I ran all of the low-voltage when we finished the basement. I didn’t do the lights or electrical, other than picking locations. Electrical work makes me anxious, and with the timeline we had for getting things done I decided there would be better times to learn electrical.
The in-wall conduit is just a nicely sized (about 6 inches) gap between two studs that was perfectly located. I’ve got low voltage boxes in it on top, bottom, and at keyboard height. Top and bottom have https://www.monoprice.com/Product?p_id=3997 as wall plates. Middle doesn’t have a plate yet, but will have a brush plate like https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=21629 soon.
There are 4 network connections in the room. I went way over the top when running ethernet around the house, since this was pretty much the only chance I was going to have. 4 Cat 6 runs per room, plus 2 to the projector in the family room. 34 runs total. Only 3 are in use today, but I’m ready.
Part of my reasoning in running 4 is that you can send HDMI over 2 Cat 6 lines (sometimes 1 line, but that’s been less reliable in my experience), so I wanted to have the ability to have a central hub that could send video to every room. I also ran 6-strand fiber for future-proofing because I got a deal on a 300 foot spool which was enough to reach every room that I’d already run ethernet to.
We want to live in this house til our kids move out (college or otherwise), which figures to be at least 18 years from now (youngest is 5 months old), so I figured that if I amortized the cost over that time it cost me only a few bucks a year to do all of this.
I posted previously about my server rack setup: