It’s been a while since the last post on this topic, reason being not enough hrs in a day but here are random updates:

• Networking – This was one of the few decisions that I was solely in charge of and debated much with myself, asked around, and read even more but finally what I went with was a very simple solution. For the den, the family room (area where the entertainment devices will be),  a corner in the garage (for the family backup/server) and a couple of strategic points in the house I had CAT6 wires drawn. The rest of the house will be wireless and given that I have those strategic points where I can have the wireless routers placed to ensure maximum coverage I think this will be enough as there is really no place where wired network is a must have and the areas that do need it will have it. And I chose CAT 6 because it is more reliable for transmission of data than the traditional CAT 5E. For Cable, we have two sets of coax running to most areas. This way we can have internet through cable company and say TV through satellite.
• Light switches – Trivial matter yes, but a couple useful points: for bathroom fans we got timer switches instead of regular ones, that way the fan does not have be on for hrs. Also we have dimmers for most rooms which is far more useful than what you would think.
• Decisions – People ask, would you build a house again? Truthfully it has been very exhausting to make decisions on everything and anything that goes into building a house. And apparently spouses tend to get into tense situations as tastes differ, but aside from the energy and time spend on researching and deciding on things, it has been very smooth and a great learning experience. And as a side note, I notice details about other people’s house that I had never noticed in going to these houses for years, be it the color or material of window blinds to cabinet knobs etc.

Like any other project, it did feel like the last 20% of the work took 80% of the time and it did. But we are very happy with the results. Next post:  cost breakdown.