access the Lifeware on-screen control menu, where they can issue commands to lights, thermostats, and, of course, video components.

Again, the number of entertainment black boxes was kept to a minimum. “No big racks of components were to go into this house,” says Peters. Instead, all the high-def video the homeowners could ever want is provided by a Samsung Blu-ray player and a Niveus media server.

Wireless Home stuck to its less-is-more philosophy when setting up the whole-house music system. Small portable controllers from Sonos were used in lieu of more conspicuous wall-mounted keypads and volume controls as a means of accessing and controlling music from anywhere inside or outside the home. Tunes that Peters stored on the hard drive of the Niveus server, as well as Rhapsody and Pandora Internet radio stations, are at the homeowners’ fingertips.

One of the most extraordinary examples of blending form with function is evident in the home theater. The Wireless Home team had originally planned on outfitting the space with a traditional two-piece configuration consisting of a front projector and standalone screen. Those plans changed dramatically after a barrel ceiling went in.

“There simply was no way to mount a projector to a ceiling like that,” says Peters. There was no space on the back wall for the machine, either, and perching the unit alongside the furniture was definitely out. The best alternative was a rear-projection display, but even that was a challenging to implement. “There wasn’t enough space within the front wall to fit the projector behind the screen,” Peters explains. The solution: Build a false wall in front of the existing wall and install an innovative new rear-projection product from Optoma. The company’s BigVision DLP-based 100-inch display utilizes a projector that requires just 30 inches of space between it and the screen. “Typically, you’d need close to 50 inches for a rear projector,” says Peters.

The false wall also provided ample storage space for the one component—the Niveus server—that does most of the heavy lifting in this nicely networked home.

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Lisa Montgomery - Contributing Writer

Lisa Montgomery has been writing about home technology for 15 years, with a focus on the impact of electronics on a modern lifestyle.