Tudor houses, and the wiring they were never built for.
A great deal of Scarsdale was built before anybody thought about running wire, and most of our work here is the art of getting around that.
The Tudors and colonials that give Scarsdale its character are, from our side of the job, a wiring problem. Thick plaster, leaded windows, tight framing, and rooms that were never meant to hold a screen. Getting a modern system into one of these houses without wrecking what makes it worth living in is a specific skill, and it is most of what we do in this town.
That means starting with what is invisible. Wi-Fi and networking comes first, because plaster and lath defeat consumer equipment and there is no point putting anything on top of a network that cannot carry it. After that, wireless lighting control can replace a wall of switches with no new wire in the room at all, which is usually the moment people realise how much is possible without a renovation.
Lower levels here do double duty, media room one evening, playroom the next morning, and they are worth treating properly rather than as an afterthought. A screen sized to where people actually sit and speakers placed to the seat rather than to the wall costs no more than getting it wrong.
We are also comfortable being told no. If a room is going to be a fight, we will say so before you commit rather than halfway through. Scarsdale clients tend to have been given optimistic answers before, and the thing they seem to remember about working with us is that we outlined the system honestly at the start and then did that.
Start with one room. Most of our longest-running Scarsdale projects began that way.
Scarsdale
Have a house in Scarsdale? Tell us about it.
We will come out and look. If you want a sense of budget before that, the calculator gives a planning range from what you are considering.
An easier first step
Come and sit in the seating before you decide anything.
The showroom is at 5 N Greenwich Rd in Armonk, with CinemaTech seating on the floor. Ten minutes in the chairs, handling the finishes, settles more than a swatch card will, and it costs nothing.
From Scarsdale
“They carefully outlined the system before starting and suggested using equipment we had when feasible and up to their high standards… It is now almost 2 years since we moved in and we remain happy with everything they did.”
“Bob Krasne and his team were very responsive and provided accurate job quotes. The on-site technicians arrived right on schedule and were very knowledgeable. They did their work efficiently and clearly had thought through our system carefully before their arrival…”
Common questions
Questions we get from Scarsdale homeowners.
- Can you do this in an older Scarsdale house without opening walls?
- In most rooms, yes. Wireless lighting control removes the need for new wire in the room entirely, and speaker and network cable can generally be fished through closets, back stairs and the attic. We walk the house first and tell you which rooms are straightforward and which ones are going to be a fight, because knowing that before you commit is worth more than an optimistic quote.
- Why does the Wi-Fi struggle upstairs?
- Almost always the construction. Plaster and lath, and the wire mesh underneath it in houses of this period, are very good at stopping a wireless signal. The fix is not a bigger router. It is access points placed properly and wired back to a real switch, positioned against measurements taken in your house rather than a guess at the floor plan.
- What does a project like this usually involve?
- It depends entirely on the house and how far you want to go, which is why we walk it before saying anything about money. What we can promise is that you will get the scope outlined in plain language before work starts, and that if part of it is not worth doing we will say so.
- Do you work with our architect or contractor?
- Regularly, and it goes better when we are brought in early. If the walls are going to be open at any point, that is the moment to make these decisions. It is dramatically cheaper than coming back afterwards.
Services available here
Start a project
Tell us about the space. We'll come out and give you a straightforward plan.
The consultation is complimentary and it starts with a walkthrough or a set of drawings. You will leave it knowing what is realistic in your house, what it costs, and what can wait until phase two.