70s Family Room Morphs into Theater
By Lisa Montgomery
The ability to connect audio/video systems to a Control4 control system helped bring this rec room up to speed.

The owners of this 22-by-18-foot theater had no intention of updating their 1970s-style basement rec room. They were going to leave it as is, and focus their remodeling efforts on main living areas of the house.

Their remodeling plan would include adding a Control4 control system to automate the lights and thermostats, and spread music and video to speakers and TVs throughout the house.



The contractors and interior designers hired for the job couldn’t help but bring up the outdated rec room, though.

“When we spoke to them about the possibilities for that area, they decided to add a home theater [as well as a wine cellar, a bar and a billiards area] to the plans,” says Tom Wilburn, sales manager at custom electronics firm TriPhase Technologies, Carmel, Ind.

What really sold the owners on having a theater was the ability to connect it to the Control4 system that was already being installed. As Wilburn explains, this would allow the owners to operate the theater components from the same type of wireless touchpanel and keypad that they were already using to operate the lights, thermostats, music and video in other areas of the house.

The video distribution capabilities of the Control4 system would also let the owners watch any movie that’s playing in the theater on any of 10 TVs located throughout the house. Using a wireless keyboard, they’d be able to access a PC to retrieve Internet content - like Hulu videos - right from the theater and view it on a 122-inch Stewart Filmscreen.

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