apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Name: Justin
Location: Mid South
Years Lived In: 3
What's your philosophy on how to integrate your technology into your living space?: KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) or at least make it look simple.

We've peeked into Justin's home before, when he shared a photo with us a few months ago. So, we asked him to give us a full fledged tour of his home office and media room, which coincidentally happen to be the same place.

Name: Anthony Sigalas and Christina Cholidou
Location: Thessaloniki, Greece
Years Lived In: 7 years
Size: 80 square meters (roughly 860 square feet)
What's your philosophy on how to integrate your technology into your living space?: If technology is your friend, then we have a house full of friends.

With five Macs in their tiny apartment in Greece, Anthony and Christina's friends often think they are crazy with computers. Anthony says "Most of our friends only have one computer, but after a while they "get it". They know we're regular macheads and invest more money in technology, than, say, furniture. Macs and Apple technology fit beautifully in a house and feel more like well made appliances rather than technology stuff or gadgets."

Anthony and Christina's home include a Mac Mini media center, "his and hers" MacBooks, an iMac TV in the bedroom, and a retired iBook fax server in the office. We were curious how they put all these machine to work, check out our interview below.

Do you have an idea for a tech tour? Let us know! hometech@apartmenttherapy.com

Name: Kevin
Location: Bloomington, MN, home of the infamous Mall of America

There's no place like home for this world-traveler. Despite being gone for weeks and sometimes months at a time for work, Kevin knows what he wants when he returns home--and his friends appreciate it too because they benefit from his investment of time and money into this home theater.

Kevin built out the space for all of the components out of closet space that was conveniently on the other side of the wall to the right of the TV.

Name: Andy & Heather
Location: Rental Loft, Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY
Years Lived In: over 3 years
What's your philosophy on how to integrate your technology into your living space?: Transparently and passively.

Geek chic. Andy and Heather carefully constructed their Brooklyn living space, thinking not only about what media they used, but how they used it. They carefully designed a system and chose their products with care and consideration for their needs. You won't find any television watching here, but you will find a media room that would make any movie buff or audiophile smile.

The display connects to the Mac mini, and is mounted flush to wall, sitting just a few inches out and secured to the brick wall. The mini is also connected to the receiver via a mini TOSLINK (a high-quality optical audio connection.) The quiet external hard drives offer space for all of their music and media, and the ever important file backup.

Do you have an idea for a tech tour? Let us know! hometech@apartmenttherapy.com

Name: Ethan and Amy
Location: Toluca Lake, CA
Years Lived In: 6 months
Living With Technology: Make technology augment things you normally do, not replace. Also strive to make it transparent in terms of your interaction with it. My wife doesn't much care one way or another about technology. Whereas I would have computers everywhere, with this house, we had to make sure we could both harmoniously use what we put in. This challenged me to make things work "normally" but also in a "smart" fashion.

Full, but functional best describes the technology in Ethan and Amy's home. They have every gadget, device, and technology imaginable, but one would never know it from a quick glance into their living room. Ethan designed all of the technology in his home based on the principle that his home was one huge Internet platform. He said this means that any device with internet capability was given full access, but we think he's being a bit modest. Their home really functions like one, giant computer and it does so really well and with grand style.

From their gadget-lovers dream of an Entertainment Center to their ingenious total-home lighting system, it's too bad they were just a tad too big to enter our contest. However, we couldn't pass up the chance to share their home with you.

Do you have an idea for a tech tour? Let us know! hometech@apartmenttherapy.com

Name: Max
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Favorite Feature: The ability to pack in close friends to watch old school kung-fu movies or new foreign releases.

Clean is good. Very,very good. Having completed a full condo renovation, Max and his wife ended up with a dedicated home theater and seperate equipment room including lighting automation in the bedroom and theater. In addition, the home network was reworked to include a backup server and streaming digital music system that can fill the entire apartment with music.

A conveniently located closet provided the space needed to hide the equipment rack as well as the large collection of DVD's. Since the in season coats and shoes share this same space, all the messy wires are concealed.