This is a design study for a new-build chalet at about 1,000 metres in Morzine, in the French Alps, and it shows how we plan lighting, shading and climate control before anything is built. The project is in design, so nothing described here is installed. What the study records is the process: reading the sun’s path across the site, testing every window against the surrounding mountains and the building’s own overhangs.
Home cinema lighting design is crucial to creating an enjoyable home cinema room. Lighting levels need to be exactly right to create the right environment — bright enough to navigate the room comfortably, and dim enough to properly enjoy the picture from a projector.
40 real home cinema rooms designed, installed and calibrated by Custom Controls — five-time Crestron Integration Award winners, RoomPerfect Certified Professionals and Trinnov accredited installers since 1998. Dedicated rooms, garage conversions, basement cinemas and living room systems from £50,000 to £1 million.
A direct comparison of the leading Smart Home Systems on the market. Which should you specify and why? This article covers everything – reliability, flexibility and ease of Maintenance.
A luxury bunker is built to keep people safe, but safety alone does not keep people well. Spend more than a few days below ground and the absence of daylight, weather, birdsong and moving air starts to tell, however good the finishes are. This design brief sets out a room that answers that problem directly: a Sonic Sanctuary, a zen room that brings light, sound, scent, air and touch together into one system so that the people using it can step out of the bunker and, for an hour, feel as though they are somewhere else entirely.
Two cinema rooms can contain the same projector, the same loudspeakers and the same processor and still perform very differently. The difference is rarely the equipment. It is the dozens of design decisions made before anything is installed.
A dedicated listening room — a hi-fi room designed around the music rather than the furniture — is the one space in a house where the room itself is treated as part of the hi-fi system. Put a pair of reference loudspeakers into an ordinary drawing room and what reaches your ears is as much the room as the recording: bass that booms at one seat and vanishes at the next, a stereo image smeared by reflections from a glass wall, and a noise floor set by the boiler, the street and the fridge in the next room. Design the room properly and the same home hi-fi can sound like a different, far more expensive system.
A garden room is only as useful as its connection. Whether it is a home office, a gym, a studio or a cinema at the bottom of the garden, it needs the same fast, reliable network as the main house — and the WiFi from the house rarely reaches it. Walls, glazing, distance and planting all weaken the signal, and a garden room built with insulated panels and low-emissivity glass can block it almost completely. There are three ways to extend a UniFi network to an outbuilding: a cable, a wireless bridge, or powerline adaptors. They are not equal, and the order below is the order in which we recommend them.
A well-lit garden extends the house after dark. Seen from inside, it turns black glass back into a view; used on a summer evening, it makes a terrace, a pool or a lawn somewhere to be rather than somewhere to hurry through. Yet garden lighting is often the least considered part of a project — a row of bulkheads on the back wall, a few spikes pushed into the borders and a security floodlight on a sensor. Good landscape lighting works the other way round: it starts with what you want to see from the house and how you want to use the garden at night, and builds a composition of light from there.
The entrance hall sets the tone for the whole house. It is the first space a guest sees and the last one you pass through at night, and the stairs and landings beyond it are used dozens of times a day — often in half-light, often half-asleep. Yet halls and staircases are regularly lit with a single pendant and a two-way switch, leaving dark corners, a gloomy stairwell and a landing that is either glaringly bright or pitch black at three in the morning. Designed properly, these connecting spaces become some of the most atmospheric in the house, and some of the most practical.
Lighting built into joinery is one of the most effective ways to give a room depth and warmth. A library wall lit from within, a glass cabinet that glows in the evening, a run of alcove shelving that frames a fireplace — these are the details that make a room feel finished, and they produce the soft, indirect light that people instinctively find comfortable. They are also among the easiest details to get wrong: visible LED dots, hot spots on the top shelf, mismatched colours and drivers sealed behind panels that nobody can reach. Done properly, joinery lighting is designed into the cabinetry from the first drawing.
The kitchen asks more of its lighting than any other room in the house. In a single day it is a workshop that needs bright, shadow-free light on every worktop, a breakfast room that should feel calm and gentle, a place where guests gather with a drink in the evening, and, late at night, a route to the fridge that should not wake the whole house. A kitchen lit by a grid of identical downlights on a single switch can only ever do one of those jobs well. The kitchens that feel right at every hour are designed in layers, and those layers are brought together with lighting control so that the right balance is always one touch away.
See how an underused loft or attic can become a genuine home cinema — real conversions, no structural work, hidden projection and full surround sound.
A small home cinema doesn’t need to be a compromised one. Some of the most satisfying theatre rooms we’ve built have started life as a box room, a small basement, or a spare room nobody quite knew what to do with — and the constraints of a modest footprint often produce a more disciplined, better-considered result than an oversized room with space to waste.
A home theater renovation almost always starts with the same question: turn an existing room into something purpose-built, or upgrade a space that still needs to work for everyday life? Both are genuinely good options, and the right answer depends entirely on the room you’re starting with and how you actually want to use it.
Smart homes have always promised intelligence, but until recently that intelligence was mostly an illusion — fixed schedules, simple triggers, and rules that had to be manually rewritten every time your routine changed. Artificial intelligence is changing that.
Most homeowners who built their smart homes five to ten years ago with Control4 or Savant face a similar frustration: the system works, but it feels dated. Migrating to Crestron Home doesn’t mean ripping out your infrastructure—your existing cabling, network, and wiring remain functional. What changes is the equipment: the controller, touchpanels, and keypads. This guide covers what stays, what changes, why you’d upgrade, and how to plan migration without disruption.
We’ve spent 25+ years designing and installing smart home systems — from single-room mood lighting through to whole-villa automation across multiple buildings and time zones. A properly designed smart home feels effortless: walk into a room, and the lights adjust themselves. Step into your cinema, and the lighting, temperature, window blinds and audio all respond to a single command. Leave for work, and your entire home enters “away” mode in sequence.
Outdoor Home Cinema: Display, Audio, and Installation Guide Outdoor Home Cinema: Displays, Audio and Control Updated July 2026 · Custom Controls · Outdoor cinema specialists Outdoor home cinema sits at the intersection of ambition and pragmatism. The appeal is visceral: a terrace or garden transformed into a cinema screen that rivals the indoor room. The […]
A home cinema system integrates display, audio, acoustics, seating, and control to replicate theatrical performance. This guide covers room design, equipment selection, calibration, and real-world case studies.
A home cinema system is an integrated collection of components—projector, screen, processor, speakers, seating, lighting, and control—delivering a theatrical experience. This guide covers what defines a professional system, budget expectations, real installations, and why integration matters.
Whole-home audio and video distribution is one of the first things to go wrong when a large house is fitted out with consumer equipment. A source in one cupboard feeds a television two floors away through a chain of HDMI extenders, wireless transmitters and splitters, and every link in that chain is a place where the picture can drop out or refuse to start. Crestron approaches the problem differently: it treats both video and audio as network traffic, and it controls them from the same platform.
The speakers define a home cinema more than any other component. The projector sets what you see, but the loudspeakers and subwoofers decide whether a film feels like a performance in the room or a soundtrack played at you. Ascendo Immersive Audio builds loudspeakers and subwoofers designed specifically for residential cinemas, rather than adapting products from studios, commercial cinemas or hi-fi — and its infrasonic subwoofers, reaching far below the range of human hearing, are among the most ambitious bass products made for the home.
Complete technical comparison of Dolby Atmos, THX standards, and IMAX Enhanced. How to choose the right immersive audio format for your home cinema room, with speaker brand recommendations and advanced calibration approaches from Trinnov and Steinway Lyngdorf.
A complete luxury home cinema specification representing the pinnacle of residential cinema design. 16-seat private cinema with Christie Eclipse G3 projection, Meyer Sound Bluehorn reference audio, and Seymour-Screen Excellence 250″ CinemaScope screen.
Cinema seats are the one part of a home cinema that every guest touches, and the one part most often chosen last. Projectors and processors are replaced every few years; a good set of seats will be used several times a week for a decade or more, so the difference between a well-chosen seat and a poor one compounds over thousands of hours of viewing. This guide compares the luxury cinema seating brands we specify for UK homes — Cineak, Moovia, Vismara Design, Cineca, Home Cinema Modules and Fortress — explains what separates a premium seat from a showroom recliner, and sets out how we match seating to the room rather than the other way round.
Complete guide to professional smart lighting systems: scene-based control, colour tuning, automation, and how to design lighting that integrates with climate, security, and entertainment systems.
Complete guide to professional smart home installation in London: how the installation process works, timeline from design to commissioning, costs, and how to prepare your property.
Premium home cinema design for London’s luxury postcodes. Architectural acoustics, Cineak seating, Kaleidescape servers, Crestron integration. Design guide for Knightsbridge, Belgravia, Mayfair, Chelsea.
Most of the smart home systems we are asked to replace in London were not badly chosen. They were assembled. A lighting app from one manufacturer, a heating app from another, a voice assistant on top and a handful of routines that only the person who built them understands. Each piece works on its own, but nothing coordinates them, so the house never behaves as a single system.
A complete walkthrough of home cinema installation from initial consultation through final calibration. Covers timeline, cost, disruption, and what separates a properly installed cinema from an amateur one.
What Is Control4? The Complete Guide to Smart Home Automation How Control4 Works, Explained by a Certified Dealer Updated June 2026 · Custom Controls · Certified Control4 dealers since the platform’s early UK adoption, alongside Crestron and Lutron If you’ve been researching smart home systems, you’ve almost certainly come across Control4. It’s one of the […]
How Much Does a Home Cinema Room Cost in the UK? A Clear Answer, Backed by Real Project Costs — Not Generic Estimates Updated June 2026 · Custom Controls · 25+ years designing and installing home cinema rooms across the UK and internationally Search for this question online and you’ll find a genuinely confusing range […]
Crestron for Accessibility, Voice Control and EV Charging Two of the Most Underrated Things a Properly Specified Crestron System Can Do Published June 2026 · Custom Controls · Certified Crestron dealers since 1998 Most conversations about Crestron focus on lighting, AV and the touchpanel interface. Two genuinely significant capabilities get discussed far less often, despite […]
Upgrading a Legacy Lutron System Homeworks Interactive, Illumination and GRAFIK Eye — What to Do When an Old System Fails or Can’t Run LED Published June 2026 · Custom Controls · Certified Lutron installers since 1998 We regularly receive calls from owners of homes with an existing Lutron lighting system installed a decade or more […]
Lighting Dimming Protocols Explained DALI, 0-10V, Leading and Trailing Edge — and Why Your LEDs Flicker, Buzz or Won’t Dim Below 20% Published June 2026 · Custom Controls · Certified Lutron and Crestron lighting installers since 1998 Almost every client who has had LED lighting fitted by a general electrician, rather than specified by a […]
A dedicated Magico S5 Mk II and Soulution two-channel hi-fi system within a major Dubai private estate — streaming from the same Crestron-controlled whole-home audio sources as the rest of this award-winning installation.
A complete guide to Sonus Faber loudspeakers — Suprema, Il Cremonese Ex3me, and the full range from Heritage to Reference. The engineering behind the brand and how to specify a Sonus Faber system. Authorised Sonus Faber dealers Custom Controls.
A complete guide to Magico loudspeakers — M Series, S Series and A Series. The engineering behind the brand, why Magico builds sealed aluminium enclosures, and how to specify a Magico system. From authorised Magico dealers Custom Controls.
Inherited a Crestron or Lutron system that has never worked properly, or one that used to and has stopped? We rebuild racks, reprogram systems, fix faults at their actual cause, upgrade audio and video formats, recalibrate cinema rooms, replace consumer networking with enterprise infrastructure — and provide ongoing remote monitoring so it stays right.
Professional calibration is the single highest-return intervention available for any home cinema system. Here is what it actually changes — audio and video — why expensive hardware needs it most, and how to tell if your system is underperforming.
Listed building consent typically rules out conventional wired lighting control systems. Lutron RadioRA 3’s fully wireless installation — no new cables, no penetrations, no structural alteration — makes professional lighting control achievable in period properties where rewiring is not possible.
Trinnov Altitude and Anthem are both used on Custom Controls installations. The right choice depends on the room, the channel count, the budget and whether WaveForming is in scope. Here is the honest comparison.
Steinway Lyngdorf and Trinnov are both exceptional — but they are fundamentally different things. One is a complete integrated system; the other is a component within a system you assemble. This comparison explains the difference, and which is right for your room.
Lutron Homeworks QSX vs RadioRA 3 — an honest comparison of cost, features and which system is right for your home. Based on 25 years of Lutron installation experience. New builds, retrofits, listed buildings and period properties all covered.
Trinnov WaveForming explained — what it is, how planar wave propagation eliminates room modes, what your cinema room needs for it to work correctly, and what a properly implemented installation actually sounds like. From experienced UK Trinnov Altitude installers.
Steinway Lyngdorf make some of the finest audio systems in the world. They also make a surprisingly wide range of them — from discreet in-wall speakers for a living room cinema to floor-standing reference loudspeakers capable of filling a large room with accurate sound, through to a dedicated speaker built to survive life on the deck of a superyacht. Choosing between them is not simply a matter of budget. Each model in the range is designed for a specific application, and the largest is not always the best choice for a given room. This guide explains the full Steinway Lyngdorf range — what each system is designed to do, what room it suits, and how to think about the choice.
Everything you need to know about home cinema room dimensions, shapes and acoustics — THX volume tiers converted to metric, why square rooms fail, the golden ratio and how Custom Controls designs rooms that perform.
Home Cinema & Theatre Room Renovation: The Complete Upgrade Guide Cinema Room Upgrades: One Component to Full Refit Published June 2026 · Custom Controls · 25+ years designing and installing home cinema rooms One of the most common enquiries we receive is from clients who already have a home cinema — installed five, eight or […]
Kaleidescape Explained: Hardware, Movie Store and How to Choose Your System A complete guide to the world’s only high-fidelity movie platform — from an installer who uses it on every serious cinema project Published June 2026 · Updated June 2026 (Strato K) · Custom Controls · 25+ years installing home cinema systems Most of the […]
Every client who asks about a home cinema is really asking two questions at once, whether they realise it or not: what do I want this room to do, and what am I prepared to give up to get it? A dedicated cinema and a movie or media room solve the same basic desire — a serious film and TV experience at home — but they start from opposite design briefs.
You have spent considerable time and money designing and equipping your home cinema. The projector is specified, the speaker system is chosen, the acoustic treatment is planned. And then someone mentions that you need a control system — and suddenly you are faced with a new set of decisions, a new vocabulary and a market full of competing claims. The control system is the interface between you and your cinema. It is what you pick up to start a film, dim the lights, lower the screen and switch sources. In a well-designed system, this happens in one action. In a poorly chosen or poorly programmed one, it happens in six. That difference — between pressing one button and pressing six — is not a minor convenience. It is the difference between a cinema that gets used every evening and one that gathers dust because it is too complicated to be bothered with.
Crestron Home: The Complete Guide (2026) Published May 2026 · By Custom Controls · 25+ years as a certified Crestron dealer Everything there is to know about Crestron Home If you are researching smart home systems, you have almost certainly encountered Crestron Home. It appears on premium AV company websites, in luxury home specification documents […]
A complete guide to Bluesound & NAD whole house audio systems — audiophile nodes, rack-efficient multiroom amps, BluOS software, Roon & networks.
Elevate your smart home’s resilience. Custom Controls delivers proactive remote monitoring and seamless upgrades for super-prime properties worldwide.
Tired of Wi-Fi dead zones and buffering? Discover why standard ISP routers and Mesh systems fail in modern homes and how enterprise-grade WAPs, PoE technology, and professional hub optimization can unlock the full potential of your high-speed fibre connection.
Wired or Wireless – high end Wifi and Security for your Alpine Chalet!
Lutron wireless blinds – easily add motorised blinds to any home with no cabling required!
A High End Home Cinema Room Design for a High End Villa in Dubai’s Emirates Hills. A Luxury Cinema Room with Seating for 11 in Absolute Comfort.
A luxury home cinema room design for a client in Knutsford, Cheshire. A very special cinema room with seating for 6 people in a cozy space.
A Fantastic Private Home Cinema Room in Chatel, The French Alps. The Ultimate Home Cinema for the Ultimate Outdoor Playground!
A Blog article showing every detail of the Ultimate TV Sound System. We cover the TV, Speakers and Room Aesthetics to create the perfect viewing experience!
A High End Cinema Room for a home in St Georges Hill, Weybridge. A huge 5m projector screen, Trinnov Surround Sound and Seating for 6 in absolute comfort!
This unused double garage, measuring 18ft x 20ft (roughly 5.5m x 6m), has been transformed from an unloved space in to a luxury home cinema room capable of hosting friends and family in style.
One of our Best Home Theater Designs for a Portugese Client. A Bespoke Theater Room with Seating for 11 and High End Theater Sound & Vision.
The benefits of integrating HVAC in to a Crestron Home Automation System. Increase Efficiency & Convenience, Lower Energy Use!
A Stunning Living Room Home Cinema in North London. The full cinema experience, discreetly installed in a Living Room!
Use local engineers to deliver a Custom Controls designed smart home system. All the benefits delivered in the most cost effective way possible.
This article covers every aspect of home cinema seating — how to position it correctly within the room, then how to actually select the seats and design themselves, with plenty of real examples from our own projects to help with inspiration.
One of our smallest Home Cinema designs delivering one of the BIGGEST Home Cinema Experiences! A stunning room!
Everything you need to design a home cinema that performs as well as it looks — from room acoustics and screen size to seating, lighting and control.
A stunning home cinema room designed for a very challenging lounge conversion! Thinking differently to deliver stunning cinema!
This stunning home cinema room design is for a Midlands based client. The room house eight people in absolute comfort, the home cinema system delivers an absolutely awesome experience!
Home Cinema Rooms do not come more luxurious than this! A spacious 8.5m x 7m cinema room which is equipped with the very best technology and interior possible.
An article looking in to the various control surfaces from Crestron – from in-wall and table top touchpanels through to remote controls.
A fun filled Family Home Cinema Room for a client in Dubai! Perfect for Family movie nights.
A Stylish & Modern Home Cinema Room installed in Prestbury, Cheshire. A very high end cinematic experienced enhanced by a stunning lighting design!
This high end, 18 seater, home cinema in London features the very best Krix Speaker System!
A Stunning design for a Loft Home Cinema for a new barn conversion in Hertfordshire.
One of the best Home Cinema Rooms in the world! An IMAX Home Cinema Room with a HUGE specification. A must read!
A very high end Home Cinema Room Design for a Client in Hampstead, London. Seating for 10 people in a beautiful classical room. A Must See!
A Simply Stunning Bowers & Wilkins Custom Theater 800 Home Cinema Room. Very high end with bespoke seating for up to 18 people! A Must See Case Study!
A Stunning design for a Home Entertainment Complex in Prestbury, Cheshire. A huge room featuring a Home Cinema, Pool Table, Lounge Area and Kitchen!
One of our smaller Home Cinema Rooms – yet it delivers a stunning and immersive audio video experience! Seating for up to 9 people in comfort!
A beautiful Home Cinema Room Design for a Villa in District One, Dubai. Seating for 9 people in a stunning home cinema room!
A full write up for this extremely high end home cinema room design for a basement in the Al Barari estate, Dubai. Seating for 12 people in absolute luxury!
Our Top 5 Solutions for integrating TVs in to Living Spaces – the options are many. A must read if researching how to install your TV in the living Room!
A Home Cinema Garage Conversion in Cheshire, Hale. A stunning Home Cinema Room with HUGE projection screen and Sony laser projector!
When a client based in Abuja, Nigeria asked us to design a Home Cinema Room for his home he had one brief – quality. As experts in cinema design we are used to maximising return for a clients budget –
In recent years biometric finger print access has been used to replace security codes and security alarm fobs for convenience and heightened security. However we always been slightly
In the modern home WiFi should be treated as a utility – everyone needs it and it should be fast, reliable and always available. Unfortunately the ISP provided routers are generally low quality and built to very tight budgets. This can result in a
A Crestron Home Automation system can make life a lot easier for clients with a disability such as reduced mobility, vision or hearing. A well installed system can increase independence and reduce the need for careers.
Our Home Cinema Rooms aren’t solely for movie nights with the family – they also perform stunningly well as gaming rooms. High end surround systems fully immerse the player with audio coming from all sides, behind and even the ceiling! The
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