I did get the official Lutron photos and also saw CEpro had the announcement, I will see if I can get that video uploaded this weekend. Things were a bit crazy upon my return to the homeland!

+1

how long did the project in the video take you?

Planning started early 2013
Ground breaking was Spring 2014
Rough-in started July 2014
Substantial completion was October 2016
Clients first stayed at the property June 2017

The home has been in a constant state of changes, upgrades, remodel, etc. since October last year and the clients have only stayed there for 5-6 weeks total.

Here's the breakdown for labor if that's what you're interested in:

127hrs - Design & project management
493hrs - Rough-in, installation, programming & testing
  87hrs - Additional work outside the original proposal billed T&M

The fact that after 4 years you are able to track the time that well is just as impressive to me as your quality of work.

Compared to me who cant keep track of hours on a two day job lol.

I really need the like button for at least 8 posts in this thread alone.

So only the last phase of extras was time and materials? Man how did you quote the main job then. How could one even begin to estimate the hours for that job and not be off the mark on what it actually takes to get it done?

These are the only type of jobs I really take on anymore so I'm getting better at estimating them.

Most of the projects I'm involved in take 3-5 years from start to finish and I'm usually working with the architect, designer & clients around a year before construction even starts.

This was the second house I've done for the clients.  Their primary home is also here in Santa Barbara (Montecito) and I was working to complete it while this one was in planning.  Clients have basically been building since 2011...

The design and project management work is also done T&M because there's not really any way to estimate how much time is going to be involved in meetings and design.

On this job I still underbid the installation by about 50hrs (so around 10%).

For me as a one man shop this isn't really detrimental because I'm not paying salaries to employees on those lost hours, but I still loose the revenue because I'm not billing that time on other jobs.

Realistically I could have rushed through the work and finished within the hours I bid, but to me it's more important to make sure everything is done to the best of my ability.

I usually only take on 1-2 new jobs each year and complete 1-2 jobs each year.  This was the last substantial job I completed and I've been focused most of 2017 on a prewire for a job that will complete next year and planning for two new jobs that won't complete for another 2-3 years.

Great vid and nice job!

What Sonos Connect shelves are you using?

The Sonos Connect shelves are Middle Atlantic RSH...

Curious how the Music Favorites button worked out - without that visual feedback, did you feel it was a worth while feature to add to the keypad?

The favorites button worked well for these clients... we limited the favorite list to 5 or 6 selections so it was obvious what you selected as you toggled through.  Might be less useful for clients with more demanding needs.

Being that I've been doing Russound keypads on all my whole house music houses, it amazes me that some people are OK with just a lighting keypad with a button labeled favorite without being able to see meta data.

Hi Mario,

Might not work for every customer, but for this client it's worked very well.  They use the Favorites button from Lutron keypads in places like the Master Bath, Master Closet, Patio, etc. where they just want to quickly get some music started.  Usually with 1-3 presses on the Favorite button they have the music they want and can also control volume from the Lutron keypad.

The house also has 3 iPad minis in surface mount iPorts at key locations so it's easy for them to pull up the Sonos app when they need more control of the music.