Homeowners often encounter one of two problems with manual shades and blinds in their homes. One, you have so many windows that it’s overwhelming to open and close the shades regularly. Or two, you waste more time than it’s worth manipulating the shades and blinds multiple times during the day.

Motorized window treatments are the answer to both those problems. With a smart motorized system, you can access and control all your shades and blinds from a smart device like a smartphone app or remote. There are no pesky strings or cords, and you can raise and lower shades to the precise level you desire.

Motorized shades make it easy to enjoy natural lighting in your Vancouver, WA, home. Keep reading to explore how you can use your shades during a typical day at home!

On a recent podcast episode of Northwest Business radio show, Jeff Grove and Clark von Trotha — system designers here at Encore Audio Video in Portland, OR — discussed two components of home theater design that are often overlooked: furniture and seating.

If you’re looking for cabinets to house your electronic components and comfortable theater seating, you will benefit from talking to an experienced home theater designer like Grove or von Trotha. Keep reading to learn more about the vital role these two components play in your theater room. And listen to the podcast episode here!

With whole home audio, you can set your entire day to music, no matter where you are in the house. In a multi-room music setup, a central music player supplies sound to wired or wireless speakers in any (or every) room where you want to listen to music, talk show radio, audiobooks or podcasts. A multi-zone system allows you to play different music in each room or the same music in several or all rooms.

The best part of a whole home setup is having centralized control over all your music sources. You can use the smart device of your choice — like a smartphone app or tablet — to connect and play multiple sources, like streaming services, CDs, music libraries or even vinyl records.

Consider all the places in your Lake Oswego, OR, home where you’d like to enjoy music. Need some help? Read on to learn three spaces where multi-room music will add delight to your daily life. 

As Encore Audio Video’s Clark von Trotha and Jeff Grove told the host of Northwest Business radio show on a recent podcast episode: they never intended to get into home surveillance. But as they received more and more inquiries about surveillance cameras, they realized it was a solution their Portland, OR, customers wanted.

So Grove and von Trotha set out to design and install home surveillance systems that would empower people to have 24/7 visual access to everything going on in and around their homes. Keep reading to learn what they want you to know — or listen to the home surveillance podcast episode for yourself!