High-Tech Home Additions Better Late than Never
By Arlen Schweiger
Motorized devices, lighting systems, surveillance cameras and pool controls weren’t at the top of their wish list, but these homeowners are happy to have them now.

Sometimes the aha moment comes during a rockin’ home theater demonstration. Or finding out you can shut off an entire house’s lights from the bedroom touchscreen. Or hearing your iPod playlist sound over the dining room speakers.

But this aha came when the lady of the house voiced concerns over what to place above the living room fireplace. Her husband wanted a flat-panel TV; she and the decorator wanted artwork. They discovered they could have both—the art could actually be used to conceal the TV.



That wasn’t the only aha moment during the course of this extensive home automation project. There were plenty more—and plenty of automation innovations to inspire the homeowners’ imaginations.

Motors Away
“I met the interior decorator [Gretchen Edwards] while I was there on a walk-through, and there was discussion of whether to put a 46-inch flat-panel TV in the living room,” explains Frank DeFilippis, design principal of custom electronics firm Link Your House in Atlanta.

“The wife thought it was completely unnecessary to put a TV above the fireplace. She wanted it for artwork that had been in storage for a couple of years. While they were talking I kind of raised my hand and said, ‘You know, you can put a TV behind artwork and move the art out of the way when you turn the TV on.’”

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