OK, I've been searching and searching, and thinking and thinking. I would like to get some more input before I make any rash decisions.

Over the weekend I attempted to wire my living room with 16awg wiring, as well as my entire house with networking cable for networking and HDMI transport.

Once I started drilling in my attic, I found very quickly that there are horizontal studs/slats every 4.5', making it impossible to get a straight drop.

End Goal:
The obvious end goal is to have the house cleanly and professionally wired. I plan on having a Cat6 drop in every room (2 in the office) and 6 endpoints coming together into the office, as well as have all 7 speakers for the home theater mounted to a wall or ceiling plugging into a relatively close banana-plug face plate (to make future speaker swaps easier, and I think it looks a LOT more professional)

Considered Options:
I've considered ripping out the drywall, and placing a PVC piping in the the horizontal slats as to make future endeavors effortless, but I'm worried about the cost (drywall costs, all the materials involved, as well as re-texturing the entire wall to make it look seamless).

Options that are not considerable:
- Routing through AC Ducts... Just... Hell no...
- Routing under the carpet: I have seen this done countless times, and I hate it every time... I don't want wires coming up from the carpet and up the wall; I want a clean jack in the wall. I also hate seeing carpet "bubble" up or have a ton of slack in it because it wasn't properly stretched and re-tacked.

Conclusion:
I'm pretty aware that I'm being stubborn about the routing issues I'm having, but I can't justify any other approach. Can anyone speak to my considerations, and supply me with any tips? I'm uncertain if ALL rooms have this unfortunate side-effect of having a well-built house; but I am absolutely certain that it dissappointed the hell out of me when I had 4 friends over and we couldn't get jack-squat to happen cuz of some horizontal studs.

Positive criticism/suggestions only please - I'm looking to do it RIGHT.

That's why they make extra long wood auger bits... they have somewhat flexible shafts and you can add an extender shaft to get down (or up) inside the walls. I've got one that's about 4ft long. They sell them at all the box stores like Home Depot or Lowe's.

Best of luck.

Your walls have a header...a footer...and fire breaks...I pressume this is an older residence...You can try the long flex bits with an extension...or you can make some drywall cuts which would be much cheaper than ripping out all the drywall...If you lived in my area I would come and wire the place up for you for a fee...

I ran into a similar problem in my recent build, which involved installing an outlet, two light switches and a speaker jack in a wall that used to be the outside wall of my house. The header and sill for the windows that used to be in the wall were in my way.

I ended up cutting smaller holes in my drywall, like 2" wide by 6" high, right above the header and sill, with about 1" of overlap onto the wood (so I could put the cutouts back with a drywall screw). Then I could drill through the structures with a regular spade bit. When I ran my wires the holes gave me a little place to get a finger hold on the wire to guide it along.

It would have been easier to have had the bit extender and fish tape, but for the few wires I was running it would have taken longer to get to the Depot and back to buy the tools than just to do it like I did. Besides I was doing a ton of patching/repair on the drywall anyway, a couple more holes didn't matter.

Thanks for the input guys, but there's a few things I need to clarify.

1) 4ft is only about 1/4-1/5th the distance I need to go; My ceiling is 25 feet high, and these horizontal boards are about every 4-5 feet. I would be weary of trying to align a 20 foot bit (lol, as if one existed that's not an attachment for an oil drill!)

2) The house was built in Dec '06, so the house is (imo) brand-spanking new (although I'm the 2nd owner, prev owner was re-located - no wisecracks about having the builder do this!).

3) What I'm most fearful of, is cutting up the drywall and having all these sections that aren't seamless to the wall... I'm not concerned about cutting the drywall and replacing it, that's tried and true these days.. A bit of spackle, some spackle-tape, smooth it out, and done... BUT - I have a very open floor plan [link (http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc191/klrspz/grill.jpg)] and feel that it would be necessary to re-texture the entire wall. But if I did that, I'd need to re-texture EVERY wall within visible sight, as I don't want them to mis-match to the naked eye... That's something I don't have the budget for (afaik), nor the time/patience.

~ Feeling Hopeless

Is your drywall textured? If it is and you don't know how to recreate the effect, then just hire a pro. Trust me when I say that drywall repair is very easy to blend. Getting the paint right is an entirely different matter, but there the worse care is repainting just that one wall so the sheen matches.

25ft high AND there is an attic above that!???:eek: The easiest way is from underneath...the basement or crawl space...No worries about fire breaks then...

@Cathan, Yes it's textured, and that might be a bit soothing to hear that it's easy to blend drywall. I'm not afraid to give it a go - just that I didn't want to get all the tools and materials and waste money for nothing; I don't mind re-painting the entire wall (was actually planned anyway). It appears to be Orange Peel texture, which seems pretty commonplace.

@splicer, eh yeah didn't mention this is in Texas, we don't have basements, and hardly have crawl spaces.. I'm not a concrete slab...

@Cathan, Yes it's textured, ... It appears to be Orange Peel texture, which seems pretty commonplace..

Then very easy to blend. I believe the pro's just use a squirt bottle with the texture substance, spritz the repaired spot a few times and let it dry. Easier then a totally flat surface. My parents just had drywall work done and have the same texture. My dad said it took his painter guy 30 seconds the blend it perfectly.

Seriously, just run the cables how you want and just spend a couple hundred to hire a drywall guy to patch. :)

Hmmm... I have the nack to try things myself...

When we did my dad's house, we used a hopper and a compressor, but we were also doing the entire HOUSE, not just patches...

Part of me is thinking to re-do the entire wall..

I think it's 23'x17' (391 sqft). Might have to do some shopping soon :S

That's the spirit! :)

Although part of me still thinks you're crazy to redo an entire wall instead of just the patch spot. ;)

thought i replied.. guess not... yeah i mean to retexture the entire wall, not rip it down :)

Yep, that's what I thought you meant. :)

So my dad was telling me about some drill bit his buddy has that takes extensions, and they can get to about 10 feet or longer... anyone familiar with what these are called?

Doesn't sound familiar...Other than a flex bit and an extension...Maybe the extension is 6' long??? Personally I would make the dry wall cuts since your options are so limited...Much easier...more accurate...to do what you want to do...

OK So I never updated this thread... Figured I would since I was cleaning my subscribed threads, and also considered that someone might have the same situation as mine.

It turns out they do make drill bits that are extremely long; anywhere from 2 feet to 10 feet. Also turns out, my Dad had a set that we could use... Schweet!

Some of the walls were too close to the outter edge that there were two issues completely stopping us from getting other rooms networked:
1) The insulation on exterior walls have a moisture barrier, and we didn't want to damage that as it can potentially cause damage to interior dry-wall
2) My master bedroom, and the other Jack n Jill bedrooms were on the outter edge of the house, and the roof doesn't go too much higher (about 4 feet above the attic); so there's no room to be able to guide the drill bit into the wall. Even the 2 footer had issues fitting when attached to the drill; and that was just an attempt to start a hole so we could try to slightly bend the drill-bit rod to get it to fit.. But we couldn't. So we didn't. Which sucks.

So those rooms have to be wireless, but hey, at least my HTPC in the living room is gigabit now :)

For those that are looking, here's a site of these drill-bits I found, but they have similar at Home Depot and Lowes: http://www.telephoneparts.com/product/Tools/Drill+Bits

Also, check out the link in my sig to see pics of the completed setup.

On my next house, we're building it, and I'm getting this all done on build. Our house is only 2 years old, but we didn't build it, and whoever actually physically put it together used a LOT of wood and nails... Part of me is grateful cuz I don't feel like my house will just blow over, but part of me is irritated cuz it makes mods like this extremely difficult.

Drywall although messy and heavy is very easy to work with. Even falt ceiling are fairly easy but time consuming. At least get a few quotes.