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Homes: Got £100,0000 to make your home high-tech?
by Paul R Taylor and Conrad Astley25/ 8/2005
IN THE early 80s if you had a colour TV and video recorder in
the lounge you were the envy of your street.
Young boys would peer in through the front windows open-mouthed as
dad struggled to get to grips with the intricacies of programming
the video for Bullseye.
But the last 25 years have seen nothing short of a revolution in
home entertainment. Nowadays there are so many gadgets on offer -
from plasma screens to projectors, DVD recorders, hard drives,
broadband internet, MP3 players - that you're unlikely to impress
the neighbours unless you home is kitted out like a Bond villain's
lair.
But there is a way to zoom straight from Jim Bowen to MTV bling
without the hassle of spending days flicking through What HiFi?
magazine, shopping and individually installing every piece of
kit.
Custom installations are unlikely to add significantly to the value
of your home, but they will undoubtedly add to the pleasure of
living there.
For anything from £3,000 to more than (hold your breath) £100,000,
companies will assess your needs and then seamlessly integrate
sound and vision systems into your home.
They will clear away the clutter, replacing the tangle of wires and
stacks of set-top boxes with sleek space-aged flat screens,
multi-room flush mounted wall speakers and hidden drop down
projectors.
The range of actual pieces of equipment is long enough, but when
you take into account the fact that each item will be made by
several different manufacturers, the possibilities become almost
endless. But choosing between different manufacturers is probably
something best left to the experts, unless you're a serious
technophile. Better to focus on how cool it will all look, and
whether it will be a flat screen above the bath or a Ipod docking
station in the hall.
Patrick Judson, 33, managing director of Sevenoaks Sound &
Vision, on High Street in the Northern Quarter, says between 70-80
per cent of all his business is now custom installations.
"The shop has been here for about six years, but installations have
become really popular in the last couple and are a large part of
our business now.
"We probably instal more than 100 systems a year, ranging from
simple plasma screens and speakers to drop down projectors and
multi-room sound and vision.
"Customers come in and we discuss their needs with them. It's quite
different for everyone. Some are quite genned up and know what they
want, or have read What HiFi? and want a particular system it
recommends.
"But it's usually the people who come in and don't really know what
they want who get the best systems for the best prices. Some people
don't even come in, they just phone and we go out to them."
Patrick says those people with money to spend should be looking for
makes such as Lexicon, M&K speakers and Sim 2 projectors. A
simple system can be picked up for as "little" as £3,000, but if
you want a flat screen rising from a concealed hole in the floor of
your lounge you're going to have to pay a bit more.
"Sometimes we install systems as the property is built or
refurbished, but we also supply custom-made furniture to hide
systems away.
"You'd think it was all city centre flats, but we hardly do them at
all really," he added. "It's mostly houses in south Manchester and
Cheshire, business executives, people like that.
"We haven't done any celebrities. One of the guys in the shops
thinks Louis Saha might have come in a couple of Fridays ago, but
he wanted a system installed by the Monday which we couldn't
do.
"The people that go for custom installations are usually those with
a real interest in either music or films, people who love them. The
home cinema systems can be anything up to 69ins or 10ft, but you'd
need a scanner to improve the picture quality or wait until next
year when Sky becomes high definition."
Sevenoaks is one of a number of suppliers who can provide custom
installations such as Wired for Living or D&T, but is the only
one in Manchester with a walk-in shop and demo room.
And the best thing about the whole custom installations concept?
Once all the equipment is safely installed, you can throw-out your
scores remote controls and sit back with just one handset - even
easier than the two needed to tape a bit of Bully.
Wired for sound ... as standard
SOME properties are wired for sound as standard.
If you're too lazy or too rich to call in the custom installers,
you could always simply move to one of the Haçienda's two remaining
penthouse flats.
On the site where Manchester's musical Mecca once stood, prices for
the penthouses start at £545,500 and come complete with a hidden
300-CD multi-changer, tuner, and multi-room concealed ceiling
speakers.
The Whitworth Street club closed in June 1997 and was empty for 18
months before being demolished. The bricks were sold for £5 each,
raising thousands for charity.
The penthouses are also kitted out with a CAT5e-based cable network
that provides a choice of ISDN, ASDL and LAN data connections,
allowing a home office to be set up.
Clare Pearson, Crosby Homes' sales and marketing manager, said:
"The Haçienda penthouses are the crowning glory. They offer
luxurious and stylish living in a vibrant part of Manchester with
the added bonus of spectacular views across the city."
www.huntersnet.co.uk
CV: Interior designer Nicky Rybka-Goldsmith
AFTER nearly a decade in interior design, Nicky Rybka-Goldsmith
says he can afford to be picky.
Nicky has run Creative Consultants in the Northern Quarter for six
years now, after studying interior design at Manchester
Metropolitan University and working for several agencies.
The company was first involved in furnishing city centre loft
flats.
This work mainly involved making bespoke furniture, as it was
difficult to find pieces which could be brought up several flights
of stairs or fit into lifts.
However, he now works for bigger businesses. But although this has
involved designing the interiors of hairdressing salons, bars and
restaurants, Nicky says he won't work with just anyone.
He said: "We're quite picky, because we don't like working on
projects that we can't put our own stamp on, or with clients that
have different tastes to us.
"I love working with clients who have imaginations and know we can
offer something a bit different."
One of the last projects was a show room and office for M1 City
Apartments on Whitworth Street West.
Nicky said the developers wanted a design which would look slightly
camp, but which wasn't too ostentatious.
So he created an area containing furniture which had been specially
imported from Italy, including high backed chairs and
chandeliers.
The designer has also started setting up new projects with his
business partner Yvonne.
These include The Bay Horse bar and the newly opened Soup Kitchen
café, both in the Northern Quarter. The pair designed both
premises, and put other people in place to run the
businesses.
He said: "We're quite interested in putting concepts together and
getting doors open, making sure they're very community-based.
"There's all sorts of industries in the Northern Quarter and we
want these places to cater for all these businesses."
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