I getting ready to start a media room in the unfinished basement of house we just moved in to and am planning on using the area in the upper right of the sketch. The exterior walls still need to be framed as they are currently bare concrete. The other item of note is that there are 4' wide glass block windows on the wall on either side of the recess (top of image) as well as a pair of South facing double-hung windows on the wall to the right. I plan to deal with the light issues with some sort of retractable curtain.

I'd like to take advantage of the recessed area in some manner for equipment use/access and the display will just fit width wise if the sides are framed carefully. I was thinking of putting in full width cabinets along the bottom of the wall for media storage and possibly some equipment. The room is about 16' wide and the planned depth will be about 20' when the back wall is framed. Unfortunately, the new back wall can't be at the front of the stairwell area as there's a window where it would land on the outside wall. As an alternative, I could also place the display on the existing wall on the 'left' side of the room so long as I deal with any reflections from the windows on the opposite wall.

I'd like to keep the budget realistic but know that I need to do soundproofing and will be doing most of the work like framing, wiring, etc. myself. I don't plan on any significant hardware upgrades at the moment though that's always subject to change!

Current equipment list includes;
Onkyo TX-SR674
Panny 58PZ750U
Panny DMP-BD30K
Toshiba A3
DirecTv HR20
plus other misc stuff like CD changers, audio tape player, etc.

I'm still using a set of Cambridge speakers (bookshelf/center/surround/powered sw) that I've had for about 10 years now. While I'd love to upgrade that will have to wait a bit longer.

I've looked at a number of other threads and do see things I like. However a lot of the other layouts deal with projectors and so have a somewhat different set of issues in display placement. Any suggestions regarding room design/layout will be greatly appreciated as I'd like to start this project in another month or so.

I've added some pictures of the current situation to the first post. Please forgive the clutter as we just moved in 3 weeks ago and are still unpacking :(

The only wall that seems to make a lot of sense to mount the plasma on is the east wall which has the recess in it. I've kicked around a couple of ideas including mounting it within the recess (it will barely fit if framed carefully) and using built in furniture for storage of media. I'm currently thinking of placing the equipment in the closet area - though I've also thought of placing it in the recessed area and building a curtain wall in front of it and mounting the plasma on that. The latter approach has the benefit that if the wall is built big enough to begin with then a screen could easily be implemented down the road.

The bar area that's shown will be done later so for now the room size will be about 22x17 once the new back wall is framed.

See sig...

Took me FOREVER to finish it. The only thing I have added since the pics is a Sammy LCD TV near the bar and some stuff to dress up the walls.

Total area is about 36' by 40'ish