Hi all!

I’m getting married in a couple of months and moving into my first home, so we’re doing a full renovation before moving in (it’s going to be a crazy couple of months!).  
Been reading these forums since I was a kid and always wanted a cosy living room but also a proper home cinema setup with Dolby Atmos. Unfortunately the renovation & wedding is eating most of the budget so I won’t be buying the AVR, speakers or subwoofer for at least a year or two. My goal right now is to prewire everything while the walls and ceilings are open so that when I’m ready it’s a matter of plugging in the speakers.

I’ve attached a rough sketch of the room dimensions.  
Room:  
• Approx. 6.2m long x 3m wide (excluding bay window)  
• Surround sound to be within the 4.55m x 3m section of the room  
• Bay window at one end  
• Double doors at the other end  
• Sofa will be against the 4.55m wall  
• TV will be on the opposite wall central to the sofas  
• Considering a 77” LG OLED TV

**Current questions:**  
	1.	Given the room size and sofa position, would you recommend wiring for 5.1.2 or 5.1.4?  
	2.	For the Atmos speakers, should I:  
• Leave cable loops above the plasterboard and locate them later?  
• Install some kind of pre-construction bracket/template?  
• Install back boxes now?  
	3. Sofas will be against the wall (was thinking a 3+2 or 3+3 seater sofa on the sofa wall so main seating position when there’s no friends or family round will be sitting in the middle of that wall). Does that affect rear speaker positioning?  
	4.	Any recommendations for Atmos ceiling speakers positioning based on this room shape and dimensions?  
	5.	Is a 77” TV the right size for this room or should I be considering 83” or smaller?  
	6.	I already have the Amazon Basics Speaker Wire (12-Gauge, 99.9% Oxygen-Free Copper), is there any reason not to use this for all speaker runs including the ceiling speakers?  
	7.	Anything else that needs prewiring that I’ve forgotten?  
8.    The TV will be hung on the shared wall with the neighbour. The viewing distance is already kind of narrow but I do want to put a thin layer of something to help prevent/reduce sound leaking through to next door, any recommendations?  
Current thinking:  
• TV to be hung on the wall with a floating tv cabinet underneath for the AVR and all the other boxes  
• Run speaker cable for all channels now  
• Run two subwoofer cable locations  
• Run conduit for HDMI/future cables  
• Take photos before plasterboarding  
Would appreciate any advice from those who’ve done this before. Apologise for the long message but I’d rather get the infrastructure right now while everything is open than regret it later.  
Thanks!

Prewiring a 5.1.2/5.1.4 setup