Help me design a whole house sound system

[StarGehzer]

I'd like to install a wired sound system in my 1200 sq ft house.
The plan I have in mind is to use 'computer' 2.1 speaker systems in each room. (Living rm., Kitchen, Den, Workshop, Rec. rm., Garage, Patio)
This means I need 7 sets of spkrs. Each will have an On/Off & Volume control. Assume about 50ft. of wire to each set of spkrs.
I want to be able to turn on any or all speakers.
From the music source, I will be able to turn everything up or down, otherwise, I'll have to go from room to room to adjust volume.

The music source will be a MP3 player.
I'm guessing I'll need some kind of amplifier or receiver but I'm not sure so thats why I've come to this site.

How can I hook this up?
Can I make up a splitter box with 1 imput & 7 outputs?

Note: I bought & tried to do this using wireless speakers. Unfortunetly my home is constructed of Plaster walls with a wire mesh & wireless does not seem to work very well.
I'm looking for decent FM quality sound as a minimum. I'm not expecting audiophile sound quality.

Any help welcomed.

[PHiX]

I can't really help you, but please make sure you get a decent set of speakers in at least one room!

[The Tahitijack]

You will need more than 50 feet of wire for each speaker. I have never been to your house but trust me on this. Measure twice and add 6 feet at each end as "contingency".

Can you wire the speakers from the source through your attic?

Can you run wire inside the walls to each volume control?

I suggest the following

Two (2) 100w/channel stereo recievers (Yamaha, Sony, Onkyo or similar)
Use two 8" JBL, Invfinity, Boston Acoustic or similar brand speakers in each room. A subwoofer in each room would be nice but very complicated to install.
Budget minimum $200/per pair for speakers more if possible.
Two (2) speaker selection switch boxes. Nils makes a 4 speaker box. The most I have seen is a Studio Acoustics 6 speaker box.
Seven (7) speaker volume controls one for each toom .

There are seveal option this is my suggestion

Connect the MP3 player to one of the recievers and connect stereo line out from that reciever to stereo line in of the other reciever.

Connect speaker wire from 1st reciever to 1st switch box and connect speaker wire from 2nd reciever to 2nd switch box. (4 pair on 1st, 3 pair on second)

From each speaker switch box wire the pairs to each room speaker control. The controls do not need op/off switches as the lowest volume will be silent. Then run wire from each volume control to the room speaker for that room.

Its important to start off with the reciever volume at the lowest postion and the room controls and each room volume control at 25%. Then slowly increase reciever volume unti music is playing. Then you can tweek room level and reciever levels to reach a point where the volume is at listening level but without distortion. The idea here is to leave the recievers at a constant setting and only adjust each room control. The ideal is that both recivers are identical so that only one remote is necessary.

Due to the potential of overloading the reciever I do not recommend you use on reciever and the Audio Source switcher (6 pairs on the box connected to the A set of speaker out and 1 pair connected to the B set of speaker out)

I hope some of this makes sence.....

My best advice for this "do it yourself" project? Hire a professinal audio installer.