- Written by
- Paul, Founder
- Published
- May 14, 2026
- Reading time
- 5 min
- Written for
- Builders, architects, and homeowners planning a new build
On most custom homes, the technology conversation starts at drywall. Someone realizes there is no plan for the shades, or the electrician asks where the keypads go, and a specialist gets a call. By then the framing is up, the ceilings are detailed, and every good option has quietly become expensive.
It does not have to work that way, and on the projects that go best it does not.
The three moments that matter
The first is schematic design. At this stage nothing is committed, and a short conversation about how the client wants to live in the house can influence room adjacencies, ceiling heights, and where a rack might eventually live. This costs nothing and occasionally changes the plan for the better.
The second is design development, the most valuable moment of all. The interior scheme is settling, the lighting design is taking shape, and the technology design can be developed alongside it rather than retrofitted into it. Shade pockets get detailed into ceilings. Keypad locations get coordinated with the millwork. Equipment locations get real ventilation and real service access.
The third is before rough-in. This is the last point at which cabling is cheap. After it, everything is a compromise between what the client wants and what can be reached.
What late involvement actually costs
Recessed shade pockets are the clearest example. Detailed during design development, a pocket is a framing note and costs essentially nothing. Added after the ceiling is closed, it means opening finished drywall, re-framing, patching, and repainting, and on a wall of glass with a coffered ceiling, it can be genuinely impractical.
Cabling behaves the same way. A generous structured cabling plan during construction is one of the cheapest line items on a build. Adding a single run to a finished second-floor room can mean opening a ceiling below it.
The subtler cost is capability that simply never gets discussed. Nobody proposes a properly isolated cinema in the lower level once the lower level is framed, so the client never learns it was available to them.
What a good integrator brings to the design table
Documentation the trades can build from, low-voltage plans, cable schedules, rack elevations, and power and cooling requirements, rather than a proposal and a promise.
Coordination that reduces the builder’s problems instead of adding to them: showing up at framing when they said they would, labelling and testing every run, and being reachable when a question comes up on site.
And a point of view. An integrator worth having at the design table will occasionally tell a client that a room does not need what they asked for, or that a cheaper approach will serve them better. That is what separates a consultant from a supplier.
A short answer
If you are an architect or a builder: as soon as the interior scheme starts to firm up. If you are a homeowner: before you are asked to approve the electrical plan.
The conversation is free. The retrofit is not.
