This dedicated theater has a secret. Behind the large wooden bookshelf on the left wall are two additional rooms where the handy homeowners can exercise their hidden woodworking and sewing talents.

Set on a heavy-duty hinge, the shelf swings open on command from an Elan touchpanel—or cooler yet, when someone pulls a book from the shelf. “We thought it would be fitting to choose the Sherlock Holmes novel ‘The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb’ as our trigger device,” says John Stumpf of Station Earth, the Ontario, Canada–based custom electronics design and installation firm that created this clever theater. When the book is returned to its spot, the bookcase swings shut, bringing the renovated basement back to its original form as a high-quality theater.

Not one to relax for very long, the man of the house also uses the theater as a place to trade stocks. Station Earth fitted a laptop onto a tray that can be swiveled directly in front of his favorite theater chair. With the push of a dollar sign on the Elan panel, the system video from the computer pops up on one half of the screen and CNBC appears on the other. At the same time, the Lutron lighting system brightens the fixture above his seat.