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All I wanted to do was have a network connection in the living room for gaming console use. I could purchase a series of wireless adapters for each console, but that would cost nearly $200, and be limited to just the consoles. Wiring would be faster, more secure, cost less, and be available to anything I might want to jack-in. Gaming begat networking. I would also consider it a home improvement to run network cable to various rooms in the house, because I would be happy to move into a pre-networked house. But as-installed by the Verizon tech, the only place to connect the router in the house was our current office — the room that will one day become a child's bedroom. "No need to let things get out of hand," I thought, "let's just cross bridges as we come to them." So the plan was to run a network cable up through the wall along the coax TV cable into the attic, 10 feet across the attic floor, and down into the wall separating the office and master bedroom. From there, I would punch a hole in the office wall, install a junction box, and punch-down a jack on either end, and install nice face plates with the Cat5 jacks for network cable. All in all, a pretty simple project. Trip #1 to Home Depot: Bought 100ft of CAT5, a pair of RJ45 wall jack cable ends, a junction box, and a pair of face plates; one with 2 holes – coax & CAT5 for the living room, and one with 1 hole – CAT5 for the office. Except the TV coax doesn't go up into the attic. It comes up through the floor. (In hindsight, I should have checked this before going to Home Depot and buying that stuff. At least I can return it.) This posed an entirely new problem. There was nowhere in the basement to wire a new cable into the network. It's a straight shot from the ONT on the side of the house, through the outside wall, across the basement ceiling, through the garage, and up into the office. Since we're now talking about a more significant project, wifey and I agreed that we should do what would be the most future-proof. "So… I'll cut the cable running across the basement ceiling, crimp on a pair of RJ45's, and we'll mount the router down in the basement. Then we can run the network cable down through the floor just like the coax, and across the basement ceiling to the router." This plan leaves the cable running up to the office in place for continued use, as well as allowing me to run another cable from the router's new location across the basement floor and up into the living room, and we'll still have wireless access from the entire house. Not only that, but it would also be a piece of cake to run another cable over to the planned location for our office after said baby arrives. But we don't have any RJ45's. And since I'm splicing into a taut cable along the ceiling, I have about one and a half inches of give to decide where to mount the router; but there's no electrical outlet within 15 feet. There is, however, a light switch in what would be the perfect location for an electrical outlet, not only for the router, but also for the new freezer. And that light switch? Has never worked correctly. It's supposed to be a 3-way switch, that you can use to turn the basement lights on or off from either the top of the stairs or the bottom; but in both its ON and OFF positions, the lights stay on. Only if you balance the switch in the middle does it actually turn the lights off. The thing is nigh worthless. Networking begat Electrical work. Trip #2 to Home Depot: Bought a 25-pack of RJ45's, and an electrical socket and face plate to replace the light switch. I replaced the light switch with the electrical socket, which worked just ducky. Finally, something was going my way. I crimped an end onto the other end of my 100ft cable to test it for connectivity before cutting it to length (arguably the one thing I did right!), and this too was just ducky. Things were looking up. Until we realized that the basement lights now won't turn off at all. And my crimper has bent teeth and has become an expensive cable cutter and stripper. And when did I find this out? After crimping an end onto the cable that only had one and a half inches of room to play to begin with. Since the newly crimped end was worthless, I had no choice but to cut it off, and then it wouldn't reach the router any more. And the wall I want to run my network cable through? Is filled with foam. New plan? Extend the shortened cable, drill a hole under the baseboard for the CAT5, and talk to someone trained in the electrical art about that switch/socket. Trip #3 to Home Depot: Bought a crimper, and a CAT5 coupler to extend my newly too-short cable. While searching for a Home Depot employee slash electrician to advise me on the whole lights-not-turning-off issue, ran into a friendly customer who explained that his father is an Electrician and might be able to help me out. Tony (his dad) listened to me explain the problem and when he explained the solution and I probably looked like he had just explained "Quantum Physics In A Nutshell" to me, offered to stop by later that afternoon to check it out. His rate was reasonable, so we agreed. Electrical work begat an Electrician. Tony ended up fixing the wiring on the switch, as well as adding the electrical socket I purchased; and put them on their own 20 amp circuit because of the intended use (freezer). He gave me a heckuva deal on his labor because he's new to the area and building up a client base, so between time and materials, he only charged me $100. In the end, I have to admit that I had fun. The last time I did any home networking was either the time I was running cable in my parents' crawl-space getting covered in mud, or running cable in my parents' attic and smashed my head on exposed roofing nails and dripped blood everywhere. There weren't any injuries or extreme messes this time, and the living room is networked. I'd call that a success.