Bespoke Cinema Room Storage

Storage in a cinema room has a different job to storage anywhere else in the house. It has to hold the ordinary clutter of watching films — discs, controllers, remotes, blankets, the odd games console — and it has to do so without a single surface that catches light once the room goes dark. We design cinema storage around both requirements at once, rather than treating it as an afterthought to the seating and screen.

Discs and media are still a genuine storage need for many households, even in a largely streaming world, alongside controllers, chargers and the various small items that gather around a games console. We plan drawer and shelf divisions around what is actually kept, so nothing ends up loose in a drawer that was really sized for something else.

Blankets and cushions used during longer films need somewhere generous and easy to reach without standing up mid-scene. A deep drawer or pull-out shelf close to the seating does this well, sized properly rather than squeezed into whatever space is left over once the AV equipment has been housed.

Consoles — games or otherwise — bring their own requirements: ventilation while in use, and a tidy way of routing controller cables and chargers so they don't trail across the floor. We treat this as part of the same design exercise as the main equipment housing, since the two are usually stored close together.

Doors matter more in a cinema room than almost anywhere else in the house. Closed doors keep clutter fully out of sight, which matters when the room's entire purpose is an uninterrupted view of the screen. We detail doors to close flush and quietly, without catches or handles that catch the light from a projector.

Finish is chosen with exactly the same discipline. Low-glare lacquers and matt veneers avoid reflecting screen light back into the room, which is a small but real detail that separates cinema storage from a good-looking cabinet built for a bright living room.

Because storage and equipment housing usually sit in the same run of furniture, we design them together from the outset, working out how much of the run should be storage against how much needs to house AV equipment, before drawing either in detail.

The result is a cinema room that looks tidy with the lights on and disappears completely once they go off — storage doing its job quietly, in the background, exactly where it should be.

Part of our cinema rooms collection