By Felicia Feaster
For the AJC
The electronic fireplaces of our technological age, televisions have become focal points in nearly every home’s design scheme. Because of that prominence, televisions — and all the DVD players, Apple TVs, stereos, game systems, remotes and wires that come with them — need a great entertainment center to keep the mess in check. The right entertainment center also can put the more attractive elements of our increasingly prominent high-tech features on front-and-center display. » Continued on the next page
Functionality is key. But like the right frame on a painting, in a perfect world, entertainment centers are also beautiful and stylishly integrated into the look of your home.
Whether you’re searching for a built-in technology command center with copious drawers and nooks for your game systems and completist Jerry Lewis DVD collection or a more pared-back free-standing unit, there are a number of Atlanta craftspeople, contractors and architects available to make this essential piece of furniture fit your needs.
The craftsman
Ellijay-based woodworker Paul McAllister can create virtually any entertainment center from scratch and works with a variety of metro Atlanta clients, from residential customers in the south Fulton Serenbe community to Decatur restaurant No. 246.
Working with mahogany, rosewood, maple, cherry, teak and white oak, McAllister’s Built to Order business (www.built-to-order.com) tailors entertainment centers to the peculiar architecture and needs of his clients, and the entertainment centers retail in the $2,000-$5,000 range.
“I am a ‘What do you need?’ kind of guy,” said McAllister, whose most ambitious media system was a wall-to-wall entertainment center in Tyrone that accommodated a 53-inch television, a bar, and a door behind for easy access to the technology. The entertainment center featured round, fluted columns and decorative carved appliques in the traditional style McAllister most often works in.
McAllister recently returned to Tyrone to modify the entertainment center to better accommodate a newer, flat-screen TV.
McAllister’s advice for homeowners thinking of adding an entertainment center to their home is simple: Make it work for your needs.
“If you’re having something built and it’s custom, you need to know what you’re putting in it,” said McAllister. “I would take all of the dimensions for the equipment and make sure everything is going to work for that equipment.”
McAllister also cautioned that some entertainment centers with hidden equipment will need cooling fans to keep technology from overheating.
The architects
For the past eight years, husband and wife architects Matt and Karen Soorikian of Decatur have created custom entertainment consoles inspired by the midcentury modern designs of Charles and Ray Eames and Eero Saarinen.
Offering their consoles as a more elegant solution to corralling media needs, Matt Soorikian is especially proud of the sturdiness of their custom, American-made furniture compared with mass-produced entertainment centers.
“They’re much more durable than something that comes out of a kit,” said Soorikian, who builds pieces that run anywhere from $1,200-$10,000 depending upon size and complexity. The Soorikians’ free-standing units such as their modular media console can be purchased as is, adapted for wall mounting, or customized by length and depth as needed.
Soorikian also noted that with the frequent changes of technology, entertainment systems should be nimble and adaptable. To that end, the Soorikian entertainment furniture, most often done in walnut, can convert to a buffet or dresser when needed. “And it functions equally well in all those capacities,” said Soorikian, who builds 20 to 50 entertainment centers a year.
“We try to build not just around media stuff, because that’s a sure way to make an outmoded piece of furniture in about a year,” observed Soorikian. “We like to make our stuff more flexible and not think solely about electronics.” For more info visit www.soorikian.com.
The contractor
Heather Shuster is the project development director at Decatur’s Renewal Design Build (www.renewal designbuild.com), which works to integrate entertainment centers within the overall design of the homes it remodels.
Part of the mission of designing entertainment centers these days, as opposed to systems of the past, said Shuster, is the increased desire to show off sleek, sexy flat-screen TVs.
“Folks have realized why am I going to bother putting doors on something that’s really going to sit open all the time? So creating a design with a built-in that overall looks as pleasing with the TV visible as with it not has definitely become a trend we’ve seen more of,” said Shuster.
Deep, cumbersome entertainment centers may be a thing of the past, said Shuster, who sees shallower systems on the rise. “Entertainment centers are no longer 3 feet deep,” said Shuster, with some as little as an inch deep.
Shuster also has seen a move toward more open and decluttered entertainment centers that speak to the contemporary desire to purge the home of extraneous clutter and the concurrent rise of digital storage.
“We’re not looking at as many walls of crazy bookshelves,” she said. “With a lot of people, all of their book collections, all of their CD collections have been placed on their computer. We no longer need storage for all of those countless items.”
Shuster points to a beautifully sleek entertainment center Renewal recently completed in a Hastings Seeds Lofts space with a clean, graphic entertainment center featuring variously sized open display shelves to showcase sculpture, a curated selection of books and decorative tchotchkes. “It’s space that you want to look at, it’s not space that you want to hide.”
Also important with the rise of open floor plans, said Shuster, is to think of the totality of the home rather than just designing an entertainment center in isolation. Shuster advised homeowners to choose built-ins that flow and integrate with the rest of the space, coordinating, for instance, with kitchen cupboards and other architectural elements in the home.
