Curtains provide two vital functions
in a home theatre. Firstly they need to keep out the
light so the picture is much clearer and more vibrant
and secondly the acoustic qualities of a curtain plays a
vital roll in setting up your home theatre. The purpose
of curtains acoustically is to absorb the sound so that
it does not reverberate around the room. Think of them
as giant sponges soaking up the sound.
What to use
I recommend heavy textured fabrics in dark colours. What
you are looking for are matt fabrics – those with no
shine or lustre so that light is not reflected by the
fabric. Plain fabrics are usually used so that any movie
posters or memorabilia will look good and not be in
competition with the curtains.
All curtains must be blockout lined to keep out the
light – this also helps with the acoustics. A pelmet or
closed in valance would usually be fitted directly below
the cornice and the curtains hung as close as possible
to the underside of the pelmet. This is done to minimise
as much light as possible from entering the room between
the top of the track and the underside of the pelmet.
The pelmet can be lined in black fabric to further
reduce light seepage.
Your curtains must be full length down to the floor. It
is best to extend the curtains over the walls thirty to
forty centimetres so that when the curtains are open the
curtains stack back over the walls. This will allow more
natural light into the room when you are not viewing
movies. The curtain track should be cord operated or
motorised so that the curtain overlap in the centre to
exclude as much light as possible. In addition the
curtains must extend around the end of the track and
return to the wall thus excluding even more light.
Purpose built home theatre rooms have no windows. They
are almost always very “hard” rooms where sound bounces
around the room. It is therefore essential to cover the
rear wall with curtains and hang two or three panels of
fabric down the side walls to absorb the reverberating
sound. In this instance pelmets are not needed except
for perhaps cosmetic reasons.
After care – your curtains should be vacuumed once a
year. In most circumstances they will require no further
care.
We have recently installed home theatre curtains in
McCall’s Entertainment Centre. The curtains we supplied
are double layered ripple pleated curtains on motorised
tracks. You will be amazed at what McCalls can do with
pop down televisions and movie screens they are located
at 139 Blakie Road Penrith.
|
