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The smart home of the future is typically researched in lab settings or apartments that have been built from scratch. However, comparing the lifecycle of buildings and information technology, it is evident that modernization strategies and technologies are needed to empower residents to modify and extend their homes to make it smarter. In this paper, we describe a case study about the deployment, adaption to and adoption of tailorable home energy management systems in 7 private households. Based on this experience, we want to discuss how hardware and software technologies should be designed so that people could build their own smart home with a high usability and user experience.