I finally found a wireless transceiver pair and a open source platform that worked well with Arduino. Here's the project write up. In it, you'll find wireless fire/smoke sensors, sound sensor, laundry room washer/dryer completion notifier. The platform also can control things like Sonos speakers, z-wave locks, and a couple other commercial smart devices.
Here's a link to the tutorial:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Uber-Home-Automation/
