Wiring

Figuring out what wiring needed to go where was a careful planning exercise. The media center in the living room will have a TV with surround-sound system, and we'll be going with Sonos and multiple built-in speakers for our around-the-house music needs, including the outdoor and lower level areas that won't be finished this phase. In addition, there's a studio where we'll house a separate TV and music equipment, and we'd like the speakers in that room to able to play from many different inputs: the house music, the TV, or input from a laptop or keyboard plugged into a jack on the wall. A media closet will tuck away components that don't need to be in a specific physical location, to keep the home's aesthetic as clean as possible.

Ethernet needs to be easily accessible so we don't tax the wireless with any device that could be wired, so we generally have at least one port in each room. I fought (and lost) a half-hearted battle to have one in the bathroom; it's probably for the better.

We don't anticipate needing too much dedicated video (i.e. HDMI) running around the house, but we do want to be able to watch the same video in the studio as in the living room so we are running cabling there. Most other video connections will be local (e.g. a DVR connecting to the TV in the same room). And if something comes up later, the ubiquitous gigabit ethernet connections should provide bandwidth for streaming video wherever we need it.

The end result is to house several Sonos base stations in the media closet, along with our wireless router, cable modem, file server, and 16-port ethernet switch to serve the various ports around the house. We expect this setup to handle our audio, video and network needs for the foreseeable future.

Once again, such planning would be nigh impossible without such drawings as the one above, rendered by the illustrious Jamie.