montekay unless you are superman, 3 days is really not that much time to do all of the wiring you have on your list. i pre-wired my house and it took longer than that. but i learned a few things that might help you out. i would suggest running conduit instead of wires, except in selected spots. you can buy 100 or 200 ft spools of the stuff at home depot or lowes for about 30 bucks or so. the conduit is very easy to work with - 1 person can do the pulling. you will also need a supply of ENT boxes and snap connectors. if you go this route - get your parts early because the big box stores do not stock that much - i cleaned out two HD stores for my parts. you will also need a good drill, plenty of battteries, and sharp drill bits to drill holes for the conduit runs. make sure you clamp the tubes against the studs to prvent kinking when you do your wire pulls later. also - in the basement make sure you leave plenty of excess conduit so that if they put spray foam in the joist cavities, they won't cover up the tubes. for whole house audio the key right now are the speaker wires. you need to get CL3 rated wire if you want to bury that into the walls. i ordered mine from MidSouth cable - it was 16 guage 64 stand wire - very good stuff. you can choose to either put in the speaker boxes now or just run the wires and cut in the speakers later. if you cut in later - make sure you make a good treasure map so you can locate the wires later. to install - just place an ENT box where you want the contoller to go. run conduit from that box down into the basement - run the speaker wire from that same box to the locations for the speakers. once that is done, you can add in whatever digital or analog audio distribution you want. for lighting control, you can put conduit in the locations where you want the controllers to go. Or you can use a wireless system. warning - these systems are not cheap and i would not rush into buying anything until you have really researched the product. again - i suggest conduit. for CCTV - you need to have power & ground plus the cable for the video signal. MidSouth sells a siamese cable that has both integrated into one cable to make pulling easier. i did run some cat5e for voice and data. you probably don't need too many drops becuase of wireless products. you did not mention antenna drops for over the wire HD and radio signals. I put two antennas in my attic and then ran RG-6 from the attic to the basement so I could distribute these signals to any room in the house. my overall strategy was to run wires only to the places that I new I would need connectivity the day we move in. to all other locations i ran conduit. i think you would easily finish that in 3 days if you go this route. and then you can take your time and put in whatever you want - whenever you want. i suggest using 1 inch conduit tubing for structured wires, and 3/4 inch for audio and light controls. use single gang ENT boxes for audio and light contols, use dual gang ENT boxes for multi-media sturctured wires. best of luck

My fiance and I have been looking to buy our first home for almost a year now. We have been looking for an older home (pre 1930's), because we love the historical feel, especially victorian architecture. A lot of us have that same dream. When I was a teen, I was dating a guy that was in a fraternity that was out of a beautiful Victorian. I remember the stairway, the flowers that were engraved in the wood. I remember the "dome room" and while it was a PITA to put furniture in, amazed me every time I went into it. I remember beautiful moldings, everything was etched and 3 or 4 fireplaces. It had a decent sized kitchen from what I remember, also had a servant room. Man I loved that house and swore that one day, if I could afford to have the house moved I would. The house was located in one of the worst neighborhoods. You had to lock your doors to drive there and run in the house. I bet that in it's day, it was one of the grandest houses. They ended up knocking it down, don't know when but I drove by about 16 years ago, there was nothing on the lot. Anyway, a lot of us have the same dream, to own a beautiful, grand house. Reality is the lack of things needed to live in it in today's world as Tricia said. Since you are not married with kids yet, it wouldn't really matter much, you would probably get by fine. Once you have kids and they start getting older is when you will notice how hard it is to raise a family there unless you luck out and get a house that has larger rooms where you can make closets, or one that has a decent kitchen. I wonder then if my fiance and I should actually change our dream to accomodate the current economy and the deals available? IMO, this might be a good idea, at least for now. Being newly married can be stressful. Unless the 2 of you are currently living together, you have to learn to live with your partner. How do both of you handle stress? Buying a house that you are working on all of the time is very stressful and could eventually start pulling you apart. You'll come home from work some days so tired but you have to sand & throw another coat of spackle on, or paint, or run out to the home store to buy supplies. Hubby & I worked on our last house starting 2 years after I moved in. We removed paneling, faux brick, painted, put in floors as well as putting a new floor frame on a concrete slab in the laundry area to build it up so that we could put a floor down. By the time we sold we were tired & cranky. Add to this a roof, electric upgrade, plumbing, which was a job in itself since there was only 1 shutoff valve, which meant we lost water for the day. We also did central air, a hot water heater as well as new furnace, and had planned to redo all of the baseboards as well. Are there any houses that are in between the old house and new construction for a compromise? You might be able to live a little bit more comfortably and not have to work as hard. It will also give you an idea of how the 2 of you work together as a team (or not). You can save the Victorian house for later on

doogan it is definately a DIY type of project. they key is to have a plan of the system before you start to wire, label the wires, and follow some basics about the type of sensors to use for various functions. the web site I gave you has documents you can download with some sesnor descriptions and installation tips. I would also have someone review the plan to make sure it makes sense - some of the on line sites that sell security products offer this as a service. The hardest sensors for me to install were the magnetic contact ones where you have to drill into the door (for the magnetic piece) and then drill through the door frame for the wire and the contact piece. Both parts of the sensor need to line up reasonably close. It's not too hard - just requires a little thought. one thing that i did was purchase 1 type of each sensor I was planning to use and the the siren/strobe so that I could have these during the rough in wiring phase. I could see how the sensors mounted, could read the instructions on how to hook up, etc. The other thing I learned is that assuming that the shortest distance between two points for running wires in the basement ceiling was not always a good idea. I found that running in the direction of the joists or across joists in a straight line (I have webbed trusses) was much easier than running diagonal. Because of this - I needed a lot more wire than I originally thought. Purchase your wire on line instead of a big box store. The cost for security wire at the big box stores was more than 3 times the cost I could get it on line. Good luck with the project

Install receptacles for outdoor holiday lighting (under eves, near doors and windows) Install multiple receptacles in the area where cell phones and PDAs will wind up in the evenings so the chargers can be plugged in. This can be in a cabinet. Install extra receptacles in the bathrooms(GFCI protected of course) so that shavers, curling irons, and blow dryers can be left plugged in rather than having frantic plugging and unplugging going on every day - ESPECIALLY important if you have several young ladies in the house. If you have towel warmers and such in addition to all the hair tools a second circuit in the main bath may be a good idea. Place receptacles in bedrooms, living room, and family room areas so you don't have to disassemble beds or furniture to access the receptacle (my favorite is the receptacle centered behind a headboard that winds up with several lights, clocks, electric blanket, etc. etc., all hooked up with extension cords) Wire the ceiling fixture boxes for a fan(fan rated box, extra wire so light and fan can be controlled separately). Put in ceiling boxes in bedrooms even if the architect has convinced you to use switched receptacles for floor or table lamps. About 2% of the work I do is installing ceiling boxes in new houses. Consider remote controlled outside lights so you can turn on lights from a keyring remote late at night, and well lit areas around all entrances including garage doors and inside the garage. Consider more than just the required outside receptacles so 100 foot extension cords aren't necessary for trimmers and such. Run conduits for extra circuits from the panel into easily accessible places in the attic and crawl space/basement. ENT, a flexible plastic conduit often called Smurf pipe or tube, is great for this. Let the builder and/or electrician know if you are even considering under cabinet lighting. If anybody owns any power tools at all make sure the garage and maybe a basement area has plenty of receptacles for them. They propagate and all need receptacles, even if battery types (chargers). Consider a central vacuum. If you are undecided put in pipe and wire in areas that will be impossible to get to without ceiling and wall damage later. Put extra receptacles in potential arts and crafts rooms.