Audio-video integration is one of the disciplines that benefits most from being designed in early. Speaker locations, conduit runs, equipment closets, projection geometry, acoustic treatment — all of it has to be on the architectural drawings before framing begins. Done well, the audio-video system disappears into the home. Done poorly, the home is a permanent compromise between visible equipment, mismatched grilles, and a remote control on every surface.
What gets designed in
A complete AV scope on a Vancouver Island luxury custom build typically covers:
- Whole-home distributed audio — multi-zone, multi-source, controlled from any touch panel, phone, or voice. Every room that warrants speakers gets them — kitchen, primary suite, family room, outdoor terrace, primary bath. In-ceiling or in-wall depending on the architectural language; grilles colour-matched to disappear.
- Dedicated home theatre — projection or LED, calibrated acoustic treatment, riser seating, reference-grade processing. The room geometry and seat-rise are specified at schematic.
- Family room and living room AV — the TV that disappears when off, in-wall LCR speakers, soundbar where appropriate, integrated with lighting and shade scenes for one-button “movie mode.”
- Outdoor audio — landscape speakers, bollard speakers, all-weather subwoofers along terraces, pool decks, and outdoor kitchens. Coordinated with the landscape designer’s planting plan.
- Whole-home video distribution — Crestron DM NVX video-over-IP, every TV pulling from the same source library. Kaleidescape, Apple TV, satellite, streaming — all under one interface.
Equipment closet — the room that holds everything
Most luxury Vancouver Island homes end up with a dedicated equipment closet that holds the AV rack, the network gear, the Crestron processor, the controllers for shading and lighting, and the video source servers. The closet needs:
- 2-3 feet of front access for the rack, ventilation, and service
- Active cooling — the rack puts out real heat
- Pulled cabling to every TV, speaker, and AP location in the home — fibre or Cat 6A
- UPS protection on the critical-load circuit
- Designed in at framing — retrofitting an equipment closet into a finished home is the most expensive mistake in residential AV
What to specify (in priority order)
- Speaker locations on the architectural RCPs — at schematic, alongside the lighting plan
- Equipment closet location — central, ventilated, with structural support for the rack
- Video distribution backbone — Cat 6A or fibre to every TV location during framing
- Dedicated theatre room geometry — at schematic if a dedicated theatre is in scope
- Outdoor audio runs — power and structured wiring planned at site-civil stage
- Acoustic treatment for the theatre — walls, ceiling, finishes coordinated with the interior designer
What it costs on Vancouver Island
- Dedicated home theatre — $40,000–$250,000+ for the room (display, processing, speakers, acoustic treatment, seating, calibration)
- Distributed audio across the rest of the home — $15,000–$60,000+ depending on room count
- Whole-home video distribution — $10,000–$40,000+ depending on display count and source library
- Outdoor audio — $8,000–$30,000+ depending on terrace, pool deck, and outdoor-kitchen coverage
A complete AV scope on a 5,000–10,000 sq ft custom build typically lands $60,000–$200,000+ for the full integration.
When to bring an AV integrator in
At schematic — before the architectural drawings are finalised. The speaker positions, conduit pulls, equipment closet, and dedicated-theatre room geometry all need to be on the drawings before framing. Joining at design development still works for distributed audio. Joining at framing or rough-in is workable but compromises the elegance of how the AV scope disappears into the architecture.
Next step
Book a Centre Visit — both the Nanaimo Boxwood Road and Victoria Hillside Avenue Experience Centres run live distributed audio and a lifestyle theatre on the same platforms we put in homes from $2M to $20M+. An hour with the work in front of you is worth a thousand spec sheets.
See also: the Audio & Video service page.