Much like how we were sort of compelled to re-do the laundry room at the same time as the small bathroom (click here to read up on that saga), the family room is attached to the kitchen, therefore it’s gotta be spruced up at the same time.

Luckily, it’s a simple, no-nonsense room and our plans are to merely re-do the floor in VCT to match/compliment the kitchen & office (right now it’s carpet), add corresponding window trim & baseboards, paint the beams Oxford Brown and call it done. Simple, right? Yeah… that’s what I thought.

Since we made the opening from the family room to the dining room wider, we had to replace the beam over that opening, which meant we had to expose the studs. So the sheetrock on that wall had to go.
(“the toe-bone’s connected to the foot-bone…”)
Since the sheetrock’s gone and that’s the wall we’re going to hang a flat screen TV on, wouldn’t it be smart to fix up the connections so we won’t have a bunch of wires hanging down from the TV?
(“the foot-bone’s connected to the ankle-bone…”)
And while I’m not a movie freak or audiophile, it would be kinda cool to have speakers up in the corners and maybe on the back wall for surround sound.
(“the ankle-bone’s connected to the shin-bone…)
But the back wall still has sheetrock on it… should I fish wires up from the crawlspace through the wall, or just pull that sheetrock off so it’ll match the kitchen?
(“the shin-bone’s connected to the knee-bone…)

So now I have some questions:
How much $$ will that add to our new sheetrock bill?
Shouldn’t be TOO much, the remaining sheetrock is on walls that are mostly glass. Materials: not so much. Labor: probably most of the cost.

How do I wire this stuff?
Hmmm, we had a guy from The Geek Squad (Best Buy) come take a look and he said it was a really really simple job.
– Run some speaker wire where we want the speakers (left, center & right front; left & right rear, and subwoofer)
– Put in a “clock electrical outlet” up where the TV will be (didn’t see one of those at Lowe’s)
– Put up a “full-motion” TV mount
– Position the cable, electrical & phone outlets about 2 feet off the floor so they’ll be out of sight inside the as-yet-to-be-selected media cabinet
– Position the “to speakers” and “to TV” inlets next to the outlets
– Make accommodations for RCA plugs from the Wii and HDTV PS3 system and extras for like a video camera or an iPod/computer connection

Hmmm, doesn’t sound so simple to me, so I’ll be drawing up a “media wiring” diagram and maybe it’ll seem more doable.