In this video I’m walking you through my distributed home network—one house, two racks, and a whole lot of intentional design decisions. I split everything between a dedicated utility rack (where the “core” lives) and a separate media rack upstairs, because I want the network to be fast, resilient, and easy to service without turning one closet into a single point of failure. I also show how I think about wiring a smart home the “right” way: prioritize Ethernet where it matters, keep the layout logical, and build it so future changes don’t turn into a weekend-long teardown. I also get into how I segment the network with VLANs so my trusted devices, IoT gear, and cameras aren’t all hanging out on the same flat network. The goal is simple: control and containment. On top of that, I talk about the local-first mindset—services that keep working even if the internet goes down—and why that matters for smart home reliability. If you’re building (or rebuilding) a home network and you want something that performs well, stays secure, and doesn’t fall apart as you add more devices, this is the blueprint for how I approach it.