Epitome Living’s dream home: the living room

One of the first questions we ask our clients during the design phase of their project is ‘what are your dreams for your space?’. 

How they answer this question informs how we specify the building’s technology infrastructure. 

If budget doesn’t allow for particular dreams to come true in the initial phase of the project, we’ll prepare for them to come true in phase two or three by ensuring the building’s backbone is ready for new additions (see our smart home planning guide for more advice on this).

But what if budget wasn’t an issue? What products would we specify immediately and add to homes by default?

I asked our systems designer Jordan and director Scott what their dream Epitome Living home looks like when it comes to seamless elegant technology solutions for home automation. 

Over the coming weeks we’ll be working our way around Epitome Living’s dream home, outlining the products we’d install in each room and why. 

You can use this series to inform how you plan for your own dream home, whether that’s coming in a build or a renovation. 

So without further ado, would you like the house tour? Let’s start in the living room. 

Make yourself at home

Whilst the kitchen is dubbed the heart of the home, the living room - or family room, or lounge, or whatever you prefer to call the room where your sofa lives - is where we turn to relax. 

Everything we do at Epitome Living is built around technology being invisible where appropriate, and there’s no better space in which to highlight why that’s important than in the living room. 

Living rooms are where we watch TV, play games, host friends on the ‘soft seats’ after dinner, or curl up to read a book. They’re multiuse and multigenerational, with each family member expecting different things from the space based on how they use it. 

So what does that look like when we consider the ideal living room project for Epitome Living?

Layered lighting

Lighting is a key focus for any room at Epitome Living. At minimum we want dimmable, layered, warm white lighting. The last thing we want is for the big light to be a client’s only option after a movie night. 

A common way to dim lights is with a rotary switch. Not all homes, particularly in Northern Ireland, are set up for the lights to be dimmed, but we think it should come as standard in new builds, particularly if they’re a client’s dream home.

Layered lighting means using multiple sources of light to create atmospheres in a space. Ordinarily that’s lamps and LED strips combined with natural lighting to create zones and moods for different times of day. 

Warm lighting has a colour temperature between 2700K and 3000K. It’s yellow in tone, and is used to create cosiness and intimacy. Cold white lights above 3000K are blue toned and clinical. We all know there’s only one correct choice when it comes to white Christmas lights… 

We’d enhance these basic principles with the technology choices we make by adding motion sensors to our living room to control the lighting. In our dream project, we’d use Faradite motion sensors - they’re sleek and subtle, with excellent functionality. 

Having motion sensors means that if you step into your living room and the light is low enough, the lights will come on automatically. You can hide the cable of every lamp you want in this case, as you’ll never have to reach for them to turn the lights on. 

We’d set these motion sensors to work alongside colour control temperature (CCT) fixtures and CCT LED strips that mimic the colour temperature of the sun through the day. This focus on circadian lighting (read more about this here) means that your space can support the natural rhythms of the body. As you wind down in the evening, then, the temperature of your lights set you up for a good night’s sleep.

If the room’s bright enough as it is, the motion sensors won’t trigger the lights until the lighting falls below a certain level. In this case, you won’t have to move from the sofa to switch a light on before you begin squinting at your book.

For lighting fixtures, our dream project uses Wever & Decré. The brand has developed a range of beautiful products that are compatible with Loxone, which is our preferred building automation technology. Most fixtures are Loxone compatible, however lights designed specifically to pair with the system give smoother dimming, a more reliable performance, and can be connected to battery back up in the event of a power outage. 

Lighting was a key focus for the living space of our technology project at Building a View, which you can see more of on our Instagram. 

TV or no TV?

When it comes to audiovisual (AV) requirements in a living room, there’s normally a television somewhere in the space. If we’re honest, most of us don’t want our TVs to be the focus of the room, but somehow that’s what they end up being.

To combat this, our dream project would feature a flatscreen TV hidden behind artwork or cabinetry. The pinnacle solution to accomplish this comes from Future Automation. 

Future Automation’s products are luxurious, high-performing, and reliable, meaning that if aesthetics are important to you, and you don’t just want a black rectangle on your wall, there is an ideal solution. A SONY TV would be our go-to. 

We’d pair our dream TV selection with speakers from Artcoustic for surround sound capabilities. And to control the AV system, we’d use Savant. 

These AV choices can easily turn a living room into a media room when it needs to perform as such. Otherwise, you’ve got a living space that decentres technology and creates space for playing board games, spending quality time away from screens, or enjoying the view out your window. 

If you want to ramp up the audio performance of the room for listening to music (which we do, in this case),  L-Acoustics speakers are a high-performance, low-key solution. L-Acoustics is a pro-audio speaker brand used for music festivals all over the world. When you’re into music, and want high energy and high performance, L-Acoustics gives you a taste of a live music venue experience in the comfort of your own home.

Intent to integrate

Our intention for living rooms is to create high performing spaces that feel analogue. With technology hidden in the background, our dream space creates an elevated AV experience when the system’s in use, and subtly when it’s not.

And the best bit?

We integrate the control of lighting, AV, shading, heating and more to make truly intelligent homes that are designed around how our clients live. This integration comes as standard in our dream project. 

Our dream, really, is to help our clients live simplified lives with our design-led technology installations. We have our favourite products, of course, but if you work with us, we’ll ultimately pick what’s right for making your dreams come true.

If that sounds right for you, share your dream home plans with us at info@epitomeliving.com and we’ll help you bring them to life. 

(Smart technology installations by Epitome can operate across an entire home, or, for extensions or partial renovations, our installations can focus on single-room or single-solution integrations.)