Hi --I know what you mean. I just bought some sturdy plastic shelves about 6' high and store everything on there--The key is going through at least once a year and organizing everything. I keep small items like epsom salts, etc. in glass jars with lids and everthing else in clear plastic containers so i can see what's in it. You can find these at any big box store. The key is being able to look up at the shelves and see everything without diggin in it. I also stapled chicken wire to the ceiling of my garage out of the walkways and use this to hang stuff with S hooks I bought at the hardware store, or just bent clothes hanger wire will work. Good luck.

Running speaker wire duing a build is easy and relatively cheap. I also recommend using plastic conduit runs from your rooms into the basement so you can connect your audio system up over time after the house is done. A whole house audio system is great but they aren't cheap. For the audio speakers - make sure you purchase good wire that is rated for in wall applications (Class III or IV). You need to select a spot in each room where the volume contollers will be. Put a single gang low voltage box at these locations. Lets say you have 4 rooms where you want audio - you will need 4 single gang boxes. You mount the boxes at the same height as a wall light switch. Out of the bottom of these boxes - run a piece of plastic conduit (blue or orange) from the box down into the basement. You will need to drill a hole through the wall bottom plate and sub floor. Make sure the conduit extends a least 2 feet into the basement in case they use spray foam in the joist cavities which can cover up the tubes. Out of the top of each of the single gang boxes, run your pairs of speaker wire to the locations in the wall or ceiling where you want the speakers. If you plan to install speakers in the celing down the road, make sure you make a treasure map with exact measurements of all locations where the wires are bundled up so that you can find them after drywall is up. If you plan to mount speakers on the wall, they make single gang low voltage boxes fot that application. Just install the gang box on a wall stud and run the speaker wire to it - leavinbg a foot to so curled up in the box. The drywallers should cut around those like wall outlets. Use solid wall plates to cover up the volume control boxes and speaker gang boxes after drywall is up and house is painted. For TV and internet, i would install boxes and run conduits from the locations you expect to have a TV & those services to the basement. Install either a single gang or double gang box on a wall stud, then run conduit from that box down to the basement. These conduit tubes will allow you to install all the cables you need at a later date without destroying the drywall and making a mess. You can get everything you need at HD or Lowe's. The gang boxes are a few bucks and the conduit rolls are 30 to 50 bucks depending on the diameter of tubing you use. This is a pretty easy DIY project and not a huge expense compared to having the house pre-wired for everything. If the kids want the sound - make them help with the install of the conduit. You can always opt to use an RF distribution system later if you want. But having the conduits in place will allow you to add wires easily if you go the wired route. I am not sure about the AT&T service you mentioned. I have satellite TV and for that - you need a control box (either a DVR or just a receiver) at each location where you have a TV. I simply ran conduit tubes to all the spots where I expected to have a TV & sat receiver. If you put conduit tubes in, make sure that you use the stud clamps and special snap connectors to make sure the tubes are firmly connected to the boxes and attached to the wall studs so they will not move when you pull cables through later. I wired my house for whole house audio but currently only have the family room and one other room (the outside covered deck) set up and we love it. I actually installed low cost speakers in all rooms when the house was built so that I don't have to cut holes into the drywall - but I haven't added the rest of the audo components (speaker selector and high powered amplifier plus volume controllers in each room) yet needed to distrubute sound to the enitre house. Within a year or so I will be adding sound to the other rooms. It will be very easy since the conduit tubes are in place. Good luck.

regus thank you for the suggestion of a boom box since I am thinking it may be a good idea for that room or even for my home office room. I decided to look again for a smaller stereo for my spare bedoom since I just don't like having my stereo take up so much room and it looks like a pair of nice speakers are costly anyway and then have to be compatible with my system. Does anyone have an opinion on the five "stereo's" I narrowed my search down to so I can back to focusing on getting my work done at night instead of researching? There have less power than I had been looking at but they are the size I want and have decent reviews. Sony MP3 CD Boombox, Model ZSSN10S $79.99 in black and silver. Has very good ratings especially with radio reception and I like the way it looks. Sony ZS-S2iP Boombox for the iPod (white) that is pretty and maybe in the future I could buy an iPod for $89.95 Onkyo MC35Tech Executive Shelf System with 3 CD Changer. Has very good ratings of the sound quality despite only 20 watts per channel and 70 watts per the speakers. I like the way they look, their small micro size and maybe the $319.99 price is worth it? They have an attachment for an iPod and play MP3 files, etc. Then there is the JVC DVD Micro Componenet System in either the JVC UXg50 discontinued model selling by some places for $129.99 that plays 5 CD's and is very compact also with 240 watts of power and decent reviews or the JVC UXg70 that is the newer model with reviews not as good but good that also plays 5 CD's. I can place links in a posting if anyone wants to help me. I have so much work to do and I guess getting that dresser for that spare room and trying to make it look nice is having me really want a smaller stereo.

I don't have any recommendations for wireless speakers, but it sounds like you have some type of stereo system already hooked up to the various speakers. If that's correct, have you considered just hooking up the ipod to the existing stereo system using a dock? I found an inexpensive one ($22) on Amazon that has line-level outputs (RCA jacks) that you can hook up to an AUX input (or CD, Tape In, etc. inputs) on your receiver. It will charge your device at the same time so it doesn't run down the battery playing music. Apple wants $80 for their dock so I thought it was a great deal.