Wiring the Office

This is the guest room [formerly Robb's room]. The idea was to cut a hole in the wall, drill up to the attic, then run wire from basement into the guest room, up to the attic, then back down to office.

I have cut the hole! You can see the telephone wire (which is not hooked up, not operational, and not useful in any way, shape, or form) sitting there. I hope to run a cable tv and a cat5 wire up next to it.

The hole is too small to just run the wires up with what we've got.

Here's what we've got so far.

Here's happy result number one : my cut along the left side just happened to be flush with the stud. Awesome.

Happy item number 2 : the other side was flush too. Awesome.

I had to extend the cut to fit the drill in there.

and now half of me is covered in sawdust.

I was drilling, and reached the range of my drillbit, and still hadn't made it into the attic, so I had to but an extender piece. So I bought one, attached it, drilled for a tiny bit, broke it, and watched the broken bit fall down behind the wall. That was less awesome. So I got these parts which claimed to be quite a bit nicer.

Right about now is when I realized that I was drilling into one of the tresses, and that's why I wasn't making it into the attic. Less than awesome again. So I decided to give up on that and just widen the telephone cord hole, since I didn't need that for the phone line anyway.

A few seconds later I had my hole, and a bunch of telephone wire wrapped around my bit.

Here's what was around when I moved in... 3 boxes in the wall, one for cable TV (directly in from outside), one for Telephone (not hooked up and totally didn't work), and one for electric (on a different level from the floor than both of the other two plates. I've split the cable TV and run cat5 through a stud splitting the TV and telephone (now Ethernet) box.

Now I've run two cat5 and the cable TV up to the opening above.

Here's where the TV (there when I moved in) and cat5 (I just added) runs into the room. I sealed around both openings afterwards, and hopefully all will be well with that forever.

And here you see they run down the pipe, and into the basement.

And here in the basement they collect with every other wire ever made and form some sort of intricate network.

How to cap cat5 wire. underline means stripe.

And here in my basement the newly capped cat5 hits the switch, and my servers.

Back in the room, all the wires have been tested and seem to work well, so it's time to close up.

Step 1: connections and plates for all the boxes.

step 2: insulation.

step 4: Venture into the attic again. Note the ping-pong paddle scar on my nose. I almost knocked myself out.

On to step 5: patching the hole. This here is a piece of drywall I used some time ago to patch the wall on the main floor. Note that narrow section that extends at the top there...

happy item number 3 : I kid you not, it fit in there exactly flush. It was perfect.

Piece in place. Time for mudding and sanding.

First pass.

Second pass.

Third pass, and we're pretty pleased. I didn't want it to crack or look bowed, so I took my time with it.

Taped off and ready for painting.

Coat one.

I fixed up the hole at the bottom filled in some gouges, and painted here as well.

Second coat, and we're looking good.

Plates in place. There was no way to make them line up without doing a ton of work, so I skipped that part.

Now I just needed to let it dry.

All done, and pretty.

And this here is my office, where I now have wired internet and TV.... unless you are my boss, and then I only have internet.

And here's the wire collection in my office. It rivals my basement.

I had finished my [somewhat] frequent trips into the attic, and plan on my next major project involving the attic including a task to create a new entry point to the attic (hidden stairs kinda thing) So I could finally complete my bedroom closet [where the current attic entry point is hidden]

And... project done. It did not take long.

Looks at all those colors. Vacation Over'd!