Here's what I did when we built our house about 10 years ago: I ran a bundled cable containing 2 cat5 and 2 coax to each bedroom, the kitchen, my office and th

Here's what I did when we built our house about 10 years ago: I ran a bundled cable containing 2 cat5 and 2 coax to each bedroom, the kitchen, my office and the family room. Even with wireless it's nice to be able to put another access point in pretty much any room. I did additional single cat5 runs to various places where I didn't think I'd need all four. Today I'm not sure the coax is still justified, but it has been handy for satellite. Now, I'd at least run several cat6 to each location and just leave it in the wall. I ran speaker wire everywhere, every room including the garage, outside for the deck, even the laundry room. It's just sitting in the walls/ceiling in most places still, but I add a new "node" occasionally. For the music nodes, I have a bunch of airport express units in the basement where all the wiring terminates. They're not running in wireless mode, just plugged into a gigabit switch with a single channel amp hanging off each one. I got several of them refurb here (apple has them refurb too): http://www.cowboom.com/product/160235 http://www.cowboom.com/product/160235 These are the little amps (they have various wattages): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001P2VV50 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001P2VV50 You can spend as much as you want on speakers, but I usually go for the cheap ones since they're generally just for background music anyway. That lets me put in a new node for under $150. Here are some cheap bics that I have in a couple of rooms: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0008MFIFM http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0008MFIFM Also: - take pictures/video of all your open walls so you can find your wire - label all your wiring at both ends