s Clubs of the early 20th century. Our concept provided options that not only fit the brief, but expanded upon it, providing options and ideas that were functional and practical in terms of comfort and acoustics but nevertheless seriously glamorous.
No expense was spared, the finishes including: a fluted wall, upholstered in luxurious velvet; bespoke entryway sliding doors and cabinetry, inlaid with cork and brass wallpaper and solid brass knurled Buster + Punch handles; heavyweight House of Hackney velvet curtains and pelmet; and bespoke cinema seating incorporating two single armchairs, a love seat and four fluted footstools. The oval antique mirrored cinema side tables with brass stems added to the luxurious and timeless feel of the room, whilst a thick pile hand-loomed rug provided a soft cushioning underfoot and a sense of warmth. Owing to the room’s basement location, heating was a consideration factor throughout, as the single existing radiator wasn’t emitting enough to heat the room in the depths of winter. The blackout lined velvet curtains, bespoke rug and recessed silent plinth heaters situated within the cabinetry helped combat this, resulting in a room that radiates warmth and a sense of cosy comfort all year round.
Our design also incorporated some beautiful dimmable lighting. We removed the downlighters from the ceiling, and introduced six new wall lights, four above the joinery doors and two glamorous fluted Bella Figura Zeus lights within the upholstered wall, above which we sunk a recessed LED strip for added ambience. Our client wanted to be able to use the space to host parties, as well as cinema screenings, so lighting design was a key component. There needed to be enough light for a party, but the option to create layered pools of soft lighting while watching a film.
Considered Design & Acoustics
We designed the chimney breast media wall around a 65″ television, and included cut outs for speaker system, subwoofer and amplifier, as well as the surround sound speakers mounted behind the row of armchairs. Working closely alongside our client on the specification of the audiovisual equipment, we ensured not only that the sound quality was exceptional, but also that the grilles were paintable so that we could disguise the various components within the built-out chimney breast, painted in Farrow & Ball Studio Green to match the rest of the painted walls and ceiling. Utilising the beautiful House of Hackney Limerence velvet, our in-house team of curtain-makers produced the incredible heavyweight blackout-lined curtains, together with matching pelmet, to really shut the world away, as well as aid the acoustics within the room.
With so many different design elements competing for focus in a relatively small room, we incorporated a common thread in order that the scheme didn’t feel incongruous. The vertical fluting, heavily inspired by Art-Deco design, within the wallpaper, upholstered wall, furniture and curtains kept the design feeling coherent, whilst the pops of brass throughout provided added dimension and depth to the design.
The finishing touch was the addition of fringed scatter cushions in GP & J Baker heavyweight linen fabric, handmade in our Sussex workshop, which added a sense of grounding and informality to the room, bedecked in velvet and bronze.
to arrange your local interior design consultation, or call us 01273 499200
