When you are a part of a family, you do you best to contribute in ways that make life better, safer, funner. When you have some skill at woodworking (not saying that I have much more than some), you also get roped into non-woodworking projects like plumming, painting, carpentry and such.
This weekend, I spent time doing a higher tech version of those kind of projects. Our home is very tech. Over the many years we’ve lived here, I have worked to create an elaborate (though amateur) video distribution system including TV/Video signals and Security Cameras. I’ve also put in a higher quality phone system than what was originally here. Lastly, I wired the house with Cat5 cable for my computer network. In fact, my computer network is probably more capable than many small business and includes 3 routers, 2 16 port switches all capable of Gigabit speeds.
My younger son’s (Mitchell) computer was using wireless for it’s connection but we found that even though it was 802.11n it still wasn’t as quick as his brothers so I put a network port near his computer which required running cable from my patch panel to the wall next to his station. The patch panel is in the attic and the wall’s access was in the crawl space so it was a lot of fun. Doing it mostly by myself, it took about 2 hours (thanks to my wife, Kathy for the final feed).
Also, my music station was wired but it had a long cable coming from another port on the other side of the room so it wasn’t a very professional looking setup. This was a little easier than my sons because I had access to the wall in the attic. Of course, easier this way has a down side. Feeding a cable from the attic to an outlet height is a trial and error process. It’s not hard but takes time (thanks again Kathy). This also took about 2 hours with most of it doing the trial and error (or so it seemed).
I put 2 cat5 and 1 RG6 cable to each outlet to allow for some minor growth or change in the future. I would have probably put more RG6 and maybe a voice cable for telephone but that would have required a 2nd run to each location (I only have so many sets of cable run).
I still have to fix some drywall (first coat is on) near the outlet for my sons computer station but all connections are done.
