LED lights are tricky. They can be difficult to dim without flicker; are tough to integrate into control systems; and with such a huge range of styles available, getting them to all work in unison has left some homeowners feeling as if they should just stick with incandescent lighting. However, this week’s featured Home of the Week proves, the right system installed by a skilled and knowledgeable home systems integrator can bring order and elegance to LED lighting, while creating a host of stunning effects impossible to produce with old-fashioned incandescent bulbs.
1,650-Square-Feet of Eye Candy
When the owners of this custom home decided to renovate their unfinished basement, they wanted to maximize its spacious size for times when they hosted parties, yet also wanted to make the space feel cozy by dividing the room into several separate entertainment zones. The home systems integration team atGramophone, of Timonium, Md., accomplished this by installing technology that could make the room function both ways—as a big party pad on minute, and an intimate home theater for just the family the next. The transformation happens with just the tap of a button on a keypad or tablet, says Gramophone lighting system designer Jeff Nale.
Largely responsible for the visual delineation of space is a Lutron Homeworks QS lighting control system, which was configured by Gramophone to controls nine NuLED SpectraDrive RGB LED tape light controllers to provide color-changing illumination within the ceiling coves of the billiards, bar, and home theater areas that make up the made-over basement. The homeowners can showcase the billiards area by activating three separate RGB LED tape lights around the ceiling cove. Each of the three lighting strips is 20 feet in length and can be controlled individually: The owners might choose red for one strip, blue for another, and green for the third. Similarly, they can select red for the entire billiards area, blue for the bar, and green for the media room. Or, they can unite all three areas by choosing one uniform cove color for the entire space.
A Dozen Lighting Scenes Accessible
While the QS-controlled cove lighting effectively defines the individual spaces that make up the renovated basement, it just as aptly elicits mood and ambiance. “We crafted dozens of scenes, any of which can be engaged from any of eight keypads or from a Savant mobile app on a tablet or smartphone,” says Nale. (The Savant system is the overarching control system of the entire house, and lets the owners monitor the status and manage the operation of the lights, A/V equipment, motorized draperies, and thermostats.) “The bar area can become a disco; the billiards room can go from a bright, cheerful area to a more reserved, subdued space in the blink of an eye … or, more accurately, the touch of a button on a tablet or keypad.”
Artwork on Showcased with Great Lighting
While the HomeWorks QS system enables the basement to transition smoothly from one look to another, adds ambiance, and simplifies control, they homeowner had yet another job for it to do: showcase some of the artwork they had planned to incorporate into the lower-level entertainment mecca. Gramophone found the perfect LED fixture for the task: a recessed MR-16 downlight from Juno, which is able to provide the same light output of a 4-inch fixture from a 2-inch platform.
In addition to the extensive colored LED cove lighting and the pint-size Juno fixture, Gramophone also tied to the HomeWorks QS system Juno’s two-inch adjustable gimbal lights, SeaGull’s Ambiance Mini-Recessed art accent, and six 5-foot-square Numinus starfield panels backlit with dimmable LED tape light in the home theater portion of the basement. By dimming the LEDs, different effects can be achieved from these “clouds”: a bright night to a dark sky with twinkling stars. “We found that if you dim the tape LEDs enough, they look as if they are twinkling,” says Nale.
The effect is akin to watching movies under the stars, and contributing to the experience is a Sony 4K projector, Stewart Filmscreen CinemaScope 128-inch screen, Marantz universal disc player, Sony 4K media player, Autonomic media server, Apple TV, and Marantz surround-sound system with a 7.2 setup of Wisdom Audio speakers and subwoofers. The homeowners can cozy up the cinema area by closing draperies that stretch across the back of the space. Installed on a motorized track from Lutron, the custom draperies can be closed on command from a tablet, smartphone, or keypad. The drapes not only separate the theater temporarily from the rest of the entertainment areas, but help contain the audio from the surround-sound system. As the draperies slide shut, the lights in the theater begin a 16-second fade-to-black and the A/V gear revs up.
Marriage of Old and New Systems
As it was with the host of LED lights installed in the renovated basement, the HomeWorks QS system was equally accommodating of systems that had been installed years ago by a different integrator in the upper levels of the 8,000-square foot home, including an older Lutron HomeWorks lighting system and Elan control system for whole-house audio and CCTV. “We married old and new together so that the owners could operate the systems upstairs and the electronics downstairs from the same Savant app,” says Nale. From this app they have complete control over the lower and upper levels, directing video from the theater to TVs upstairs, for example, or viewing real-time video captured by surveillance cameras. Technology of all types is taming what could have been a difficult home to manage, had the owners simply decided to relegate themselves to manually set the lights, A/V equipment, security devices, draperies and more. One app, one button, and a bevy of electronic systems united as one have afforded the homeowners the ultimate entertainment space and convenience of control.
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