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Grand Designs Project
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Beyond the Invisible Home Page EQUIPMENT INSTALLED Lighting Control System Whole House Entertainment Sitting Room Cinema Universal Remote MX-850 Aeros Cheese Room Cinema Data Network Security and CCTV Light Fittings (selected only) Dining Room Table Grand Designs |
We first met Jeremy and Louise Brown at
Upthorpe Farm, a beautiful 16th Century Farmhouse, early in
2004. At this stage Jeremy and Louise had not told us that they had
applied to be on the television programme Grand Designs. This was a project that
was instantly exciting as it involved installing technology into such an
old building. We feel that in many ways our ability to hide
equipment is more important in an period property than in a modern one
where technology can often actually feature in the design.
As with any project the first stage was to take a detailed brief from the client and prepare a proposal in return. It was clear from the outset that Jeremy and Louise were determined to breathe new life into the farmhouse, and frankly without their commitment the property would quite literally have fallen down. Despite wanting to retain many of the period features of the property, there was no room for compromise on making this a thoroughly modern and convenient place to live. A whole house entertainment system was a priority, especially as it meant hiding most of the speakers in the ceiling. In one room where the ceiling was too uneven we used speakers hidden in picture frames. The Speakercraft system was chosen after careful consideration because it offered simple unobtrusive keypads in the rooms with high quality audio reproduction. It will also be possible for them to expand the system at a later date as we have pre-wired all the rooms in the house. We installed a Marantz DH9500 music server so Jeremy and Louise could easily access their music collection. This is capable of storing up to 2500 CDs, any of which can easily be played by using a simple menu that appears on any TV screen in the house. Four different tracks can be playing simultaneously around the farmhouse. A plasma screen was installed in the main sitting room together with a home cinema surround sound system. Again ceiling speakers were used here to make the installation as unobtrusive as possible. The master bedroom (known as the cheese room as this is where cheese was once left to mature) was more of a problem. The room is just so large, something that may not instantly come across on TV. They wanted a screen installed in this room but if we hung one on a wall it would have had to have been over 50" just for it to be visible! Another alternative would have been to install a screen in a cabinet at the end of the bed; however these are quite expensive and would not have fitted within the budget. So we came up with the idea of the projector screen. You may be surprised to learn that the projector and screen actually cost less than a good 42" plasma screen and provide an image that is over 8 feet across. When the programme was filmed the installation had just been completed and the screen itself will be boxed in to make it much less obvious. Lighting control was another important aspect of the project for Jeremy and Louise. They were both taken by the ability to set scenes of light in the major rooms in the home. Having gone to such effort and expense to restore the property it was really important for the lighting to show this off. The Clipsal lighting system allows scenes to be created using numerous channels of light in each room for different occasions. With a lighting control system you simply think of the activities that a room is used for and then design the lighting to fit these activities. So for example in the Dining Room you have a scene for an intimate dinner for two, a full scale dinner party and general ambience. The Clipsal lighting system was installed in the Sitting Room, Dining Room, Master Bedroom and Bathroom. Initially Jeremy and Louise wanted to re-use the old Bakelite switches which would have been possible using the Clipsal system because it uses safe low voltages at the switches. However as the project progressed and they refined their design for the interior the modern glass Saturn switches became more suitable. Lighting control requires good lighting design and so we assisted Louise and Jeremy with this. We also supplied some of the light fittings, such as the plaster lights on the staircase to the upper floor lounge. We have also installed a sophisticated security and CCTV system at the property. Home Automation is also installed which allows the couple to access, monitor and control the property remotely. Like many of our other projects the cables were installed by the site electrician, in this case Louise's Uncle, Alan. We provided him with detailed plans and then visited the site regularly to answer questions and check all of the connections. Although he had never installed such a system before there were no problems with the cable installation. Several miles of cable are now installed in the property. After many structural problems with the fabric of the building were overcome, we were finally able to commence the installation of our equipment at the beginning of 2005. Usually we don't start much of our installation until the all of the building work has been completed, but with a filming deadline looming it was 'all hands on deck'. All the major elements of the installation were completed in time. The 'final reveal' filming for Grand Designs took place over two days in March. We were able to give Jeremy 20 seconds training before he had to use the remote control on camera. The fact that it was all the time that was needed shows that simple to use remotes really do exist. Our work at the farm is ongoing. We will now spend more time with Louise and Jeremy now they have moved in to tailor the installation to their needs. You often have to live in a property to work out exactly how the system should operate to best suit your needs, the beauty of a fully integrated home control system is that this is possible. The project was installed on a fairly tight budget and is a good example of how the convenience and sophistication of home automation can be applied to real people living in traditional houses. Please Note we were the only company involved in the technology at Upthorpe Farm, the information in Grand Designs magazine is misleading. © 2005 Beyond the Invisible Ltd, no part of the page can be reproduced in any form without our prior permission. |
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