We are 3-4 weeks away from drywall.  Before we can drywall, everything that is going to go in the wall has to be there.  The plumbers, electricians, and HVAC folks are all working hard to get it all done, and we have a very full crew here.

One of the last things we are putting in the walls is the prewire for any audio, video, and network we want to have.

We went a little crazy with all three.  The thought we have is, if we don’t put it in now, it will be much more difficult to add it in the future, so we are running wires for anything we might EVER want in the house.  This includes

• Several network drops in each room, all home run to the basement mechanical room.
• Speaker wire to virtually every room and outside deck or porch.
• Audio / video cables to virtually every place we might ever want a TV.
• Wiring for three full surround sound systems – the basement rec room, the family room, and the master bedroom (sorry kids, 2.1 sound will have to do).
• Wiring for surveillance cameras all around the perimeter of the house, and covering every entrance.

In case we miss anything, we are also running flex conduit from an accessible space (mechanical room or attic) to every single possible TV location. This allows us to easily pull new cables for wiring standards that don’t yet exist.  For example, 10 gigabit networking.

If you add up all the cable, it comes to about 36,000 feet in length, or about 7 miles of cable.  Wow!