Yes, many ways to slice this pie. For someone not familiar with networking, and building a new house, it is most likely easiest to run an Ethernet line from a central location where you want a DVR to any location you want a camera. That is probably the simplest setup that will work.

Otherwise, there are so many ways to slice this. POE only powers the cameras. It doesn't need to be on the entire run from DVR to camera. So you could have one Ethernet from the DVR to a POE switch somewhere closer to the cameras and then run Ethernet lines from the POE switch to each camera. You could also use standard switches without POE and use POE injectors (which plug into standard 120 VAC receptacles) anywhere along the line after the first switch that the POE cameras connect to. Most "cheaper" switches will not pass POE through so the POE injector would have to be between the switch and the camera. Also, most POE injectors, and the Ethernet cable for that matter, can only support 1, maybe 2 cameras. So you can't say put one POE injector before the switch that feeds 8 cameras because that switch likely won't pass POE through, and the POE injector can't supply that much power.

You need to have an understanding of what each piece in the puzzle can do to fully understand the many ways you can put this together. It's not really a matter of you can or can't do something, but rather what can the equipment you intend to use do.

I was hoping you'd appear with an MS Paint diagram :)

Who? Me? Yea, you don’t want to see my MS Paint skills