Ephrata, Pennsylvania

Nothing on the wall. Everything in the room.

Name: Invisible Function
Address: Ephrata, PA, 17522, US
Telephone: (717) 555-0142
Price range: $$$

Motorized TV lifts, projector and screen lifts, hidden bookcase doors, motorized panels and invisible in-wall speakers. I pick the mechanism to suit the opening in front of me rather than the brand I happen to sell, and the millwork, the wiring and the finish work are all mine.

Request a quote For integrators & shops

What the mechanisms do

Screen weight: 40–200 lb
Vertical travel: 24–60 in
Travel speed: 0.5–1.6 in/s
Control: IR · RS-232 · IP · dry contact
Finish: Paint grade · veneer · level 5

A hand opening a flush cabinet front by a slim aged brass edge pull, with a narrow shadow gap running alongside it. — Reference — aged brass edge pull on a flush front

Why this shop

Two decisions this business is built on

No brand to defend

A dealer sells the mechanism they carry, then asks the room to accommodate it. I start from the opening, the screen weight, the ceiling depth and the sight lines, and choose from whatever is genuinely built for that job — Auton, Nexus 21, Future Automation, Firgelli, Sonance and others.

Sometimes the right answer is a $900 actuator behind a plywood carcass. Sometimes it is a five-figure German ceiling lift. Either way you get the reasoning in writing, with the runner-up priced beside it.

One shop, four trades

A concealed screen normally pulls in a cabinet shop, an AV integrator, an electrician and a drywall finisher, with someone else keeping their dates aligned. When the panel binds or the reveal runs out along its length, each of them can point at the others.

Here the millwork, the mechanism, the low-voltage runs and the finish carpentry are one person's work — which also means one person to call when something needs adjusting in year three.

Mechanisms

Five things worth hiding

Every one of these is a surface that has to close flat, and something behind it that has to move without being heard.

M-01

TV lift installation

Floor, ceiling, foot-of-bed and behind-art lifts, sized to the screen and the opening rather than to whatever the catalog had in stock.

Screen weight 40–200 lb
Travel 24–60 in
Floor · ceiling · bed · art
IR, RS-232, IP, dry contact

Open

M-02

Projector and screen lifts

Ceiling projector lifts and in-ceiling screen cassettes, coordinated with the drywall or coffer so the closed ceiling reads as one plane.

Drop 12–48 in
Cassette depth from 7 in
Trap doors and flush closures
Trigger from projector power

Open

M-03

Hidden bookcase doors

Bookcase and flush jib doors on pivot or concealed hinge hardware, built to carry real load and still close on a consistent reveal.

Leaf load to 500 lb
Pivot, offset or concealed hinge
Touch latch or hidden release
Reveal held at 1/8 in

Open

M-04

Motorized panels

Cabinet fronts, sliding art panels and rack access that move out of the way on cue, then return to a face that shows no hardware.

Linear actuator or belt drive
Sliding, lifting, pivoting
Obstruction sensing
Manual override on every build

Open

M-05

Invisible in-wall speakers

Speakers that are skim-coated and painted over, plus the wall detailing and finish work that decides whether they stay invisible.

Sonance, Amina, Stealth
Skim coat and level-5 finish
Back-box and isolation detailing
2–8 in of wall depth

Open

Finishes

What it gets built out of

The finish schedule is usually settled before the mechanism is. These are the five that come up on nearly every job.

Paint grade
Poplar or MDF, sprayed to any sheen
White oak
Rift or quarter sawn, clear or fumed
Walnut
Solid or veneer, matched across a run
Level-5 plaster
Skimmed flat where a mechanism meets the wall
Aged brass
Unlacquered, left to darken with handling

Material and hardware references, not project photography. Nothing on this site shows a finished job yet — that changes with the first one.

Stowed / deployed

Every project has exactly two states

A room where nothing reads as equipment, and the same room doing the thing it was built to do. Drag the pull, or use the arrow keys.

Photograph required — A

Living room, screen fully stowed. Locked-off tripod, eye height, wide enough to read the whole millwork run.

16/9 · /images/proof/stowed.jpg

Photograph required — B

Identical frame, identical exposure, screen fully deployed. Same tripod position, same lens.

16/9 · /images/proof/deployed.jpg

Stowed Deployed

These two photographs do not exist yet. This shop is new, and putting somebody else's project here would be the first dishonest thing on the site. The frame is specified, the tripod position is fixed, and the first finished install drops straight in.

For trade

Subcontract the part nobody wants to warranty

Integrators, cabinet shops, designers and builders: the lift is usually the one line item on the job that sits between two scopes. I take that line item, and the responsibility that comes with it.

What I take on

Mechanism selection against your spec, with a written second option
Shop-built cabinet, leaf or ceiling closure to your finish schedule
Install, low-voltage termination, commissioning and cycle testing
Drywall patch and finish where the mechanism meets the wall

What stays yours

The client relationship, the contract and the invoice
Control system, sources, racks and network
Your finish, your hardware schedule, your reveal dimension
Your name on the job — I don't badge the work

Read the trade terms Send a spec to price

Ranges

Published numbers, because nobody else publishes any

Three of the common ones. The full page explains what moves a project to the top or the bottom of each range.

Install only, as a subcontract

You supply the mechanism and the millwork. I set it, wire it, commission it and finish where it meets the wall.

$600–2,000per mechanism

Lift cabinet, built and installed

Shop-built cabinet or ceiling closure, mechanism supplied and fitted, wired and finished on site.

$6,000–12,000complete

Hidden bookcase door

Structural leaf, pivot or concealed hinge hardware, latch, casework and an even reveal on all four sides.

from $8,500per opening

All ranges, explained

Sequence

Six steps, in this order, every time

Consult

A conversation about the room, the screen and what the client wants to be looking at when nothing is playing. Usually 30 minutes, on site or on a call with the elevation open.

Measure

Field dimensions, not plan dimensions. Ceiling depth, joist direction, stud bays, floor build-up, existing wiring, and how far out of square the opening actually is.

Specify

Mechanism selected against the real numbers, with the second-choice option written down and priced so the decision stays visible.

Build

Cabinet or leaf built in the shop in Ephrata. Mechanism mounted and cycled several hundred times on the bench before it goes anywhere near the house.

Install

Set, shimmed, wired, and adjusted until the reveal is even along its whole length. Drywall patched and finished by the same hands that cut it.

Handoff

Cycle the mechanism with whoever will use it, label the control paths, and leave the manual override, the spare fasteners and the mechanism documentation on site.

The process in detail

Where I work

Lancaster County outward

The shop is in Ephrata. Lancaster, Lititz, Hershey, York, Harrisburg and Reading are inside a comfortable day's round trip, which is what matters for a trade that involves a second visit for adjustment. West Chester and the Philadelphia suburbs are worth the drive for larger scopes — a full millwork package rather than a single lift.

Lancaster, PA Lititz, PA Hershey, PA West Chester, PA York Harrisburg Reading Philadelphia suburbs

Next step

Send me a room, an elevation or a screen model

Trade enquiries get a written mechanism recommendation and a price range within two business days. Homeowners, same — no showroom visit required to get a number.

Request a quote See working ranges

spec@invisiblefunction.com · (717) 555-0142 · Ephrata, PA