Hey guys. We are just waiting on appraisals to come in and then we will be moving into our new house- hopefully. This house has a pretty large family room although it is a little narrow ( See link for photos labled 'Family Room').The decor is the current home owner's :p

I would like to throw some dry wall up and put in french doors in the middle to make a separate room for a dedicated HT. Does it look too narrow or would it work? The ceiling is just wood beams also. Not sure how that would be for HT.
Future HT?
What do you guys think?
TIA

The room doesn't look too narrow - my old house had a living room that was 11'x19', and we had the system set up in there pretty successfully. I'm going to be a troublemaker and answer a question with more questions, though. Do you have any dimensions on the room as it is now? How much seating do you need? How sensitive is your display to ambient light, and are you amenable to some window treatment that could provide ambient light control during the day?

I am thinking only seating for four. Two in the front and two in the back. As far as ambient light I would want it dark . My display is bright but the darker the room the better. The pics don't show it but there is also a window open from the kitchen to half of that room so I would probably have to do it on the end that the current owner has his TV set up. I forgot about that. Or close out the window. I actually don't have dimensions.

I could also build out half of the two car garage which lines up with the living room and just connect the rooms with double doors. I have a friend who could build it out inexpensively but I just am worried about hurting the resale value by doing that.

Looks like your front speakers are going to be stuck in the corners of the room . Not an ideal position for them but if that is all you can do...well then you just have to deal with it .

Gonk is right the windows are going to let in a lot of light . I am familar with the type of DLP (Samsung) you are using . It should not be too much of a problem so long as the sunlight is not directly on the screen .
The windows could pose a second problem with deep bass and vibrate at certain freq's . But the re are plenty of treatments you could use to tame the windows .
I would be most concerned about where you plan to place the back wall in order to cut the room in half . Avoid a square shape at all cost . A cubeshaped room offers the worst room acoustics possible . Go for more of a shoe box shape when building the rear wall . Make sure all dimensions width, height and length are are different and not multiples of each other . Looks like from the photo that the room is obviously wider than it is tall so you are good there . About 1 and half times the width is a good starting point for the length . The height your pretty much stuck with . Just remeber shoe box .
Gonk is right dimension here would be useful .
Also there are several online room calcs which can tell you roughly if the dimension you plug into it are favorable or not . I will try and find one for you .

Also, if you are doing 7.1 the "center" rear surrounds can be an issue. They tend to be in your ear.. You may want to go 6.1 or 5.1 in that case..

Here is one of the free calcs .

Will try to find some others

http://softwaredesign.com/room_dimensions_calculator.xls

Sorry Try this link instead . same calc you just need to download it first .

http://www.mcsquared.com/metricmodes.htm

Here is another that will help give an idea if the dimensions are favorable or not .

You need to download first . Only takes a few seconds .

www.tmlaboratories.com/room_dimensions_calculator.xls

Alright this is the last time I am trying this link .

http://www.tmlaboratories.com/room_dimensions_calculator.xls

Thanks guys. E'pin, the first link worked. I could not get the others to though. What about the wood beamed ceiling? I am sure I can do some window treatments to block out light but I can't live without my 7.1.