I know this subject has been flogged to death, but most of the previous threads I've found seem to deal with going for a full rewire of the house, whereas I'm looking to do something a wee bit simpler and so am looking for recommendations\advice:

Basically I want to switch to gigE and while I'm doing it run cat5e cables to 3\4 points in my house. 1 into living room for HTPC\xbox (possibly 2 since they are separate), 1 for a computer in study and 1 to a computer in upstairs master bedroom. 

I don't really want to put too many holes in the walls\gib or regib anything, it's double story so cables can't really go in the roof and no under floor space - so I'm looking at running the cables externally - the design of the house (lower level is brick facade and up level is wooden panelling) means there is a convenient overhang to run cables beneath on the outside - i.e. along the bottom of the upper level. This has already been done for alarm and satellite dish cable and looks ok from the outside.

At the same time I wonder if it's worth getting a master filter installed and moving my modem\router to a small cupboard under the stairs. I think this is closest to where the phone cable comes into the house. The "mushroom" is just outside our fence on the road and on the corner of the house closest to the mushroom it looks like there's a phone line coming up out of the ground straight through the wall into the house; I haven't found an ETP box of any kind and suspect it may go straight from there to the first phone jack point, is that a possibility?

I would probably just get a cheap gigE switch and put it under the stairs along with modem if I can move it there with the master filter install. Then have the 3\4 cables discussed plugged straight into that and not bother with flush boxes or anything like that - just straight to RJ45 connectors and plugged directly into the switch\computers discussed above.

So now I guess the question is, any holes or issues with this plan?  And what will I need? My initial list:

1) I think around 150 metres of cat5e cable
2) RJ45 connectors
3) RJ45 crimping tool
4) TL-SG1005D switch

And questions:

1) Does the cat5e cabling need to be the outdoor grade stuff? The overhang where I plan to put it is partially sheltered from the elements. How fast does the normal cabling degrade?
2) Is it likely that the house has no ETP box? It was built in the early eighties I believe, and I suspect hasn't been rewired since.
3) Will my thomson TG585v7 be alright for this setup or should I look at replacing it as well?
4) Anything I've missed or should do differently? :)