Location: Hawthorn, Melbourne
Inside: LED lighting upgrade throughout, including the kitchen and bedrooms, and feature pendants
Outside: Automated garden, entry, stair and pool lighting
Control: Wireless switches and the owners’ phones, with automatic schedules
Network: Upgraded internet, a cabled connection to the pool house and a Sonos music system
A Full LED Upgrade Inside
We worked closely with the owners of this beautiful Hawthorn home to replace their old lights with high-quality LED lighting throughout. In the kitchen, LED downlights and a glowing island bench make the space bright for cooking and warm in the evening.
LED lights use a fraction of the power of the old halogens, last for years, and give a much better quality of light, so the house looks better and costs less to run.
Solid Brick Walls? Wireless Switches Instead
The owners wanted much more control over their lighting, inside and out. The catch was the house itself: solid brick walls make it very difficult to run new cables for extra switches without damaging the walls.
Our solution was wireless switches and lighting automation. The switches can go anywhere they’re needed, with no new cables in the walls, and every light can also be controlled from the owners’ phones. The garden and pool lights can even be switched from inside the main house.
On this job we used Environexus automation. Today we’d usually use Shelly smart controls, which do all of this and more.
Garden Lights That Know When You’re Home
Outside, we lit the garden stairs, entry and feature trees with LED step lights and solid copper spike lights, then set up schedules so the garden looks after itself.
The entry garden lights come on at sunset and switch off at 10pm. If the front gate opens between 10pm and 6am, they switch back on automatically, so the owners never come home late to a dark path.
Pool Lighting, Music and Wi-Fi That Reaches the Pool House
The pool and pool house are a big part of how this family lives in summer. We lit the pool and the hedging around it, and connected the pool and garden lights to the automation so they can be turned on from the main house or from a phone.
The home also had ongoing internet problems. We investigated and upgraded the network, organised the move from slow ADSL to high-speed cable internet, and ran a network cable from the main house to the pool house so it has a reliable connection.
We then installed a Sonos music system in the pool house and connected it to the network, so music can be played by the pool and controlled from a phone anywhere on the property.
Renovating, or Just Want Better Lighting and Control?
We help Hawthorn and inner east families with LED upgrades, garden and pool lighting, smart controls and home networks, and we’re only around the corner in Kew. Talk to Tom about your home.