Advice needed - wiring my new house
OK, I've been meaning to post this here for a long time, but have never gotten around to it until now. We're building a new house, and the framing is about a week away from being completed. It's a perfect time for me to get in there on a weekend and run some wire/cable throughout it. I'm just looking for some advice and opinions on what you guys would do if you were in my shoes. (within reason please - money is definitely a factor)
Just a basic description here - it's a 2 storey house, nothing really fancy. In the front right corner of the house is going to be my office. So it's got 2 outside walls - the front of the house (large window) and the side of the house. Behind the office wall (to the rear of the house) is the living room, and if you keep going through the living room, there's a large window in the back, and the deck is outside of that. So from front to back on that side of the house there's just the office, then living room, and deck.
What I'm thinking of doing is running music from that office (via my iMac) to speakers that I will mount in the corners of the ceiling in the living room, and also to 2 small speakers I will mount in the corners above the covered deck. We'll be trying to keep things very simple in the living room by putting our VCR and stereo, turntable (yeah it still works
) down into the semi-unfinished basement. So I'm hoping to be able to control the music in the living room and out on the deck with the Mac in the office.
Now I am a complete dork when it comes to this kind of thing.
*looks at frayed copper speaker wire in right hand... looks at ports on iMac* uh... duhhh....
Anyone here feel like giving some advice to a stereo newbie? I don't really know how I'd get audio out to these 2 different sets of speakers. I'd like to be able to send the audio to *just* the living room most of the time, and also *just* to the deck when we're out there. Possible? Is there some hardware I attach to the Mac that I can then run regular speaker wire out of?
Now for the SECOND question. Internet access.
I had planned on having the iMac in the home office (well, if I still have it of course.. heh heh) and probably adding an iBook to the mix some time down the road. I was going to keep it wireless by using a couple of Airport cards, but since it would only take an afternoon with a drill and some cable to hardwire a network together... do you think I should do that? I'm just trying to think here... our daughter is 14 months old, so it'll be a long time before she has a computer in her room with a need for internet access, so I'm wondering if it'll be worth it. Damn ethernet cable isn't cheap either. And anyway, don't most people keep their kids (young kids) on a computer where they can watch them? The house is only 800 square feet per floor so the Airport would easily reach everywhere. It would be cool too to be able to surf from the back deck, or the veranda in front of the house that I can see out of the office window... I don't know, just thinking out loud here on the network thing...
Any comments/suggestions would really be appreciated. I'm hoping some people here have done something similar in their homes, or know someone who has.... thanks!
Just a basic description here - it's a 2 storey house, nothing really fancy. In the front right corner of the house is going to be my office. So it's got 2 outside walls - the front of the house (large window) and the side of the house. Behind the office wall (to the rear of the house) is the living room, and if you keep going through the living room, there's a large window in the back, and the deck is outside of that. So from front to back on that side of the house there's just the office, then living room, and deck.
What I'm thinking of doing is running music from that office (via my iMac) to speakers that I will mount in the corners of the ceiling in the living room, and also to 2 small speakers I will mount in the corners above the covered deck. We'll be trying to keep things very simple in the living room by putting our VCR and stereo, turntable (yeah it still works
) down into the semi-unfinished basement. So I'm hoping to be able to control the music in the living room and out on the deck with the Mac in the office.Now I am a complete dork when it comes to this kind of thing.
*looks at frayed copper speaker wire in right hand... looks at ports on iMac* uh... duhhh....
Anyone here feel like giving some advice to a stereo newbie? I don't really know how I'd get audio out to these 2 different sets of speakers. I'd like to be able to send the audio to *just* the living room most of the time, and also *just* to the deck when we're out there. Possible? Is there some hardware I attach to the Mac that I can then run regular speaker wire out of?
Now for the SECOND question. Internet access.
I had planned on having the iMac in the home office (well, if I still have it of course.. heh heh) and probably adding an iBook to the mix some time down the road. I was going to keep it wireless by using a couple of Airport cards, but since it would only take an afternoon with a drill and some cable to hardwire a network together... do you think I should do that? I'm just trying to think here... our daughter is 14 months old, so it'll be a long time before she has a computer in her room with a need for internet access, so I'm wondering if it'll be worth it. Damn ethernet cable isn't cheap either. And anyway, don't most people keep their kids (young kids) on a computer where they can watch them? The house is only 800 square feet per floor so the Airport would easily reach everywhere. It would be cool too to be able to surf from the back deck, or the veranda in front of the house that I can see out of the office window... I don't know, just thinking out loud here on the network thing...
Any comments/suggestions would really be appreciated. I'm hoping some people here have done something similar in their homes, or know someone who has.... thanks!
Comments
<strong>Now for the SECOND question. Internet access.
I had planned on having the iMac in the home office (well, if I still have it of course.. heh heh) and probably adding an iBook to the mix some time down the road. I was going to keep it wireless by using a couple of Airport cards, but since it would only take an afternoon with a drill and some cable to hardwire a network together... do you think I should do that? I'm just trying to think here... our daughter is 14 months old, so it'll be a long time before she has a computer in her room with a need for internet access, so I'm wondering if it'll be worth it. Damn ethernet cable isn't cheap either. And anyway, don't most people keep their kids (young kids) on a computer where they can watch them? The house is only 800 square feet per floor so the Airport would easily reach everywhere. It would be cool too to be able to surf from the back deck, or the veranda in front of the house that I can see out of the office window... I don't know, just thinking out loud here on the network thing...
Any comments/suggestions would really be appreciated. I'm hoping some people here have done something similar in their homes, or know someone who has.... thanks!</strong><hr></blockquote>
I was considering the same thing and then thought, why not just use airport? It is easier ( no wiring ) and better ( can be used anywhere within range ). So thats what I will do and thats what I recommend.
As for your stereo problems, I could probably figure it out but your post is too long and gave me a headache. If you give a quick ( to the point ) summary post, I will take a look.
As for the stereo, it's pretty simple, even if I did ramble on a little.
I want to use the iMac in the office as the stereo for the house. I want to be able to run the music to speakers in the living room if I want, and also out to speakers on the deck. I'd like to be able to send it to only one of these at a time though. When the living room speakers are on, there's no sound to the deck speakers, etc).
You can go airport but it is still handy to have one ethernet jack in each bedroom, living room, etc.
Airport's speed is only 1/10 of the wired 100BT network. If you are doing a lot of file transfers between one machine to another you really need a wired network. And then let other "smaller" machines to hook up with airport.
Oh....I forgot you keep switching machine....so you would have only one machine....nevermind
Get the thickest gauge speaker wire you can find for the speaker runs. Audiophiles like to rant about cables this and that, but you can get some nice thick speaker wire from one the home depot for pennies a foot (well a lot of pennies, but not those insane 'audiophile' prices) It's going in-wall, it'll sound good enough. Worry about the Home theatre side of the equation, not the iMac. I bet you'll be able to find a few different ways to get sound from your iMac to your reciever/stereo, but what kind of 'out' does the iMac use? How are you going to know what kind of lines to run from the iMac to the stereo?
As far as the iMac audio part goes, how are you going to control the iMac from your back-yard deck?
You've got that nice superdrive, why not just burn MP3 DVD's to play on a HomeTheatre (set up for multi-room)
I think airport can probably handle all your music needs. 22 & 54Mb versions exist already, though not from Apple, and it's only going to get faster. I bet airport enabled music servers (also probably not from Apple) make an appearance soon. Then you could just use a portable to control your music selection no matter where you are in the house.
Just run speaker wire at a reasonable and consistent height in all the rooms where you think you're going to have a sound system of one type or another. For networking, wireless is the future, even for consumer A/V.
Might want to make a TV cable run to each of the bedrooms, the kitchen, the den, and the family room. You never know where the TV watching center of the home is going to be -- untill you re-shuffled everything a few times. Good for splitting the cable too.
I learned the hard way, after my house was built, that I needed wired ethernet access in it (at that point, AirPort didn't exist). Fortunately, my basement is unfinished, and I was able to get ethernet to the places I needed on the 1st floor. The 2nd floor, however, depended on a wire under the carpet. Not nice, and not fun to install.
I now have AirPort, but still use my wired jacks whenever I'm near 'em. It is faster, and Mac OS X automatically switches the network conection when I connect the Ethernet cable.
So, the bottom line is, even if you doubt you'll ever need ethernet in a certain room, install it anyway. It will be handy, and might even add resale value to your house.
For your stereo system:
I'll try my best here. I know a lot about it, but my parents are stuck in the dark ages (18 year old TV, anyone?
First, I don't know of a way to control your CD player, etc through the iMac. But what you can do is use your iMac to pump MP3's to the speakers (I would recomend importing all of your records and CD's into the iMac. This will make everything easier).
What I need to know first is if you are interested in using the speakers you are installing for TV, VCR, etc sound. Then I can formulate a plan for you.
For wiring your house, i'd go to the Sony store or something similar and ask them.
How ever...if you want to do it really cheaply...you need a small amp to boost the power and a switch box. (Radio Shack should be able to give you more detail)
A buddy of mine did this for a party a while ago, we had like 6 speakers all around the back yard.
For internet just use wireless, its so much better cause you can even use it outside! just place a cable/phone jack somewhere near the center of the house.
For your sound... if you really want to use your mac your going to need a receiver of some kind. Just get a RCA-to-minjack wire (about $3 from radioshack) plug it into the audio out port on the imac. run the RCA end to any of the in ports on the reciver. From there just run some good speaker wire to the different areas of the house where you want speakers. get some wall plates from home depot so you can just plug the speakers into the wall and move them around etc. For controling you can use a USB remote control. Keyspan makes one, but you need to be in visable sight of the receiver.
What I meant about putting the VCR and that older stuff downstairs was, we have this big ass entertainment center with the TV, VCR, DVD player, a turntable, receiver, double tape deck, etc, etc in it. We're not going to have this big mess in the new living room, so the whole thing is getting set up down in the basement.
Upstairs wil be a TV on a simple stand with a couple of shelves under it - just enough for the new digital cable box and our DVD player. I was thinking of keeping it very simple by just having these things, and not even bothering with a stereo in the living room. I was going to just play MP3s with the iMac, and do this with speakers in the living room and out to the deck. Put together a playlist in iTunes and let it run...
But some posts here have me thinking, and I might change that a little. I have to go right now, but I'll post more later. Just wanted to clear that up - we're not going to be using the VCR or anything that's downstairs, for the TV we will have upstairs. 2 seperate systems.
BTW keep the comments coming, this is great.
I'll add some more later.
Put all the wiring in now and set up the base (amp/receiver) whereever you want (near the imac would probally be best because the RCA-to-Minijack is usally short.
[ 04-25-2002: Message edited by: Dogcow ]</p>
I bought yards of cheap wire when I did my home theater only to have to go out to Sound Perfection and buy better wire later.
It's a lot of connections for the rears to go through, but I got the thickest wire they had, it's almost like my pinky, and used pretty good terminals at each corner (all screwed down neat and tidy, and tight!) How important are those rears anyway? They don't do much in a pro-logic set-up. Even with 5.1 audio, it's the fronts and center that really count.
When I build my house I'm going to have cat5 to each room, audio and video to each room, coaxial, phone (at least 2 lines), and possibly also intercom, central vacuum in every room, separate temperature controls for each room, and I'll have all of the lights smart-wired so that i can control them centrally, and remotely too. Some of the rooms would detect motion or sound or when it got dark and turn the lights on automatically, and there would be schedules for the others too. And since you can never have too many outlets, I think I'd have a power outlet every 2-3 feet on every wall, or almost every wall. In the more important rooms I'd even put in an LCD screen for interfacing with the house systems. And that's just the beginning. I want doors that open automatically like Star Trek (though not quite as cheesy), and a roof made out of grass for energy and insulation purposes. So many ideas, so little time.
One thing to worry about if you put a lot of high-tech and surviellance in your home is the threat of cyberspying. You wouldn't want, unbeknownst to you, streming video of you and the Mrs christening a room.
I don't like web cams, I'd always be worried that they were on. That's a worry for wireless networks too. Your neighbors kid could (probably will) figure out a way to leach internet service from you, and spy on you through all your web cams.
Try to come up with a wiring scheme that offers the most flexibility that you can afford. That's what I did two years ago when we built our house - I'm very glad I did, because stuff didn't happen the way I expected after two years of living here.
Some suggestions:
Plan to use your basement as your connection center (everything runs from the wall outlet down to the basement).
Run unconnected CAT5 from your basement to every phone outlet in your house. There's usually a phone jack in every room. That can come in handy if you want to add an ethernet jack in some room later on - you replace the phone outlet with a two-port modular outlet and put phone and ethernet in it.
Put extra ethernet outlets in your office. I put two-port modular outlets on each of the four walls in the office. Each outlet has a phone jack and an ethernet jack. Run CAT5 for the phone jacks too (you can use it for phone) - later you can change a phone jack into an ethernet jack. Use the office closet as your network "hub". Put ethernet and phone jacks in the closet. This is where you can locate a hub, your Airport Base Station, cable modem, whatever.
Run all your TV cabling from jacks in every room down to the basement. I have cable outlets in every room, but no cable or sattelite TV (or even aerial) - all the basements ends are currently unconnected.
Once you've got all your (labeled!) cables run down to the basement, you can hook it all up down there. Like a giant patch center.
Quick question - I've never had cable internet before (shoot, never had cable before...)
The ethernet system throughout the house - room to room - will be good for computer to computer networking, but is there a router that the cable modem will hook into, and have ethernet out ports? So it comes into the house via cable, goes to the hub, then through the ethernet system to each computer on the network? A little confused on that one.
Really though, if I do out ethernet throughout the house, it'll be for future use. It'll be years before we have more than one desktop computer in the house (in the rec room in the basement or bedrooms) - probably not until the kids have computers.
When we do add a second computer it will be a laptop, and with a nice deck out back and the smaller one out front, I'm sure we will want it hooked up to Airport.
As for the stereo, what I think I will do is go with a stereo in the living room. When we've got people over and we're in the living room, or out on the deck, it'll get to be a chore to have to truck over to the office every time I want to change the music or adjust the volume...
I will have 2 sets of speakers hooked up to the stereo - in the living room, and out on the deck. I think I'll still hook the iMac up to the stereo's AUX input though, so I can use the iMac as a jukebox if I want to. That way I can use the iMac or the stereo, whichever I feel like.
Hmm, lots to think about when you're starting from scratch! Thanks again for all the posts, it's nice to hear other people's thoughts on the subject!