You may love your home and have absolutely no desire to renovate it.
But that doesn't necessarily mean you love the way it looks after dark.
Many beautiful homes throughout Northeast Ohio were built or renovated 10, 20 or even 30 years ago. While the architecture and interior finishes may have aged beautifully, the lighting technology often hasn't.
Large recessed cans can dominate the ceiling.
Older LED lamps may produce harsh or inconsistent light.
Dimming performance may be disappointing.
Cabinetry, architectural details and artwork may disappear after sunset.
And in some luxury homes, sophisticated lighting-control systems installed years ago may have reached the point where components are aging, replacement parts are becoming difficult to obtain, or the system no longer provides the experience homeowners expect from modern technology.
The good news?
Improving your home's lighting doesn't necessarily require a major renovation.
At Xtend Technologies, we're increasingly helping Northeast Ohio homeowners modernize existing homes through strategic architectural lighting upgrades, linear lighting and replacement of aging lighting-control systems.
Sometimes the transformation can be much easier than homeowners expect.
One of the easiest ways to determine the age of a home's lighting is simply to look at the ceiling.
Older luxury homes frequently have large 6-inch or 4-inch recessed cans throughout kitchens, great rooms, hallways, bedrooms and other living spaces.
Years ago, these fixtures were commonplace.
Today, architectural lighting has moved toward better optics, improved glare control, warmer dimming and more intentional illumination.
Replacing an existing recessed fixture doesn't always mean removing ceilings or rewiring the entire room.
Modern retrofit solutions can sometimes use the recessed housings already installed in the home.
That's where products such as the AiSPIRE ASTRO Basics retrofit downlights become particularly interesting.
The AiSPIRE ASTRO Basics 6-inch retrofit is designed to mount into most standard existing 6-inch recessed cans, making it possible to significantly improve the lighting without completely rebuilding the ceiling.
But this isn't simply swapping one LED bulb for another.
ASTRO Basics provides features such as:
The result gives us considerably more ability to decide where the light should actually go.
Instead of simply flooding a room with light from the ceiling, fixtures can be adjusted to illuminate artwork, fireplaces, cabinetry, furniture and architectural elements.
And the warm-dim capability allows the color of the light to become warmer as it's dimmed—helping create the comfortable evening atmosphere many homeowners associate with traditional incandescent lighting.
Homes with smaller 4-inch recessed cans aren't necessarily left out.
AiSPIRE's ASTRO Basics 4-inch retrofit is designed to fit most standard 4-inch recessed cans and provides similar adjustable beam and warm-dim capabilities.
That makes these products especially interesting for homeowners who tell us:
“We like our home. We just don't like the lighting.”
Rather than assuming the solution requires extensive drywall work and an entirely new ceiling plan, we can evaluate what's already there and determine how much of the existing infrastructure can potentially be reused.
Every home is different, of course, and existing housings, wiring, dimmers and installation conditions need to be evaluated before determining compatibility.
But in the right home, retrofit architectural lighting can create a surprisingly dramatic transformation.
Replacing old recessed fixtures is only one part of modernizing a home's lighting.
Another opportunity is linear lighting.
Today's tape-light systems allow us to integrate light into architectural details and furnishings where traditional fixtures would be difficult—or visually distracting.
Think about adding light:
Under kitchen cabinets
Inside glass cabinetry
Above cabinetry
Along floating shelves
Inside built-ins
Under vanities
Along toe kicks
Inside closets
Within ceiling coves
Along architectural details
Instead of seeing a light fixture, you experience a continuous layer of illumination.
Products from Proluxe Lighting offer a wide variety of tape-light solutions for accent, task and ambient lighting applications, including under-cabinet, in-cabinet, toe-kick, cove and architectural installations.
Depending upon the application, different linear products can provide subtle accent lighting or considerably higher-output architectural illumination. Some modern COB tape-light products can also produce a more continuous line of light with significantly reduced visible LED dotting.
Xtend Technologies also designs linear lighting solutions using Lucetta CI products, giving us additional options for integrating illumination into cabinetry, millwork and architectural details.
The important part isn't simply selecting tape light.
It's determining where linear lighting will improve the architecture rather than adding it everywhere simply because we can.
Some Northeast Ohio luxury homes already have extensive lighting-control systems.
The problem is that those systems may now be 15, 20 or more years old.
We've encountered homes with older generations of Lutron HomeWorks as well as legacy Vantage lighting-control systems that were sophisticated when originally installed but may now be candidates for modernization.
An aging lighting-control system can create concerns such as:
The worst time to develop a plan for replacing an aging lighting-control system is after a critical component fails.
An older system doesn't necessarily mean everything needs to be torn out.
Lutron has specifically developed upgrade strategies for legacy HomeWorks installations.
For example, Lutron documents methods for upgrading older HomeWorks Illumination systems to the current HomeWorks QSX platform. Depending upon the existing system, portions of legacy panel infrastructure and wiring may potentially be retained while processors, keypads or other components are modernized.
The appropriate strategy depends heavily upon exactly which generation of HomeWorks is installed and which components are present.
That's why the first step isn't ordering replacement equipment.
It's documenting the existing system.
We can evaluate the processors, dimming panels, keypads, loads, wiring and fixtures and then develop an appropriate modernization strategy.
The same planning philosophy applies to homes with older Vantage lighting-control systems.
If the existing control system is aging or the homeowner wants to move to another modern lighting-control platform, we can begin by evaluating what infrastructure already exists.
In many cases, a centralized lighting system represents a substantial investment in wiring and electrical infrastructure.
Rather than assuming everything behind the walls needs to disappear, the goal should be to determine:
What can we reuse?
What needs to be replaced?
What should be upgraded while we're doing it?
And how can we minimize disruption to the finished home?
A carefully engineered retrofit can potentially be far less invasive than a homeowner initially imagines.
There's another important reason to evaluate lighting fixtures and lighting control at the same time.
They're supposed to work together.
A beautiful new LED fixture isn't particularly impressive if it flickers or performs poorly when dimmed.
And a sophisticated new lighting-control system can't correct poor-quality light coming from an inappropriate fixture.
When modernizing an existing luxury home, we can evaluate the complete lighting environment:
Fixture + Light Quality + Dimming + Control + Programming
For example, an older home might combine:
Now we're not simply replacing old equipment.
We're changing how the home looks and feels after sunset.
This is particularly important.
You don't necessarily need to upgrade every fixture in your house at once.
A homeowner might begin with:
The kitchen and great room.
Or:
The primary suite.
Or:
The main entertaining spaces.
Or simply:
The rooms where the existing lighting bothers you most.
We can evaluate targeted improvements and determine whether it makes sense to address individual spaces now while developing a longer-term plan for the rest of the residence.
Legacy lighting-control systems require a more comprehensive engineering review, but fixture improvements can often be approached strategically and in phases.
Some home technology upgrades are obvious.
A television gets bigger.
New speakers sound better.
A new motorized shade moves when you press a button.
Lighting is different.
When lighting is done exceptionally well, guests may not immediately notice the fixtures.
Instead, they notice:
The artwork.
The cabinetry.
The stone.
The furniture.
The architecture.
The atmosphere.
They notice the home.
That's exactly the point.
If your Northeast Ohio home has older 4-inch or 6-inch recessed lighting, outdated LED fixtures, limited architectural lighting, or an aging Lutron HomeWorks or Vantage lighting-control system, you may have more upgrade options than you realize.
Xtend Technologies can evaluate your existing lighting and control infrastructure and help determine what can be improved, what can potentially be reused and where new technology can make the greatest difference.
Our existing-home lighting solutions include:
✔ Retrofit architectural downlighting
✔ Warm-dim lighting
✔ Linear and tape lighting
✔ Cabinet and millwork lighting
✔ Architectural accent lighting
✔ Lighting-control modernization
✔ Legacy Lutron system upgrades
✔ Existing Vantage system replacement planning
✔ New lighting scenes and programming
We'll evaluate what's already installed and help you understand what's possible—from replacing a room full of older recessed fixtures to developing a modernization plan for an aging whole-home lighting-control system.
Already love your home but not your lighting? Let us evaluate your existing fixtures and lighting controls and show you what's possible without assuming you need a major renovation.
Xtend Technologies provides architectural lighting upgrades, retrofit lighting, linear lighting, professional lighting design and lighting-control modernization for existing luxury homes throughout Cleveland and Northeast Ohio.
We work with homeowners in Hunting Valley, Gates Mills, Pepper Pike, Moreland Hills, Chagrin Falls, Shaker Heights, Bratenahl, Hudson, Bath Township, Richfield, Hinckley, Medina, Brecksville, Broadview Heights, Solon, Orange Village, Westlake, Rocky River, Bay Village, Avon Lake, Strongsville, Aurora, and surrounding Northeast Ohio communities.
Your home doesn't necessarily need to be remodeled.
Sometimes it simply needs to be seen in better light.
