Tech Room: State-of-the-art recreation room takes the old concept
of nesting into a whole new dimension!
by Elaine Simcoe

    Six years ago, our homeowners moved into their beautiful dream house bungalow but didn't develop the lower level. These days though, people seem to be 'nesting' more than ever and Cindy and Mike are, too. "We like staying close to home. We love entertaining and we love to have the girls (two teenaged daughters) and their friends at home, too, but I really didn't want to do it now," Cindy explains. "Three thousand square feet to clean on the main floor is enough! I didn't want to have to clean six thousand. But Mike and the kids really wanted to develop the rec room, so I made a pact with them. I'd agree if they'd agree to clean the rec room. It's not a lot to clean and they do it, but they still complain!"

    Initial drawings by interior designer Joy Myers Piske were the basis of the design but Cindy and Mike modified them to suit their own taste. Mike had a good idea of what he wanted and being an electrical contractor, had his thumb on the pulse of the latest in home electronics. He really wanted to showcase this area and make it everything to everyone in the family as well as an inviting space for visitors. Filling three thousand square feet is no mean feat and the plans began to fly!

    Being physically active themselves and with their daughters in dance, the three thousand square foot area had to be divided judiciously to maximize its multifunctionalism. It was ultimately divided into large family room with bar and games area, a dance cum workout studio and a guest area with separate bath.

    The family area is, naturally, the largest space. It had to accommodate a very large bar and the home theatre system of Mike's dreams, as well have enough storage to stash all the equipment, usable goods and memorabilia that four people plus two dogs can accumulate. Camouflaging a badly placed telepost into the structure of the bar necessitated the bar being larger than originally planned, but it ended up being a stunning addition to the room with its black granite double counter, lighted glass block base, wine fridge, ice machine and other fabulous amenities. Designing built-in storage and display was going to be a tall order and a call to Barry Penner and Larry Koop of Heirloom Cabinetry Ltd. went out.

The Fabulous Cabinetry
    Heirloom Cabinetry specializes in custom millwork -- nothing there is mass produced. "We made some changes to their original drawings in order to tailor the cabinetry to their specific needs like giving them lots of hidden storage and accommodating the large-screen home theatre system," Penner explains. Mike and Cindy like 'a place for everything and everything in its place', especially if they can camouflage it somehow so that the area remains uncluttered. Heirloom came up with a series of built-ins designed to meet the needs of each individual space. For example, the large built-in wall unit in the family room was modified to incorporate a retractable 116" screen that is electrically lowered over a central bank of open shelving. The screen comes down in front of the shelves without disturbing their contents. When retracted, it disappears into the top of the unit and the accessories are once again on display. The huge speakers are built right in to the unit and masked with grill cloths.

    Push on the bank of open shelving to the left of the home theatre unit and you're in a substantial storage room with a built-in closet system for out-of-season clothing and the like. On the games side of the room, the pool cue rack on the wall is also a ruse! Although the rack truly stores the cues, it also swings back to reveal another large general storage area where built-in pantry shelves store a myriad of goods. It's almost like being a kid in an old castle!

    Heirloom Cabinetry provides full service, custom building and assembly of anything to do with the cabinetry from the rich black granite tops of the bar and 'floating buffet' at the base of the stairs, to the large units in each room and right on down to small details like full-extension drawers (a nice feature that gives you about 20% extra extension over a standard drawer) and beautiful cabinet hardware. Each of the units is custom-built to the needs of each room. For example, the built-in unit in the dance/workout room also is equipped with a pull-down screen for video display, open shelving to display photos of the girls at their dance recitals and cleverly hides a water cooler behind a door. The guest room built-in incorporates a computer workstation, dresser and open shelving. The bathroom has a large linen closet and a built-in vanity with a bank of drawers in lieu of medicine cabinets which seem to be out of vogue today. It also has the latest in 21st century saunas -- a Far-Infrared sauna-in-a-box, that assembles in minutes, delivers radiant heat with all its healthful benefits and is "one of the best purchases we've ever made," Cindy exclaims!

    All cabinetry is assembled into handleable units at Heirloom's shop. The final assembly and molding application is done on site so that everything fits perfectly. All the units are made from high-quality maple veneers that are individually matched so that the grain flows and looks like it's made from one piece (the storage room units are maple-look melamine for easy-clean durability). The colours of the stains for the units as well as the wall colours and furniture were chosen with the help of interior designer Joanne Park of Interior Touches. The rich dark walnut stain of the cabinetry in the family room is enhanced by the light, warm mustards and taupey greens of the walls -- subdued and sophisticated. A nice, subtle touch is the mustard-colour felt cloth of the Brunswick pool table from Avo Home Recreation...it picks up the wall colour beautifully. The other rooms are done in light, airy colours to enhance the feeling of space. All the lighting fixtures, and there are many with specific applications in each of the rooms, as well as the bathroom fixtures were supplied by Robinson Lighting and Robinson Bath Centre.

State-of-the-art Audio-Visual System from Advance Electronics
    Since Mike is an experienced audio-videophile as well as an electrical contractor, he wanted to do the installation of the A/V system himself. "It's not everyday that you have a client with that much expertise, so we just supplied the parts, gave him a bit of input and he did the rest," explains Joe Ducasse of Advance Electronics. The system is a multi-source, multi-zone, distributed audio system which means you can access the central A/V bank from anywhere in the house through a series of electronic keypads that are wired into each room in the house. So, if Cindy is in the kitchen and wants to listen to the radio, while Mike is in the workout room watching a video and the girls are in their bedrooms listening to CDs, each one simply has to go to the touchpad in their respective rooms and press the button for the selection of their choice. The system accesses the main bank and fulfills the request automatically.

    The home theatre system video component in the rec room is an overhead Sony projector and is showcased through that 116" (diagonal) screen previously mentioned. It is an LCD, high-definition projector that is amazingly clear, even at full size. The option is there to reduce the size of the screen if you feel you are too close for the full-size image. Every media option is available -- cable, satellite, VHS, DVD, and in the near future, the internet will be wired into the system because the Sony projector is also capable of displaying computer graphics. And, at full screen size it will almost be like living inside the video game! A full stereo system is also part of the package and accessible through this central bank. The remote control that operates the system has built-in macros to provide one-button ease of use. Just press the media of choice on the remote, say the DVD button, and the system takes over to turn on everything and anything needed to access the DVD player. Then the remote becomes the source for that function and you use it just as you would a single DVD remote -- that's technological simplicity at it's best!

    Well, this rec room has certainly proved to be just what Mike was looking for -- a state-of-the-art, everything to everyone space that makes staying home just the thing everyone wants to do! They'll probably even enjoy cleaning it now!