Brief
To have a music system that was easy for the family to use, installed discretely in various rooms in a new build house including the dining area of the kitchen for dinner parties, together with a TV in the family room off the kitchen and a large screen and surround sound in the main lounge.

Planning
We were first called in when the house was nearing completion which meant that we needed to react quickly to make sure all the wiring could be put in before the plastering took place. We consulted with the home owners and arrived at a design solution which met the family’s needs, then worked with their builders and electrician to make it happen.

With three young children in the family, it was important to have a suitable area within the house where they could play or watch their favourite TV programme or DVD, whilst at the same time being supervised. A large open plan L-shaped living space incorporating separate areas for the kitchen, dining room and seating area for the children provided the perfect solution. Over in one corner, away from the kitchen, an LCD screen was installed on a swivel bracket. This has proved to be particularly popular with the children, whilst mum is busy in the kitchen!

Discrete Speakers
Speakers were installed discretely in the ceiling throughout the three areas so that music could be equally enjoyed by everyone in the room, no matter where they were sitting. This was particularly important above the dining table in order to be able create the subtle background music required for dinner parties. The sound is controlled from a wall mounted panel.
In the main lounge at the front of the house, a large plasma screen was mounted on the wall along with inset speakers in the ceiling as the source for the surround sound plus a sub woofer tucked away in a corner. This has created the perfect environment for the family to sit down and watch films, complete with a stunning cinema quality sound.

Central Sound & Vision System
All the speakers and screens are fed by a central sound and vision system located in a specially built cabinet in the main lounge. An integral part of this system is a Sound Server which stores the music from CDs and enables individual tracks to be accessed at the touch of a button on a control pad in each room. Pre-programmed music play lists are also easy to create – an important feature for the client and very useful for dinner parties. The virtual network that we configured allows the customer to create playlists from his laptop computer too.

Future Needs
Cables were also run to other rooms in the house before they were plastered to enable the sound system to be extended with ease at a later date.