Wiring your own subway

I have often wondered, as I race around the footstool and couch and basket of newspapers and floor lamp at the farthest corner of the house to answer the phone, why is the phone line installed on the fireplace? Is it so when the fireplace catches fire, the fire can call for help? Was this someone's attempt at wiring the intelligent house of the future? After researching on TOH's website, and here, I decided, I've got wire cutters, I'll go under the house and re-wire. It took the usual 6-7 project hours (never feels like a quality job unless it takes at least 6-7 hours) and two trips to Lowes. Now I have a fax machine in the office rather than on the fireplace bookshelf, and a corded phone on the kitchen wall so I can sit there, like in olden times, and talk on the phone. I made sure to call my mom to tell her what I had done.

Sometime in the past, when a cable-co. person was installing a line for the office, they guessed at the location of the wall and drilled through the living room floor instead. Rather than go back under the house and re-do the hole (oh that crawl space is nasty!) they continued to feed the cable up through the floor and drilled another hole through the wall and into the office. I removed it and paired it up with the phone cable in a correct new hole between studs and then attached a fancy new coaxial/phone line plate to the office wall. It looks like we're high-tech! And I used to be afraid of wiring. I'll use the remaining wall hole for another line in the living room, as it's a central location.

To add these outlets, I mapped out all our wiring. We have 7 phone outlets installed (only two working) and also two boxes with separate electric supplies. The house is only 1000 sq feet. You can stand at one outlet and spit to another. So why did the existing kitchen phone alone need a second phone line? Why pay monthly for another phone line when so many things around here needed fixing? Like, you know, attaching the kitchen sink drain to a drain pipe.

Phone wiring diagram, all non-right angles are the cables, including the one which circles around the eaves (see, no one else wants to go under the house either):














Then I decided to map our electric system in the attic, too, for kicks:
It's like a badly designed version of London Underground. Each color is a different circuit. The red is fabric from 1928, as is part of the blue. There are a few minor things that need to be done electric-wise, like three-way switches. Some people are afraid of sewing machines, I'm afraid of electricity. But I'm getting better.