When setting out to build a custom home, you should select the architect who will design your home and advocate for you during the construction process. But choosing an architect can be a daunting task. So how will you know you have chosen the right person? Where do you start? While not an exhaustive list, the ideas below can help serve as your guide as you look for the ideal architect to build your custom home.

Smart Home Technology isn't just gaining popularity in Residential construction… it's here to stay. When building a luxury home, technology will inevitably be included. Still, the homeowner must decide what technology is installed for how they intend to use the home on a daily basis. This sounds like a tall order, but a great builder (and a great integrator) will strive to see the end product through their clients' eyes and work with them to make it happen.

Guest post by Keith Dowd - Vivid Audio | Trinnov Audio

It's rare to find a modern luxury home that doesn't have TVs in many rooms (including behind mirrors in the master bathroom, and outside), built-in speakers in almost every room, and outdoor speakers in the landscape. It may seem ironic that with TVs and music distributed throughout the home - the dedicated special-purpose rooms are the ones homeowners most often name as their favorites – for both entertaining and personal use. Home theaters are now quite common, in both the dedicated Private Cinema version and in the multi-use gaming, TV and movie watching media-room version.

Many design elements that are used in modern luxury homes are considered “jewelry” for the home. Onyx countertops, handmade door hardware and chandeliers are just a few examples. But when Lutron released their Palladiom line of motorized shades and lighting keypads they added a new entrant into the category. Palladiom replaced the utilitarian plastic switch and shade mounting brackets with finishes that we aren’t just ok seeing in our homes, they become things we want to show off.

Lutron recently announced the newest addition their lighting control lineup, RadioRA 3. RadioRA 3 will be replacing RadioRA2, but will be backwards compatible, meaning existing clients can enjoy the newest features without replacing their entire system. Before we talk about those new features, I want to explain what RadioRA3 is, and how it fits into Lutron’s lighting control lineup.

So, you are looking to do some home automation, and you do a quick internet search. What are you going to find? Mainly, you will discover consumer-level DIY products that can turn one part of your home into an Internet of Things (IoT), but they may not work across a large modern house.

If you narrow your search to Luxury homes, you will start to find different names and brands emerge. Among those is Lutron. This blog will review who Lutron is and why you may want to use them in your luxury home.

Building a custom home is a dream come true. Making that beautiful place a smart space is the icing on the cake and happens to be our forte. With this in mind, we wanted to highlight some of the most common mistakes people make in the planning phases of building a custom smart home. We talked to our design & engineering team to determine what those mistakes are and how to avoid them.

A luxury home has little in common with a college dorm room. They don’t use the same flooring, furniture, or fixtures, and they certainly don’t smell the same. The things you see and touch in a custom home tend to be high quality, well designed, and often even customized. Why then, do most luxury homes still feature the same cheap plastic light switches that are in the average dorm room?

Two of the three parts of this sentence may be true, and one is probably not: motorized shades are more expensive, and closing manual shades only takes a few seconds, which you will do yourself.

Did you get it right?

Yes, motorized shades are more expensive (they have motors), and it only takes a few seconds to open or close a manual shade. They were the true things. The untrue part is the 'you will do it yourself' bit. Of course, you intend to, and you may even plan to, but on a busy day, you go blind to those shades because manual shades are a pain to use and take too long to change. That is why it has been reported that 70% of the time, owners never change a manual shade. You bought this lovely home with a great view, and you never get to see it.

Here are three reasons why you may want to take the plunge and spend the extra on automated shades.

We’ve written a few blogs on this page on the best way to hide technology like televisions, either with innovative cabinets, moving concealment options, as well as adding art on something like a Samsung FrameTV.