Lighting control in a home is much more than dimming the lights inside.  It also means controlling the light coming from outside of your home – the light from the sun.  By using motorized shades, drapes and blinds you can reduce your heating and cooling costs, add to the elegance and decor of your home, reduce the glare on your TV, and preserve the finish on your fabrics and furniture. 

Pairing motorized shades and home automation creates a convenient way to raise and lower the shades in a single room or the whole house.  It also enhances the safety and security of your home. Press a button as you leave to lower all the shades and restrict the view into your home when you are not there. Place the shades on an astronomical clock to raise and lower themselves at a specific time of day.  

The following video is an example of a few shading solutions we did for clients.  In it you will see some examples of shades, drapes and roman shades in action.  In future videos we will showcase each individual style and go into more detail about it. 

Lutron Shades & Drapes from Sound Ideas Home Theater on Vimeo.

It is a common problem.  The cabinet in your living room was built for an older TV and you are ready to upgrade to a flat panel TV.  What do you do?  Call Sound Ideas!  Our client had an existing cabinet custom built for a  65″ rear projection TV.  The cabinet had a front piece built so that only the TV screen showed.  They wanted to upgrade to a 65″ flat panel. 

 First we removed the old TV.  That left us with this giant opening.  The width of the cabinet allowed for a 65″ flat panel, but we needed a way to mount it.  We also needed to cover all the empty space below the TV.

Next we built a false back and painted it black.  We installed this inside the cabinet to mount the flat panel. 

Then we designed a new front panel and matched the existing cabinet’s paint to achieve this fantastic final result. Some cabinets require a lot of work, some require only a little. If you are ready to upgrade your TV, let us look at modifying your existing cabinet to acommodate it.

Here is another custom rack we did. This type of rack is best for centralized AV systems that have a large amount of equipment. This particular rack from Middle Atlantic holds not only the home’s multi-zone audio video distribution system but also the AV gear for the theater room. The layout of the rack is designed well in advance of the installation. Every component is assigned a position in the rack that allows for ease of use and the best wire management. Air flow and cooling also play a large factor in determining the position of the component.

After the layout design is completed, the rack is ordered with custom face plates for each component to give the finished product a polished look. Before we take the rack to the jobsite, we assemble it in our shop, install the gear, and test the equipment and the system design to make sure everything is working.

A custom cabinet like this makes installation and servicing easier, looks great and makes the gear easier to access and use for the home owner.

In installations where the electronic gear is centrally located in the house, it is vital to have a good rack to organize the equipment and manage the wire.  Here is one with 7 DSS receivers, an Escient media management system with 3 400 disc DVD/CD jukeboxes, AM/FM/XM tuner, and an ipod.  All of these sources are being distributed to the theater room, game room, living room, master bed, master bath, patio and pool.  In addition to those components there is a B&K multi/zone Audio Video distribution system, power management, and an RTI control system. 

All this gear requires a lot of space and a lot of wire and cable.  A cabinet, built ins or shelves in a closet would not be sufficient.  A custom rack like this one from Middle Atlantic is required.  The gear can be properly organized and as for the wire and the cable – well, see for yourself.

The upfront investment in a rack system pays off in the end when it come time to service the equipment or replace a component.  Everything is clearly labelled, wire is easy to disconnect, gear is easy to remove, and re-installtion is a snap.

Having a rack to hold all of your AV gear in a centralized location is a wonderful thing – if done correctly.  Here is a before and after picture of an AV rack on a recent job.  The before picture reflects 6 years of additions and changes of gear.  We came in, re-vamped the whole system,  re-wired the rack and the after picture is the result.

This retrofit installation was rather unique.  The room was large, open, and awkward making the TV placement difficult.  After a couple of designs involving a large custom cabinet to the right of the fireplace to house the TV, it was finally decided that the best place for the TV was over the mantle above the fireplace.   The cabinet idea was kept but redesigned to become bookshelves with cabinets underneath to hold the AV gear.  The builder removed stones creating a pathway for power and AV cabling.  Once the cabling was in place the custom bookshelfcabinet was installed.  The TV was mounted with a tilt mount bracket to provide a better viewing angle.  A receiver, Blu-ray player, DSS receiver and Klipsch subwoofer were installed inside the cabinet.

The client wanted better sound than the TV provided so along with the subwoofer a pair of KEF 6000 ACE speakers were mounted to either side of a 55″ LED TV.  This provided big sound to match a big picture.  An RTI universal remote controls this system and the house wide audio system.  No matter how difficult the installation there is always a solution.

Just how do those incredible installers magically run wire from one end of the house to the other?

I’ll never tell!

On the latest cabinet modification we did I had to laugh. The old television was over 3.5 feet deep and the new flat panel we replaced it with was a whopping 1.2 inches deep. What a dramatic difference. To make everything  look seamless we made some minor modifications. Check out the before and after photos below.

Before

After