Property Renovation

Project Location: Iver, Buckinghamshire

Project Background Brief

A stunning home in Iver, Buckinghamshire benefitted from a smart lighting control solution from Rako Controls, seamlessly integrated with automated blind control from QMotion UK.

The house, which is built on four acres of land, has been completely renovated and is the perfect mix of the old and new. Traditional wooden beams appear across the ceilings, installed next to crisp white walls and contemporary fixtures and fittings. The overall design has a calming quality enhanced by the soft and unobtrusive lighting design, which is perfectly complemented by the newly landscaped gardens.

The lighting design was carried out by London-based lighting design experts, Noon Lighting Design. They had to create two very individual schemes for the garden and house as Steve Noyes, Creative Director at Noon Lighting Design explains, “The project begun for us in the gardens, we were tasked with producing and implementing a design that didn’t overpower but instead complemented and drew out all the features. This included the beautiful gardens and trees, a football pitch, children’s play area, swimming pool, pool house, summer house and pond. After we completed the external lighting, we began work on the inside where the interior lighting scheme was our focus.”

Project Features & Products Used

The project features Lighting of London products throughout, including downlights, ground lights and linear LED strips as well as striking chandeliers. The benefit of using these products is that both Rako and Lighting of London products work well with one another, making commissioning and programming simple and the system easy and intuitive for the homeowner to use.

Within the house, five Rako RAK8-MB motherboards form the base for a centrally located dimming system. The RAK-LINK has also been installed as the interface between the RAK dimmers and the keypads, with a power supply for wired CAT5 products. A total of 34 WMT-400 400W trailing edge pluggable modules connect directly into the RAK8-MB and provide dimming for LED lamps, tungsten, low-voltage halogens and any other trailing edge dimmable loads.

The WK-HUB network interface provides a link between wired and wireless networks. The WK-HUB also enables a Rako system to be integrated with third party cloud services via a my.rakocontrols.com account including Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Apple Homekit and Sonos integration. In total, 24 WK-EOS hard wired six-button modules have been fitted with cover plates in a mixture of luxury metal finishes.

In the garden, 13 RMT500 dimmers for GU10 lamps have been installed along with wall box dimmers, wireless interface modules, two WRB100 RAKOM wireless signal repeaters and the RK-HUB network interface for wireless systems. For the room devices, the RNC-070 wireless control modules and RLF-070-MSS cover plates in mirrored stainless steel were selected.

As well as the lighting control, Noon Lighting Design worked on blind control utilising QMotion automated shading which integrate quickly and easily with the Rako lighting control system. QMotion automated blinds can be integrated via a Rako RK-HUB or WK-HUB into Rako wired and wireless lighting control systems, without the need for special drivers or additional interfaces.

On this project, QMotion Roman and recess blinds have been installed in the bedroom and master suite whilst black out blinds provide the perfect ambience in the cinema room created in a log cabin in the garden. Control is provided via up / down buttons on the wall mounted lighting keypads or via an app. For added convenience, the blinds have been automated to open and close at 7am and 5pm respectively every day.

Why Rako?

Steve continues, “We have used Rako for nearly 20 years and have always found the service, components and support to be second to none. Rako offers a range of solutions for every possible scenario. QMotion has a great online system for specification and the support is very good. We achieved what we set out to do on this project, improve comfort and well-being and make the house and gardens look visually stunning.”