If you're a reader of our blog, or if you are a new reader and look back through some of our posts, it is no secret that I am somewhat obsessive when it comes to the historically accurate details and character elements of our home. I obsess over the details, what might be period authentic or not, and what we can do to make our house just a little bit more historically "correct." 

That being said, there is something about me that only my friends really know. But I'm ready to share it for the whole internet world...

I'M A HUGE NERD!

This is not something I take lightly and is a badge I wear with pride. Though I try to present myself as a normal person, I've long been a major geek. I've been obsessed with things commonly associated with nerds since I was a small child. I love Star Wars and actually own several light sabers and a set life-sized Stormtrooper armor. (Yeah, I'm that guy. I just don't wear it out of the house). Just look at the cake Wendy made for me for my 33rd birthday.

I'm also totally into all things related to technology, and I don't mean just having a cool stereo or television. I mean I'm into how they work and how they're constructed. I started my first website back in 1995 when I was in high school, spend all of my free time screwing around on the computer, work as a software developer in my real life, and am so obsessed with DIY and computer programming that this whole blog is a DIY creation. Yep, no wordpress here, blogger...no thanks, this is a 100% custom built blog. That's how I roll, white and nerdy! Cue my anthem...

Quite honestly, I've not oversold how much I like to geek out, and owning a home has allowed me to take it to the next level.

While I was quite excited by the prospect of owning a 100+ year old home in an historic district, and at the potential of restoring its period details, I was just as excited about the modern technology I had long planned on incorporating into any house we own. I had visions of home theaters, computerized lighting, and home automation dancing in my head. But, with the purchase of an old home, the $64,000 question was "how could we do all of this while maintaining the historic fabric of our house?" The answer...VERY SLOWLY!

This is just the first post in what is sure to be a long line of home technology related items associated with our renovation, but I need to start with the basics of what has enabled us to turn our circa 1886 home into somewhat of a technological jewel in the rough.

Several years ago we had to open several walls and the ceiling in our kitchen and put a few holes in our ceiling in other parts of the house. This was due to a series of unfortunate events caused by a combination of ice damming, termite damage, broken plumbing pipes, and old fashioned bad luck. I was determined to turn this misfortune into an opportunity to begin my grand plan. 

Yep, that's our kitchen just after Christmas, 2004...Merry Christmas indeed! The demo was actually just beginning. About 1/2 of the floor and 1/2 of the ceiling still had to come out. But as I said, I viewed this as an opportunity to begin my journey of wiring the house for the future.

Note: This may seem confusing, overkill, ridiculous, tedious, totally geeky, and unnecessary. It is, in fact, all of that, but I think that's why I took on this project. In all honesty though, making technological advancements to your home isn't that difficult of a task. You just need the right tools to tackle it, and a lot of patience (both on your side and from your significant other). 

I began researching the various options in home wiring that would allow me to maximize my impact without totally destroying our non-existent budget. Today, there are so many options out there for bundled structured wiring, but back in 2004 there were only a mix of high end and low end. The high end contained a bundle of Cat-5e, Fiber, Speaker, and Quad Shield Coax, and the low end simply had Cat-5, Speaker and Coax. I felt like had I gone either of those routes, I would have been paying a lot of money for not a lot of wiring. I also knew the limitations of Cat-5 and Cat-5e for network cabling, and I knew I wanted the improved shielding of Cat-6.

If you're reading this page looking for info on wiring, do yourself a favor and get Cat-6. It will fill your short and long term needs. Cat-6 is actually what a lot of video and high end home theater devices will use to communicate in the future.

I came up with a plan to run Cat-6 for network cabling, speaker wire for whole house audio, and coax for general video. I also decided that every room had to have either two or three outlets, each of which needed at least two coax lines and four Cat-6 lines. I didn't know what I would use it all for, but I knew I could use it if it was there, and I didn't want a situation where I needed it and I hadn't installed it.

We took the plunge and put in our first order for 1000' of Cat-6 (blue wire), 500' of speaker wire (white wire), and 1000' of quad shielded coax (black wire). The day they arrived I tore the boxes open and started making a spider web of wires that we lived in for several weeks. (I love my wife, she puts up with this stuff, she's amazing.)

Since then the project has grown to us more than 5000' of Cat-6, 1000' of speaker wire, and 2000' of coax. Yep, I fear I may have gone I've happily gone overboard. One thing I've learned through all of these wiring orders, MonoPrice.com is my friend. They have some really awesome prices on wiring and connectors.

The other big thing you have to remember when doing network cabling in your house is to make sure you are using something called "home runs." Unlike a phone line or cable wire that can be split off at each need for a junction, a network wire needs to have a central or "home" point to run to. All wiring in the house should originate at this point and should not branch before its termination point. The home runs point houses a patch panel and is usually located in a closet or a basement. In our situation, we chose to run it to a central location in the basement, just under the basement stairs. The spider's web of wires continued down there.

I actually built a DIY server rack in the basement to house our patch panel and associated network gear. The photo above was from the day I was wiring everything up to it. It is the nerve center of our tech'd out house, and the whole thing was done on a super tight budget with hand me down equipment, mostly scrap lumber, and eBay finds (even the blue lights were a bargain).

You tell me...when is the last time you saw a 125 year old house with a server rack?

We've continued this process of running wiring throughout the house and stashing the wires in ceilings, walls, or the attic knowing that we will eventually renovate the room they will eventually live in, and when we do, the wires are all there waiting for us. I just make sure I color code both ends of each wire with a combination of color electrical tape so I can easily tell which wire is which once we actually get to attaching them to their outlets.

The above photos are from inside the closet in our master bedroom (yes, inside the closet). The outlet on the right has two coax connections for television and four Cat-6 connections for internet. The item on the left if a local source input for our whole house audio. If you saw yesterday's plaster patching post, the outlet we were patching around was one of the outlets in the guest bedroom, and it had a similar setup.

So you're probably wondering, "Ok, what does all of this wiring get you? And I've got WiFi at home, why not just use that? And why are you talking about this...what's the point?"

I've got the answers for you:

1. What does it get us? It allows for a tremendous amount of integrated technology in our house. Whole house audio, streaming video, internet enabled devices like our TV or DVD player, integrated security, and extensive smart home automation.
   
   
2. Why not just use WiFi? Well, we have that too, but with the bandwidth demands of the more intensive internet applications -- think Netflix Streaming and HD video downloads -- our house's construction and all of the interference from living so close to so many Wifi networks simply doesn't allow for a strong and consistent connection. The only way to ensure a reliable connection for our bandwidth hogging devices is to make sure they are hard wired.
   
   
3. What's the Point? This is just the first post of many that we will include in the coming weeks that involve the hi-tech items we've integrated into our historic home and how to guides if you want to accomplish the same. I also want other people who are renovating older homes to know they can include the technology of the future while keeping with the original character of their home. 

There is a commercial currently running in our area that says "The average home now has over four internet connected devices." I counted it up and we currently have 20 devices in our house that have an active connection to the internet. This is just the tip of the iceberg for what we will have in a couple of years. I wanted to make sure that our house was ready for the future and what it would bring. So far I think we're doing a pretty good job. And remember, this is 100% DIY, we're not hiring anyone to run any of this stuff. If we were, we would never be able to afford it.

Do you have any high tech items in your house that make your friends shake their head at your technology overkill? I'm looking for cohorts here, someone who can let Wendy know that I'm not crazy! Let me know. I'll leave you with one other Weird Al song that I totally identify with. This post is admittedly pretty tech heavy, so thanks for sticking with me through it.