What's so great about a great room?

For builders, it's great because it's something homebuyers want. It's the epicenter of the home. It's a place to relax on the couch and read, often with ample natural light pouring in through large windows. It's a place to gather as a family and watch a DVD. And, often situated next to the kitchen, it's the perfect place to entertain guests.

What's not so great about a great room? The natural light that is so nice while reading becomes an annoying glare when trying to watch a DVD. The high ceilings that often create a dreamy sense of space also create an acoustical nightmare.

And sure, having an epicenter to the home is convenient—until you have to turn off every single electrical component in the room before you go to bed.

The truth is that great rooms are great, but they provide builders with critical technology and design challenges. "Great rooms are designed to be the most flexible room in the home," says Will Gonzalez, marketing manager for lighting and control manufacturer Lutron Electronics, adding that the room typically hosts the bulk of a family's technology components. "This requires the space to be able to convert quickly and conveniently."

What does it require of builders? Awareness of the technological and design issues in great rooms is the key. Once builders are aware of the challenges, they can work toward overcoming them. We spoke to electronics integrators, interior designers, manufacturers and acoustics engineers and compiled some "great tips" for building great great rooms.

Don't Let High Ceilings Lower Sound Quality

Most great rooms have high ceilings and lots of hard surfaces, "which result in a very reverberant space," says Norman Varney, an acoustics engineer and owner of Pataskala, Ohio-based A/V RoomService.

Those reverberations don't just impact home theater enthusiasts who insist on 5.1 accurate channels of sound; they also affect speech, especially when entertaining guests, says Varney. "People don't realize it until they live with it, but such environments can be acoustically annoying, especially when there is more than one conversation going on at once."

Integrator Terence Mulholland of Santa Monica, Calif.-based Beyond Home Theater says builders should seek help early to compensate for potential acoustics problems. "Taming a great room's sometimes poor acoustics can take a real pro."

Generally, an acoustic consultant or an integrator can recognize the potential problem areas in the room. "The solution is interior or surface acoustic treatments," says Varney. "Those hard surfaces need some absorption applied to them in order to keep the energy from continuing to bounce around the room," says Varney. "Behind-the-wall treatment would not help the acoustics inside the room, but could help the sound attenuation in adjacent rooms."

Luckily, many "incognito treatments" can be effective, according to Varney. Los Angeles-based interior designer Lawrence Rizkowsky recommends heavily lined curtains, carpets and upholstery. Jason Jespersen of Muskegon, Mich.-based integration company Premier Audio and Images does too, adding that even heavily upholstered chairs and couches, bookcases and artwork can help.

Make Room for Speakers

Great rooms aren't home theaters or media rooms, and therefore shouldn't be held to their standards for audio performance. Guess what: Homebuyers don't care about that.

They don't care if the oversized windows and disproportionate walls make proper speaker placement virtually impossible. They still want it to sound perfect. That's where collaboration with an integrator can help.

"I enjoy the challenge of providing good sound," says Jespersen. Adding to that challenge is that most homeowners don't want electronics to be the focal point of a great room. In other words, most want either in-ceiling or in-wall speakers.

"Speakers should ALWAYS go in the walls in great rooms," says interior designer Rizkowsky. "Subwoofers should also go in the wall or be built into furniture."

It's easier said than done since proper placement would require the in-wall or in-ceiling speakers go in certain spots on the walls or ceilings. Often those certain spots don't exist because there is a window or an open space leading to another room.

The ceiling seems like a logical location since they tend not to have windows. The ceiling, however, isn't always the best location for sound quality, according to Jespersen. "Always, the sound will be compromised in these spaces," says Jespersen, adding that he often needs to get creative. "We will use speakers that swivel [and we will] aim and equalize them to the best sound to the main seating area. Some speakers may work double duty and are used for surround sound listening in movies and music while also filling the room with quality background music for a party."

Speakers don't always have to be built into a wall or ceiling to blend into a great room. In a recent Grand Rapids, Mich., great room integration, Jespersen built the left, center and right speakers into the TV cabinet. He stuffed the subwoofer into the lower left of the cabinet and lined the interior with dampening material to prevent vibrations.

Let Them Control the Lights

Different lighting levels create different moods. In a multipurpose room like a great room, lighting control is a big benefit for homebuyers. At the press of a button, they can switch from the bright lights needed for reading to a dim setting for watching TV or a soft lighting for entertaining guests.

"Builders have the ability to incorporate lighting control on many levels," says Lutron's Gonzalez. "It can be as simple as a single wall dimmer that can regulate the light levels for better TV watching or dimmers that provide remote control for comfort and convenience."

Brad Wills, director of installation and system control for Schneider Electric, makers of Square D Clipsal lighting control products, agrees. He says builders should partner with an integrator or an electrical contractor and include lighting control as a standard option in their new homes' home theaters and great rooms.

Wills adds that smart builders realize the benefit of offering lighting control in package form. "It's a good idea for builders to get package prices based on home designs," he says. He cites an example of a great room package with fixtures with one or more wall-mounted keypads, a remote control unit and add-ons. Then there can be step-up levels with added features. He says an integration partner can be invaluable in developing packaged lighting control options. "They can bring added value and differentiation to the technically savvy builder," says Wills.

Motorized Shades Are Cool

Homebuyers love those large, tall or high windows that often grace great rooms. However, "they can create a visual challenge by flooding the room with daylight and harsh glare," says Gonzalez. "The layout of the space and the general size can make it difficult to find the perfect balance between mood lighting, home theater lighting and general purpose lighting."

The solution, says Jespersen, is motorized shades or drapes. The homeowner might want a certain amount of light to come in during the morning hours and a different amount in the afternoon and a different amount when watching TV. These levels can be reached with the press of a button.

Builders really have to plan ahead for motorized shade control, adds Gonzalez. "Even if they're not offered it as a standard option, builders should pre-wire the windows and provide motorized shade control as an upgrade."

He also says it's essential to get an interior designer involved early. "If the interior designer and the systems integrator are working closely, the outcome of the project will be better aligned with expectations," says Gonzalez.

Don't Lose Sight of Equipment

Many homebuyers want lots of high-tech audio and video equipment in their great rooms—but they don't want to see it. It is possible to satisfy these seemingly conflicting desires if builders consult an integrator early in the process, says Jespersen.

"In the great room, I want minimal impact from the electronics," he says. "Builders need to gather the information from an integrator and set the allowance for infrastructure."

Some things that integrators might suggest include having a front-projector hidden in the ceiling and have it automatically drop down, having a motorized front-projection screen that only drops when it's time to watch and, in the case of a flat-panel TV, using screen cover-ups to make the TV look like artwork when not is use. "These are all great ideas," says interior designer Rizkowsky.

"Most everything these days can be built in," says Jespersen, "and I like to hide as much as possible in the great room." For builders, he says arranging to have components hidden is as simply as conferring with an integrator. "An experience integrator can easily sum up the options," he says.

Control is a Central Issue

In a way, the great room serves as ground control for a home's operations. Ground control used to be in the kitchen, but for many families these days it's the adjacent great room. It has the TV, the music, the computer, different types of lighting and shades that are often automated. It's where the action is.

Builders need to make sure it's also where the control is. What homebuyer wouldn't be enticed by the idea of pressing one button to dim the lights, turn the shades and ignite the home theater system all at once? In order to make those things happen, Jespersen says builders should coordinate with an integrator. "They can have the homebuyers have a talk with us and we can place remotes in their hands to see what fits," he says.

The great room control can come in the form of a handheld remote or a touchpanel in the wall, says Jespersen. He stresses to builders that the control device—the interface the homeowner will hold in his hand—is the "most important part" of an entertainment system. "Do not overlook this part," he warns. "It is like bad plumbing. It will come back to haunt you."