She loves technology, he fears it. While their new home is loaded with the latest-and-greatest gear, it's built to please both personalities.

Designer Sandra Canada explains how she made two clients happy in one house.

2008 Cedia Electronic Lifestyles Award Winner

Media Room: Silver Technical Design & Best Overall Winner

Electronic Systems Consultant: All Around Technology—Rockville, Md.

This neoclassical space—a basement-level room in a historical home in Georgetown, Va.—is prim and proper. The mood is reserved and regal. Dignified. But press a single button on the 8-inch wireless Crestron touchscreen...

No, home theater design companies don’t just fill your living room full of foam. Here’s how one firm satisfied three very different clients.

When you mention the word “acoustics,” most people envision a recording studio, or maybe a performance space. They start to think about walls of gray foam in strange crisscrossed patterns.

Eccentrically shaped wooden thingamajigs of unfathomable purpose. And puzzling analysis devices connected to countless microphones. To the uninitiated, acoustics sure doesn’t seem to have much to do with the average American living room - but it does.

Technology and texture unite to foster one growing family’s togetherness.

“The eyes want to collaborate with other senses,” writes Finnish architect and theorist Juhani Pallasmaa. “All the senses, including vision, can be regarded as extensions of the sense of touch … They define the interface between the skin and the environment.”

Custom homebuilder and homeowner John Cioe would no doubt agree with Pallasmaa’s view—particularly since his own family’s comfortable Scottsdale, Ariz., haven is a testament to the importance of sensorial experience to matters of design.

A custom installer brings new meaning to the concept of custom installation.

Custom installer Michael K. Leader of Leader D-Cinema Systems Inc. in Beverly Hills likes to apply haute couture-level craftsmanship to his custom-designed-and-fabricated audiovisual systems. “I like to apply bespoke tailoring to my work,” says the man who won an audio Emmy for his work on the XXIV Olympics for NBC.

Leader’s appreciation for the most minute details of a handmade suit, for example, is directly reflected in every A/V system he designs and builds.

Award-winning Chicago Interior Designer John Cannon weaves together an elaborate downstairs entertainment zone that revolves around an antique Parisian bar and a breathtaking home cinema, all decorated with the utmost in Art-Deco detailing.

It's that time of year again, where we award the most amazing custom installations we've seen this year.

This year, we saw so many stunning projects with over-the-top technology that we had no choice but to expand our annual “installation of the year” awards.

So instead of featuring one mind-blowing project in our awards story, we’ve included six different projects—from the best audio and video installations to the best home theater, media room, whole-house and the best innovation installation.

We'll be revealing the winners all week long in this celebration of the best that custom installation has to offer.

2009 CEDIA Electronic Lifestyles Award Winner

Best Integrated Home: Overall Winner

Electronic Systems Consutlant: T&T Automation Ltd.—British Columbia, Canada

When Tony Harper, the managing director of T & T Automation Ltd., was hired to handle all the a/v and automation for a sprawling 35,000-square-foot residential compound in Vancouver, Canada, it’s fair to say that the word “imposing” crossed his mind.