3 Radical Before and After Transformations

Each year the editorial staff at Electronic House reviews hundreds of submissions to its Home of the Year contest. The entries submitted by home systems integrators represent some of the smartest, most innovative home tech projects on the planet. Here, you’ll see our picks for the Best High-Tech Transformations.

1. Best Before & After, GOLD Winner

Cracking the Code: Overcoming strict building restrictions transforms a modest condo into a high-tech luxury residence.

What started out as a fairly ordinary condominium unit has morphed into a twice-the-size luxury vacation home for a pair of professionals who knew that the secret to easy, carefree getaways would require the addition of a solid, distributed audio/video setup and a professionally configured automation system to boot. They also knew that to get the job done right, they’d need to hire a home systems integration firm as the renovation on the condo was taking place—a project that would involve knocking down walls to connect two adjoining units to form a more spacious 2,800-square residence. It also would require a company that would respect their sense of style and cater to their need for simplicity in this extreme transformation.

Rules of Expansion

As the home systems integration team at Anaheim Hills, Calif.- based Surreal Systems discovered, these requests, while completely reasonable, would prove far more difficult to implement than expected, and would test their skills as integrators of home technology. Explains Surreal Systems founder and president, Matt Bernath,  “The units were part of an older multi-dwelling unit (MDU) building, which had a lot of character and building restrictions. One of the biggest challenges was working our client’s desires for a nicely integrated home while heeding the restrictions of the building and being respectful of the neighbors.” For example, per building codes and structural limitations, speakers were unable to be recessed into the ceilings, as is the common procedure when installing whole-house audio systems. Also, all low-voltage and electrical wiring that was added to the dwelling had to be placed in metal fire-rated conduit and junction boxes had to be protected with firestop material. It was a new set of rules for the pros at Surreal Systems to follow, but they tackled them head-on to create the relaxing, luxurious environment the homeowners craved.

Speaker Mounting Solutions

Because this renovated condo sits underneath units above it, sound from speakers planted in certain the ceiling would have been a nuisance to neighbors. The ceiling was completely out of the equation, so Surreal Systems installed 16 Sonance speakers into the walls and cabinets. This is a fairly straightforward task for home systems integrators when they are working with drywall and wooden wall studs. In this case, only the wall in the guest room was finished in standard drywall; the rest were covered with custom paneling, delicate wallpaper, custom millwork, and natural stone. As is common for most MDUs, the wall studs in this updated condo were made of steel—much less forgiving than wood when fishing speaker cabling, as well as a complete new wiring infrastructure for data, voice, and video distribution. “Technology was completely non-existent in these units prior to our work,” Bernath says, who also added a super-strong, commercial-grade Ruckus wireless networking system to combat the steel studs and signal interference from neighboring units.

Decorator-Friendly Technology

By working carefully with the carpenter and interior designer, the installation crew at Surreal Systems was able to recess the speakers into the paneling in just the right positions to ensure that music would evenly blanket each and every area of the condo with no dead spots. In the guest room they took advantage of the drywall by installing a pair of invisible speakers from Sonance.  (These speaker mount within the wall studs and are covered completely with drywall), and were a big hit with the homeowners who’s number one priority was the new home’s interior design. “They wanted their home to be a showpiece, so this meant hiding or disguising all evidence of technology,” Bernath says.  The rest of the speakers were faux painted to blend in with the wall surface, and in the great room a soundbar was custom-designed by Leon Speakers to match the width and style of a 65-inch Samsung TV.

Tablet-based Control

This TV was placed on a motorized mount that allows the homeowners to swivel it on command from a handheld remote or a mobile app on one of several iPads to face multiple viewing locations. The same iPad app and handheld remote—both from Savant–that operates the movable TV mount can be used to operate a variety of other components and systems, per software programmed by Surreal Systems and carried through by a Savant home automation processor. Using the Savant control platform, music and video from two Apple TV units, three cable boxes, a Sony Blu-Ray Disc player, and a Fusion Research media server can be dispatched to speakers in eight stereo listening zones and/or two surround-sound setups, and to any and all of four Samsung high-def TVs.

Although there is a multitude of entertainment choices, Surreal Systems made sure that the app and remote streamlined what could have been a complicated selection process. Music is at the homeowners’  fingertips as they can tap a button on a smartphone or the tablet mounted to the wall at each entry as they step into the house. It’s just as quick and easy, says Bernath, to control the Lutron HomeWorks lighting system, Lutron motorized window shades, ADT alarm system, and Axis surveillance cameras.

These Savant-controlled electronic amenities represent the final step in a massive home makeover. They precluded the need for a bevy of individual control devices mounted to the walls, and are fully functional and are simple to set up through the Savant app. Today the homeowners use the app to adjust the brightness of the lights, move the shades, arm and disarm the security system, and view live feeds from the surveillance camera. It’s a much simpler process than interacting with individual controls located in different places, yet the system is still a work in progress, Bernath says. “The homeowners are experimenting with the controls to determine exactly how they’d like these systems to be synchronized and to adjust based on conditions like the time of day, whether they are home or away, and other variables.” Once these preferences are identified, Surreal Systems will program the appropriate settings into the Savant processor. The initial transformation from an unintelligent, small condo into a smart, spacious home seems to have sparked the homeowners’ interest in implementing other high-tech features that will make their renovated dwelling all the more magnificent.

Systems & Equipment

• Home Control: Savant
• Lighting Control: Lutron
• Whole-House Audio/Video: Savant
• Speakers: Leon Speakers, Sonance
• TVs: Samsung
• Home Networking: Cisco, Netgear, Ruckus

2. Best Before & After, SILVER Winner

Hurricane Sandy Sets Course for Home Control: Elan system breathes new life into damaged 1940s cottage.

Hurricane Sandy may have left its mark on many communities along the East Coast, leaving families stranded as their homes were damaged by the storm. Like so many, Kim Erle felt the aftereffects of the hurricane, returning to her 1940s beach cottage to find it substantially damaged and need of serious repair. Rather than relive the past, Erle and the home systems integrators from Sakab Designs, of Brooklyn, N.Y., embraced the opportunity to make the old battered home new again by incorporating an Elan home control system, SpeakerCraft whole-house audio system, Lutron lighting control system, and other technologies.

In addition to enhancing the overall environment of the 3,600-square-foot house by automating the Somfy motorized shades, Lutron lights, thermostats, ceiling fans, and irrigation system, the Elan system helped enable the home, which is part of a Sunset Green Home Project, to obtain Platinum LEED certification. Combined with the energy-efficient, environmentally conscious construction, the Elan system provides substantial energy savings through daylight harvesting, fixture control, and subsystem scheduling based on seasons, time of day, motion, occupancy, temperature, humidity, and other conditions.

Systems & Equipment

• Home Control: Elan
• Whole-house Audio: SpeakerCraft
• Speakers & Subwoofers: SpeakerCraft, Sunfire
• Audio Components: Fusion, Denon
• Lighting Control: Lutron
• Motorized Shading: Somfy
• Surveillance Cameras: Linear
• Heating & Cooling: Mitsubishi
• TVs: Samsung

3. Best Before & After, BRONZE Winner

Lutron Lighting and Shading Add Ambiance to Massive Addition: Creates entertainment mecca for San Francisco homeowners.

Craving more A/V in their lives … and more elbow room in their home, the owners of a San Francisco home nearly doubled their abode’s size to 5,000 square feet, and dedicated the two-level addition as a place to enjoy music and video. Once the construction of the new addition was complete, the homeowner gained a game room on the upper level and a multi-purpose entertainment room on the lower level. Multiple bathrooms, an office, and a garage also made their way into the floorplan, as did space for plenty of top-notch audio/video gear and a Lutron SQ lighting control system and motorized shades to prepare each new area for hours of entertainment enjoyment.

“The installation of the necessary wiring infrastructure and electronics was quite trying at times—but expected when doing such a dramatic renovation,” says Scott Sullivan of the home systems integration firm, SoundVision, of Navato, Calif. He had his team rose to the occasion by accoutering the upper level game room with an 84-inch 4K Sony TV, Integra 70.6 surround-sound receiver, Bowers & Wilkins in-wall speakers and a Paradigm subwoofer.

The lower level boasts a Sony VPL-VW600 ES 4K projector mounted on a Chief motorized lift installed in the ceiling and a Vutec Lectric III 123-inch screen. The audio is delivered by a Sony STR-ZA3000ES receive

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