The basic components you will need for your home are:  residential enclosure, modular panels, cable, jacks and faceplates.   Lets start with the residential enclosure.  What is a residential enclosure?  It is a metal or plastic enclosure designed to house and secure cable terminations and networking equipment.  They are frequently referred to as "cans" by professional installers.  I will be using the term can and enclosure interchangeably throughout the rest of this article.  They are usually rectangular or square and come in a few somewhat standard sizes.   The residential enclosures come inn various heights ranging from about 14 inches to almost 4 feet.  They are usually just under 16 inches wide and just under 4 inches deep.  The reason for the standard width and depth is the cans are designed to be installed within the wall cavity of the house, usually with only the door being visible from the outside.  The standard wood from wall in a house uses 2x4 studs spaced 16 inches on center and the cans are designed to fit into the cavity between the studs.  Some commonly available vendors for residential cans are Leviton, On-Q/Legrand, and Suttle.  There are many more but these three are commonly available at Lowes, Home Depot or other home center stores.  These cans are designed to house terminating and distribution hardware as well as networking equipment.  The have an electrical outlet sized knock out in the bottom of the can to allow for the installation of a duplex electrical outlet to power your active equipment.  One great feature of these cans is they are punched with small holes in the back of the box to allow for snap-in modules to be added.  The modules usually come with plastic push pins spaced to line up with holes and can be simply snapped in place and relocated as needed, without any screws or hardware.  I know Leviton, OnQ legrand and Suttle all use standard mounting hole spacing so modules by any of these vendors are interchangeable.  For instance a leviton module will snap into an On-Q Legrand or Suttle can and vice-versa.  This gives you a lot of flexibility when it comes to selecting modules for your system.  One item to consider when selecting your enclosure is the type of door or cover on the can.  They are available with screw on covers or hinged doors.  If you are only housing passive equipment (no electrical components) and dont plan on making frequent changes to your home network, I would say go for the screw cover.  They are usually a bit cheaper.  If you will have active devices such as a switch or router which may need more frequent access, I would recommend a hinged door.  Its just easier to open the door than remove the 4 screws which secure the screw-on cover.  The doors usually come with a lock or at least have a knock for a lock that can be added.  This gives you a little more security if you don't want just anyone messing around with your network.  I typically select a Suttle can that comes standard with a hinged lockable door.  They are cheaper through my distributor (Anixter) and the quality is good.  The various enclosures prices can range from about $50 for a 14 inch high can with a screw on cover to about $200 for a 42 inch high can with a hinged door.  The can pictured here is a 28 inch high model with a screw on cover.You can see the holes in the back which the modules snap into.  The cover has a lip around the edges that covers the cut edges fo the drywall for a nice finished look.  Really your only other decision, besides the type of door for your enclosure is the height.  This should be based on how many terminations or components you plan to house in the can.  Will it be only telephone and network terminations?  Do you plan to house a router or a switch.  Will you use the same can for telecom datacom and AV?  I typically recommend the 28 inch cans unless the customer has really minimal components or has limited space.  This gives room for nice routing of your cables and the cost in not much more that the 14 inch version.  It also allows for air space around you active devices to help keep them at a cool operating temperature which is important for routers, switches and the like.

Wow this article really ended up longer than I expected.  I guess I will have to cover the cable and connectivity components in another article (or articles) at a later date.  In the mean time if you have any questions or would more specific info, just hit us up in the forum.  Check back soon for the next article in our home wiring series.