Tonight (or this morning) I took one small step toward hardwired ethernet and phone line goodness in the house. I’ve now wired the spare bedroom directly into the downstairs office, eliminating what I hope will be the last of the connectivity problems with the remote PCs.
There is still stuff to do, like cleaning things up, painting and patching walls, and the like. But with the connection now working up and downstairs, it seems like things are on the road to networked utopia.