Jumped back into the server tonight and did more wiring. It was a good night to work on this because the baby was awake from 9:30 PM - 3:00 AM, so not a lot of sleeping going on in our household.
I finally finished messing around with wiring! Now i just need to put down blocks to clean up how everything looks and you all can check it out!
Finally learned why you get so much Redstone -- basically what I built isn't even super complex, and I used about 5 stacks of the stuff. I actually had to run over and steal some from Pump's house to finish.
It was fun, but I'm about ready for some good old fashioned minin' before I do another project.