House modding

[Drum Thumper]

The wife and I are in the finishing stages of buying a house. 3 bed, 2 bath, sitting on a 1/2 acre (~2420 square yards), 12 miles out of town. As an added bonus, we will have bison in our backyard.

My ultimate goal is to have the following become reality (in no particular order):

• Cat-6 double pulled to every room, including bathrooms
• Myth
• Cat-6 double pulled to yet to be built garage/shop/mancave
• wifi (N/G/B) for when friends come over
• automation (lights, water, etc)
• webcam surveillance (high priority of the Mrs)

Now, you may be asking, why pull to the bathrooms? Simple: Internet radio. I'm planning on building a couple of SFF machines that'll do nothing more than play music/news/sports. Maybe even wire in a 7" LCD screen and have it show temps or something along those lines. Plus, this will also allow for streaming MP3/FLAC so I can dazzle the shower tiles with my singing inabilities.

Every room, if I have my way, will have a computer. HTPC in the living room (with a Myth backend machine in a yet to be determined space), touchscreen in the kitchen (I've been scheming for years now to wiki-fy my cookbooks), several computers in the office/guest bedroom (one of which will be a SQUID proxy machine), and another HTPC in the master suite. And, of course, once the baby gets a bit older, he'll have an old beater to destroy (and don't tell me he wont!).

Money permitting, I'd love to build or relocate an absolutely huge shop/garage/mancave (100 ft by 80 ft would be about two inches short of heaven). I have looked into quonset huts, and very well may go this route due to the fact that I have a connection within the 'hut field. It is very much 'yet to be seen' if this part does become reality. I may end up settling for a run of the mill two car garage (which I think I could deal with as well).

Thoughts? Anything I may be missing?

[blueonblack]

Wow, no I'd say you've about got it covered.

Are there laws out there about automated perimeter defenses?

[SinCrisis]

HOLY CRAP this is WIN. However, if you set up a strong wireless signal, why not just install wireless cards on all the computers and hook it up to a massive wireless network? I understand that cat6 is way faster than wireless but if your listening to internet radio or streaming basic internet tv, a wireless card and powerful routers should do the trick.

[x88x]

Sounds pretty sweet. Good luck on the hut...I would kill for a workshop that big...

HOLY CRAP this is WIN. However, if you set up a strong wireless signal, why not just install wireless cards on all the computers and hook it up to a massive wireless network? I understand that cat6 is way faster than wireless but if your listening to internet radio or streaming basic internet tv, a wireless card and powerful routers should do the trick.

Speed, reliability, security, convenience (once it's wired), and if he's already running Cat6, why not?

[Luke122]

For the bathrooms, dont bother with putting dedicated machines in there.

It's a cool idea, but consider your electricity usage.

I would say go with a central audio distribution hub instead for rooms like bathrooms/hallways/dining room, etc. Have a wall mounted volume control, and ceiling or wall mounted speakers in those spaces, and control the audio source from a web interface, like XBMC.

Or do what I'm doing, and get a small (100ft) FM transmitter. Just hook that into your audio source, and then you can tune any FM radio into the feed. Shower radio = win.

[Liquid_Scope_99]

All i can say is i like how you think man .

[madd0ct0r]

photovoltics, passive solar water heater, thermal mass storage, LED lighting
and maybe a solar chimney.

should help cut the electrictiy usage back to the important things.

[haha49]

Want help if you live near me Ill come help you do it did it in my home and yes its nice.. raido in the bathrooms why not wireless its easyer then pulling cables to some areas depends on your house though.. polk audio makes a sound bar that you can use in the bathroom and just hook up to a small stero or speakers that way its a small lcd screen bar and speakers..


its a ruko sound bar is what I have for audio from computer to speakers..

make 1 media sever which is all movies and music 1 computer you will start to need around 4 tbs easy.. setup remote conection into it to change settings and update it and just run vista preumion on it to use media center which you can use the network to brodcast all media files..

[haha49]

For the bathrooms, dont bother with putting dedicated machines in there.

It's a cool idea, but consider your electricity usage.

I would say go with a central audio distribution hub instead for rooms like bathrooms/hallways/dining room, etc. Have a wall mounted volume control, and ceiling or wall mounted speakers in those spaces, and control the audio source from a web interface, like XBMC.

Or do what I'm doing, and get a small (100ft) FM transmitter. Just hook that into your audio source, and then you can tune any FM radio into the feed. Shower radio = win.

lac of the ablity to change song can be anoying..

[Drum Thumper]

Thanks for all the replies and further ideas. Haha49--I'm hardcore opensource, so if anything I'll be running samba shares to accommodate for the few windows boxes that I do have.

I'm going to have to do some research on the Polk Audio gear--didn't even think about it.

maddocter--I like the way you think. I'm going to add one more to your list: since I'm living out of town (12 miles to be exact) and live on the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountain Front, I'd love to put a windmill up as well. Added bonus--built in trellis for if and when I decide to plant some hops!

As for the CAT6--I'm going to be streaming more than basic internet video. Ideally I'll be streaming 720 or 1080 (37" HDTV), but I am concerned in regards to throughput limits of CAT6. In theory, I could have the media centers and the Myth backend on a separate switch within the network (thus cutting down on bandwidth getting eaten up by other apps), but theory only goes so far.