Gramophone’s Favorite Things

Sweeter Spaces

    A beautiful home is a person’s most treasured possession.  Gramophone has always been there to help make that idea a reality for its clients.

                In the last few years, Gramophone expanded its Design Department to service a much broader scope of work.  To allow Gramophone to provide complete design services, we have a design team that specializes in making your space into your dream space.  We have accounts with vendors that offer a multitude of products that allow us to outfit your home with a design you will truly love. Our design department has grown and networked with a spectrum of skilled people within the design community.  Most who are familiar with Gramophone are only now starting to realize that we have the capability to be your “one-stop-shop”! 

                What do I add to the Gramophone Design Team?  I started at Gramophone in January of 2007 as a Space Planner and Interior Designer for home theaters, but what I have been doing has exceeded many of the expectations of Gramophone’s clients. I still do home theater space planning and design, but I have left these spaces on many occasions to sweeten many other rooms of our clients’ homes- from the kitchen to the boudoir!   I have my Interior Design degree from Miami University where my focus was theater set design.  Since then, I have worked in residential interiors with home staging, space planning, furniture specification, accessorizing and implementation.

                 With fourteen years of experience, I assist clients here at Gramophone by helping them to create very sweet spaces.  Please stay tuned to the Gramophone blog to become inspired!  We’d love to hear from you. Stop by or give us a call for a personal consult!

-Bethany Johnson

Plan-Design-Implement

Remodeling? Building a new home? After years of working with clients on their projects, building our own showrooms and remodeling at home, it’s my opinion that the most expensive mistake many people make is the money they don’t  spend.

About 2 years ago, we were expanding our Timonium showroom to add more office space for our design, engineering & project management team. It seemed like a simple project – add 2,000 feet of space for some additional offices, but when we got the original construction estimate I was surprised to find out how much we were going to have to spend just to build a structural retaining wall in order to have the offices at the same grade as the rest of the building. Fortunately we had a professional working on the design of the space and he advised a different approach that lowered the finished cost and created a much more interesting space. All of this was planned in advance using the least expensive material – paper.      

A well planned project will cost less in the end and result in a better outcome. Many people haven’t worked with design professionals in the past. We’ve had the good fortune of working with many professionals throughout the Maryland and Mid-Atlantic region and would be glad to refer you to someone who can help you with your own project.

We maintain an in-house space planning department to help with the unique considerations involved in a home theater or media room environments. These spaces are like kitchens in that work flow considerations need to be considered before we move on to the "fun stuff" that many of us are interested in when planning a space – the finish selections . In theater or media room space planning, we work to create  the proper screen sizes, sight lines, viewing angles, traffic patterns, acoustics, light control and more. We can provide a turnkey solution when that’s appropriate , but we also collaborate with other design professionals who are involved with all of the other spaces to make sure that the unique aspects of a home entertainment space are taken into consideration.

For more information, check out the Design Center at Gramophone. We’re here to help in any way possible. We have a library of design books that are available for you to borrow as you’re thinking about remodeling.

-Brian Hudkins

Video Games: Getting More Out of Your Home Theater

Are you into video games? Do you have kids who enjoy video games? Do you treat video games like a second class citizen in the world of electronics? Then you may be missing out on what can be a truly engrossing home theater experience. Today’s HD video gaming systems provide a level of quality in graphics far beyond anything seen in the systems of the past. Some of the games even have soundtracks that are better recorded and mixed than many movies.

Although my wife is not a video game fan, even she became involved in a game I was playing recently because the graphics and soundtrack drew her into a well developed story.  She felt like she was watching a movie.  In fact, she actually wanted to watch me play and enjoyed interacting with me when I did.  Having the game system connected into my home theater system has allowed it to also create a fun activity for the whole family, and not just a diversion for me.

At Gramophone, we can help you integrate your game system into an existing home theater system or media room.  Or, if you really want to take the experience to the next level, we can help you put together a new system that will fully maximize your gaming experience.

- Josh Shobe

410-381-2100