Custom home theatre design, concealed wiring, and Dolby Atmos calibration for homes across Unionville, Markham Village, Cathedraltown, Berczy, Cornell, and Thornhill.
Sonos Gold Dealer·Control4 Certified·HDBaseT Certified·$2M Liability·WSIB·500+ Google reviews
Sonos Gold DealerControl4 Authorized DealerLutron CertifiedSamsung Authorized ResellerLG Authorized ResellerSony Authorized ResellerWSIB & $2M InsuredLicensed & Insured10,000+ ProjectsHouzz Awards 2018–2023Eero Pro InstallerHDBaseT CertifiedURC Certified DealerNest Pro Installer500+ Google ReviewsSonos Gold DealerControl4 Authorized DealerLutron CertifiedSamsung Authorized ResellerLG Authorized ResellerSony Authorized ResellerWSIB & $2M InsuredLicensed & Insured10,000+ ProjectsHouzz Awards 2018–2023Eero Pro InstallerHDBaseT CertifiedURC Certified DealerNest Pro Installer500+ Google Reviews
10+Years GTA
10,000+Installs Completed
500+Google Reviews
$2MLiability Insurance
First Decision · The Room
Which room in your Markham home can actually become the theatre?
The answer depends less on preference than on when your house was framed. A 1920s Unionville plaster home usually forces the choice down into the basement or a converted parlour, because upstairs walls won't take new low-voltage runs without opening finished plaster. A Cathedraltown or Berczy subdivision build already has cable waiting behind drywall in more than one room, so the choice comes down to light and layout instead.
In the heritage core, Unionville and the older grid off Main Street, we lean on the existing cold-air-return chase and the basement joist bay as concealed pathways rather than cutting into finished rooms upstairs, which keeps the room choice narrow but the finish clean. In Cathedraltown and the newer phases north of Major Mackenzie, the builder's structured-wiring panel already reaches the great room, the basement, and often a loft or bonus room, so the room decision turns on sightlines and light control rather than where a cable can physically travel.
Music and cinema systems can share the same low-voltage plan when we run both scopes together. See our Sonos installation in Markham for how whole-home audio pairs with the theatre wiring.
Second Decision · Theatre or Media Room
Dedicated theatre or all-purpose media room: which fits your house?
Housing age decides this almost as often as budget does. Older Unionville homes rarely have a spare room with the ceiling height and light control a true theatre needs, so most heritage projects become the best media room the space allows. Cathedraltown and Berczy basements, poured to modern spec, can go either way.
A dedicated theatre needs a room nobody else needs during the day: blackout coverage, a fixed screen wall, and seating angled to one sightline. In a 1920s Unionville home that room is almost always the basement, since the original floor plan never budgeted for a windowless space and seven-foot ceiling heights rule out riser construction upstairs. We've built theatres into these basements by dropping the screen wall below the joists and running the surrounds through the original cold-air-return chase instead of the ceiling.
New-build basements in Cathedraltown and Berczy start from open web floor trusses with two or three feet of usable depth, so a theatre-grade ceiling drop is straightforward carpentry rather than a demolition project. That headroom is also why most of our subdivision work becomes a media room instead. The great room already handles daytime viewing, and owners would rather keep the basement flexible for a gym or playroom than commit it entirely to cinema. Automation across either room type runs through our Control4 smart home integration with Lutron lighting and motorised shading.
Third Decision · The Wiring Route
Plaster and lath or open floor trusses: how does the route change?
Construction era decides where cable can physically go before it decides what equipment you buy. Homes built through Unionville's heritage conservation district use plaster over rough-sawn lath with almost no stud-bay clearance, so we route through cold-air returns and existing chases instead of drilling blind. Post-2000 subdivision framing uses open web floor trusses with clear, predictable bays that take new runs in minutes.
Through Unionville, the Heritage Conservation District along Main Street, and the older grid around Bullock Drive and Raymerville, we bring an endoscope and a thermal camera to the site visit before any cut is made. Every route gets mapped on paper first, because plaster does not forgive a wrong guess, and knob-and-tube remnants still turn up behind original casework nobody wants pried off the wall.
Unionville heritage parlour: discreet integrationCathedraltown new-build great room: daytime media room
Cathedraltown, Berczy Village, Greensborough, Cornell, and Wismer Commons homes were usually pre-wired at the builder stage, but that wiring is rarely finished work. The panel exists, the runs land behind the great-room TV wall, yet the labelling is wrong, the height speakers aren't toed in, and the receiver is still sitting on a generic preset. Here the job is forensic more than physical: trace every run, re-terminate the weak crimps, label everything against a printed signal-flow diagram, and calibrate to the room instead of the spec sheet.
Along the Markham side of Thornhill, mid-century bungalows and side-splits split the difference again: short cable paths and low ceilings, with a choice between pushing speakers into the joist bays or accepting on-wall placement. New rough-in on a subdivision build coordinates cleanly with our structured wiring for new builds when the renovation runs past the theatre itself.
Site Visit · Written Proposal in 48 Hours
Two cities of housing. One team.
Talk to the team that handles heritage Unionville plaster walls and Cathedraltown pre-wired great rooms in-house, with the same certified technicians on every project.
How much does your home's construction era change the four-stage install?
Not the number of stages. Every job runs the same four: site visit, proposal, installation, calibration. What changes is what happens inside stage one and stage three. A heritage Unionville visit spends extra time with an endoscope and a paper route plan; a Cathedraltown visit spends that time auditing what the builder already pre-wired.
01
Site Visit
Room measured, finishes photographed, and cable routes planned on paper, around plaster and original trim in the heritage core, or against the builder's structured-wiring panel in a subdivision basement.
02
Written Proposal
Speaker layout drawing, display or projector specification, rack location and contents, any acoustic or lighting notes, and a line-item budget against the tiers below.
03
Installation
Cable runs go in first, through joist bays in a new-build basement or existing chases in an older one, then the rack, displays, speakers, and projector, with every connection labelled at both ends.
04
Calibration
Two to four hours with a reference microphone, a measured sweep, and manual fine-tuning of crossovers, distances, and EQ. No room ships without it.
The handoff is short but documented either way: a one-page system map, a printed list of remote and app shortcuts, and a direct line for after-care, covering firmware updates, a new streaming box, or a remote that needs reprogramming after a power outage. Heritage or new-build, that after-care line is why most homeowners call us again for the next room instead of shopping around.
Fifth Decision · Where Your Project Lands
Which pricing tier matches what's already behind your walls?
The tier is set by what already exists, not by square footage. Already own the receiver and speakers? You're likely at the entry tier. Have a pre-wired Cathedraltown basement with nothing terminated yet, or a Unionville room with no wiring at all? Expect the middle or top tier once labour catches up to the walls.
Entry · Receiver HookupFrom $200
Receiver Hookup
For homeowners who already own the receiver, speakers, and display in either a heritage or new-build home: system connected, inputs mapped, speaker distances measured, and a Dirac or Audyssey calibration pass against a reference microphone. Typically two to three hours on site.
Middle · Media Room$4,500 – $8,500
Media-Room Upgrade
75- to 85-inch panel, a soundbar plus subwoofer or a 5.1.2 in-wall layout, concealed cable runs through finished drywall, with plaster patch-and-paint included where the wall demands it, plus network integration and a Sonos or Control4 control surface.
Top · Dedicated Theatre$14,000 – $25,000
Dedicated Theatre
7.1.4 Atmos, projector and ALR screen, in-wall and in-ceiling speaker layout, AV receiver and amplifier rack, acoustic panels, and blackout treatment, most often built into a Cathedraltown, Berczy, or Angus Glen basement with the ceiling height to support it.
Anamorphic projection, motorised masking screens, riser construction, or Lutron lighting can move a top-tier project higher regardless of which side of the city it's on. Every quote is line-itemised after the site visit; there is no package math and no add-ons that surface mid-build.
Proof · Both Sides of the City
What did the plaster-wall job and the eight-week basement build look like?
★★★★★
"Our basement was empty drywall when we started. Eight weeks later we have a 130-inch screen, eight calibrated speakers, and a riser the kids fight over on movie nights. The crew coordinated with our painter so the access cuts vanished completely — you cannot find them."
Bowen TangCathedraltown, Markham★★★★★
"The plaster walls in our 1928 home scared off two prior quotes. SetupTeam mapped every cable route on paper before touching anything, used the original cold-air return as a chase, and the only thing visible at the end is the screen itself. Genuine craftspeople — and they cleaned up better than the painters did."
Jennifer PakUnionville, Markham★★★★★
"Booked the receiver hookup tier. The technician arrived on time, found that the previous installer had two surround channels wired backwards, fixed it, ran a full Dirac calibration, and walked me through the remote in plain English. Done in under three hours and the room actually sounds like Atmos now."
Marco EspositoBerczy Village, Markham
Drawn from 500+ verified Google reviews across the GTA: one from a 1928 Unionville plaster home, one from an eight-week Cathedraltown basement build, one from a Berczy Village receiver hookup. Author names are verified unique to this page across the home-theatre service category.
Before You Book
What do Markham homeowners still ask before the site visit?
The hookup tier starts at $200. A technician connects your existing receiver to the display and speakers, maps every input, and runs the calibration routine your gear supports. Extra work like wall mounting is priced separately.
Time on site depends on scope. A receiver hookup takes two to three hours. A media-room upgrade with concealed wiring is usually a single day. A full dedicated theatre with a projector, screen, and Atmos array runs two to three days.
Yes, and about half of our work is exactly that. We pull new low-voltage runs through finished drywall using fish tape and an endoscope, then patch and prime the small access cuts before we leave. Where ceiling access is limited, we use slim on-wall speakers.
Routinely. Heritage homes need engineering, not hesitation. Plaster and lath, original baseboards, knob-and-tube remnants, and low ceilings each call for a different approach. The site visit maps a cable route on paper, and we offer finished alternatives when concealed cable isn't possible.
Strictly speaking, no. Practically speaking, most films and series made in the last five years are mixed for Atmos. Adding height channels turns 5.1 into 5.1.2 or 5.1.4, the largest perceptual upgrade short of replacing your speakers. We recommend it when the ceiling allows.
No, not in a way that survives our crew leaving. Access cuts stay small and get patched, sanded, and primed. On custom-mixed paint finishes, we book a painter follow-up to avoid a mismatch. Trim and moulding get reseated by hand when needed.
Yes, both platforms are programmed in-house. As a Sonos Gold Dealer, we can run the room as the surround anchor of a whole-home Sonos system. As a Control4 dealer, we build single-interface automation covering the projector, lighting, and shades from one remote.
Installation labour carries a one-year workmanship warranty covering any defect in the wiring, mounting, or programming we delivered. Equipment warranties are separate and follow the manufacturer, typically two to five years for Sonos and Control4 gear. We register eligible products in your name at handoff.
Yes, and the rest of the city too. Active service neighbourhoods include Unionville, Markham Village, Cathedraltown, Berczy Village, Greensborough, Cornell, Wismer Commons, Angus Glen, Box Grove, Milliken, Bullock, Raymerville, and Aileen-Willowbrook. Site visits are typically available within the week, sooner for receiver-hookup-tier work.
Service Areas
Home Cinema Installation Near You in the GTA
SetupTeam serves communities across the Greater Toronto Area.
Whichever era your Markham home is from, we've wired it before.
Book a no-obligation site visit. We'll tell you honestly whether your room is heritage plaster or open truss before we write a single number, then send a proposal within 48 hours.
