St Andrew's Church, Kingswood, seen from the churchyard. Photo: Dr Neil Clifton, CC BY-SA 2.0What makes Arts and Crafts houses different to work in?
These houses were built by hand, with irregular plans, deep roofs and a lot of original joinery. That brings three practical points:
- Steep roofs often hide large loft spaces. A sloped ceiling is a design problem, not a barrier: our published Oxshott cinema was laid out around its ceiling line, with the projector and speakers placed to suit it and the front speakers behind a 120 inch acoustically transparent screen.
- Original panelling, doors and plasterwork should stay untouched, so we route cables through existing voids and loft spaces and agree every position in advance.
- Rooms rarely come in neat rectangles, so cinema design matters more. We model the room in 3D, place seats and speakers for the space you actually have, and show you the result before anything is ordered.
From our Epsom projectConservation areas on the downs
Reigate and Banstead Borough Council's Walton on the Hill Conservation Area was designated in 1973 and extended in 1990, and in 2021 the council reviewed its boundaries, adding several Arts and Crafts houses by architects including Stanley Crosbie and Morley Horder, who designed Lloyd George's house. Kingswood has its own conservation area, where the council's appraisal describes a strong presumption in favour of keeping the existing Edwardian Arts and Crafts buildings.
For you, that mostly affects the outside of the house. The council has extra control in conservation areas over demolition, work to trees, satellite dishes on roofs or road-facing walls, and external alterations such as windows. Internal cinema and smart home work is usually unaffected, but external cameras, speakers, dishes and garden buildings are worth checking with the council's planning team first. We will flag anything we think needs that check.
From our Epsom projectWhy one controller beats a drawer of remotes
Houses that have been lived in for decades tend to collect technology in layers: a heating controller from one owner, an alarm from another, a music system, a camera app and a handful of remotes. We replace the layers with a single Control4 system, so a keypad by the door, a touchscreen in the kitchen and the app on your phone all do the same job. We are a Platinum Control4 dealer and have won the Control4 Circle of Excellence award in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
If you already have a system that was installed by someone else and no longer behaves, our takeover and maintenance service documents what is there, fixes what is failing and supports it afterwards through our in-house team.
Our demonstration cinema in Walton-on-ThamesOur nearest published project
A few miles north in Epsom we built a media room and sports bar for a family of Manchester United fans: where acoustic panels cured a room with poor sound clarity, the screen sits flush in the wall, and one control pad runs the picture, the colour-changing lighting and the blackout blinds. Walton on the Hill is about 9 miles from our Walton-on-Thames showroom and Kingswood about 10. Book a showroom visit to hear the demonstration cinema, or a free design consultation at your home.
