Last Christmas (December 2010) our Christmas gift to ourselves was a new 42" LCD for our Kitchen. We attached our little netbook to this TV, along with a nice bluetooth keyboard so you can surf from the bar in our kitchen while PIPing TV. We also put a Ikea desk in the eating area with a desktop PC.
But both of these were running off of our wireless network, which seems a little flaky and slow. Plus, the TV had wires dropping down to plug in the wall.
This Christmas, with the help of my little brother Paul, we did a little work...
We ran HDMI and VGA cables down from the TV through the wall. This hid the cables so they are not as noticeable from the TV. They come out from the bar by a bookshelf where the DVR and netbook sit. We also ran Cat5 from the den stack to this area so that we could put a router in the kitchen. We ran Cat5 from the bookshelf under the house and over to the desk. To power the TV and DVR without obvious wires, we added two power outlets, one behind the TV and one behind the bookshelf. Both are run off the power outlet inside the bar.
So basically, we had to put in five new boxes, including two new power boxes. Cables had to run down inside the wall from behind the kitchen TV, under the sink, and out on top of the bookshelf.
Paul spent a lot of time under the sink, helping pull wires. Thanks Paul!
PS, last year we dropped our Tivo and went with Time Warner signature dual DVR system. I hate the interface on the Cistco TWC boxes, but you get a lot of HD channels, on demand, and it works a lot more than the Tivo did. They also do our phone now, along with internet and cable.
