A customised system can ensure that all the technology in your home is hidden from view

One of the inevitable results of our passion for music, movies, video games and computers is that our homes can end up looking more like electronics showrooms than somewhere we like to call home, and that’s without taking into account all the accompanying detritus, such as CDs, DVDs, remote controls and the like. You know things are out of hand when that tasty bookshelf you bought no longer has any room for your books. It’s time to take action.

Fortunately, you don’t have to excise all of this stuff completely. With a little thought, a decent amount of money and the services of a friendly custom installer, you really can turn your home into a hi-tech paradise and reclaim your living space at the same time.

One of the easiest ways to do this, of course, is to hide the obviously bulky items that intrude into your living space. Bookshelf or floor-standing speakers can be replaced by in-wall or in-ceiling equivalents; bulky room amplifiers can make way for alternatives that fit into the ceiling void.

Custom installers can also hide electronics away in racks in specially constructed cupboards, or can create false walls that make this stuff virtually undetectable until it’s called into action. In many cases the only way you’d notice anything at all is with the presence of a wall- mounted or free-standing touch panel, which fires up your system so you can enjoy music and movies in the room that you’re in, or even across your whole home.

The really clever stuff though has the ring of a James Bond villain’s lair about it – projector screens can magically disappear into the ceiling, flat-panel TVs can be summoned from innocuous-looking cabinetry or the floor. While many of these solutions are generic – TV lifts, for example – most custom installers can find solutions specific to your needs, while also taking the fabric of the building into account. Given the extensive amount of work involved, custom install solutions like this are best achieved as part of a major refurb or new-build, with power, control and audio-video signal cables being chased into ceilings and walls.

One place where a custom installation has proved to be a resounding success has been in one central London apartment, where custom installer Grahams Hi-Fi (grahams.co.uk) used a range of solutions from Future Automation ( futureautomation.co.uk) to provide the clients with everything they needed. These included hiding a Meridian projector inside an unused window space, installing a sliding panel system that enables a plasma TV to disappear into a wall, and a drop-down projector screen that’s stowed inside the ceiling recess.

Of course, taking control of your home-entertainment needs in this way doesn’t come cheap – custom install prices can range from a few thousand to several tens of thousands of pounds. However, it’s also arguably the best solution when it comes to truly clutter-free, robust and reliable hi-tech living. You can find a list of custom installers at the Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association website (cedia.co.uk).

Your custom installer will also happily recommend solutions to your music and movie storage needs, including media servers from the likes of Imerge (imerge.co.uk), Living Control (livingcontrol.com) and Kaleidescape (kaleidescape. com). These can easily be stowed alongside other consumer electronics, with control over the content being offered by in-wall or free-standing touch panels, or even PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant).

If this all sounds beyond your budget, then there is one alternative that’s fast gaining credence among some home-cinema experts and enthusiasts: remote server farms that can serve up movies whenever and wherever you want them. Custom install expert Steve Moore (stevemoore.com) seems particularly enamoured by the Apple TV – a £199-£269 box that can conjure up high-definition movies over the internet. It’s small, unobtrusive and can sit comfortably underneath or behind a living room TV and, as Steve Moore puts it, gives alternative solutions a ‘pretty good run for their money’ in terms of sound and picture quality. Other video-on-demand solutions include those from BT Vision (bt.com/vision) and HomeChoice (homechoice.co.uk).

Another alternative worth considering for music fans is the Sonos multi-room system (£699 for a two-room bundle, sonos.com), which can be used to stream content stored on your PC to multiple zones. Again the Sonos is remarkably unobtrusive and has a great user interface. You can even control it using your iPhone.

Words Rob Mead-Green