First, the disclaimers. Although I am relatively computer savvy, I am
not a networking expert (that will be obvious if you read the rest of
this post). Also, I have read several postings that appear to be
trying to get a similar setup working to what I am describing... those
posts are enlightening, but I am going at this more from a greenfield
approach rather than trying to fix something that I already have.

Quickly, what I want is a wired network for my desktop machines with a
wireless access point hanging off of that. I have had way too many
problems with wireless routers as the center of the network in the
past: some were stable, but would not pass my work VPN; some were
unstable and required constant recycling; some worked ok, but only
within a short radius. Because of this, I have decided that the center
of my network will be wired.

That said, I still need occasional wireless access. My thoughts were
to have a wireless access point hang off the wired router. The AP
needs to be placed well away from the router to have it placed
appropriately to provide reasonable coverage.

I would like all machines that connect via the wireless AP to have
access to the machines that are connected via the wired network (appear
as one single network) and vice versa to facilitate file and printer
sharing etc.

Once the network is reliable, I plan to introduce a NAS and start
trying out video streaming, VOIP and other network heavy applications
that demand reliable connections.

Some particulars if they are needed:
- I have a mix of different OSs on my network currently: WinXP, Mac
OSX, Linux and Win Mobile 5.0. Plan to introduce XBox 360 to the mix
soon.
- My budget is not huge, but if something would bring about a
corresponding increase in reliability (capacity, speed, etc) to the
price increase, I would tend to lean that way.
- I use DSL (BellSouth) to connect the network to the internet.

I have several questions that I hope someone can help me with:
- First, does this setup makes sense or should I be trying to handle
this in another way (just don't suggest using a wireless router as the
center of the network... I want the reliability that wired ethernet
brings)
- Does anyone have an example of a working setup like this that I can
emulate? I have no problem being told what to do if it removes
headaches ;-)
- Does anyone have opinions on hardware selection?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.

Bill