New House Blog: Episode LXXVIII - Wired!

Our New House is finally wired.  To be a little more specific, our New House finally has a wired network in place so that we don't have rely solely on our wireless network for internet connectivity.  This upgrade has allowed us to finally take full advantage of the internet speed we are paying for, and we are enjoying the significant speed increase compared to our previous setup.  The wireless network will remain in place for use with mobile devices, but for our main computers, some printers, and our Roku, the wired network will provide the best connection.  Before we go into more detail about the network upgrade project we have a cat situation update.

Cat Situation Update

You may remember from the previous Episode that we were having trouble with one of our cats, Daisy, feeling the need to claim some territory in the cat closet. In addition to feeling overly territorial, Daisy was not moving much at all.  To illustrate this, on one occasion I carried her downstairs so that she would have to move to get food, since the food was all upstairs at the time.  She spent, as far as we can tell, almost 24 hours in one spot in my office downstairs without moving, until such time as the need for sustenance took over her territorial stubbornness and she went in search of food.  Lately she is doing much better and moving around a lot, and she doesn't seem to be claiming any more territory. She still doesn't like Edgar, and she hisses and growls whenever he is near, but her behavior is much improved.  In addition to calming spray pheromones and calming food we got Daisy some pheromone-laced calming collars, and we think the collars are having the biggest effect in modifying her behavior and attitude.

Speaking of modifying, we made a final alteration to the cat closet setup, as seen in this photo.

So far this new setup is working great.














Wired! 1 - Getting Started

Obviously, the first part of any big project should be some sort of planning, and plan we did.  We decided to run cable from our internet connection, near the TV in the orange room, to Bish's office and to Becky's office.  These are the two rooms that have stationary computers and printers that would benefit from being wired.  Bish's office would get four rj-45 jacks, and Becky's office would get two rj-45 jacks, for a total run of six cables.  After planning and gathering materials we got to work cutting holes in walls (s you may be aware, I am not averse to cutting holes in our sheetrock) for the j-boxes.

This is the j-box hole in Bish's office.

This is the j-box hole in Becky's office.

This is the j-box hole near the TV in the orange room.  As you can see there was a bit of unforseen challenge with this hole.  It seems that there is a layer of plywood behind the sheetrock in this location.

Looking into the hole in the orange room.  What's that nail doing there?

Looking through the hole in Bish's office you see one corner of the bathtub in the downstairs bathroom.

Looking through the hole in Becky's office you see another corner of the bathtub in the downstairs bathroom.

After cutting the holes in the sheetrock we had to drill a couple of holes through the subfloor for the cables to pass through.











Wired! 2 - Under The House

This was the part of the project that I was least looking forward to - crawling under the house and pulling cable.  This was due, in large part, to my never having been underneath our New House before.  I've been under a coulple of houses in my life, so I kind of knew what to expect, but there's always the unknown: are there big spiderwebs, or rats, or badgers?  Are any pipes leaking? Would I see fresh termite evidence, or ant activity?  Are there any ancient pre-Bishopian artifacts for me to find?  Knowing it had to be done, under the house I went (I was on my own here - Becky had/has no desire to visit the crawlspace). My first under-house trip was to scout out the territory, see what it was like down there, and figure out where the cables would actually need to go.

There was no evidence of animal activity under the house, but there was this odd spigot tapped into one of our water lines - an unused water line that leads to a spigot outside of our sliding glass door in the back yard.  The narrow plastic tubing does not go anywhere - it's just resting in the dirt under the house.  What is the purpose of this micro-spigot?  What were the pre-Bishopians thinking when they installed it?

There was no sign of any leaking pipes or dripping water, and no sign of ants or termites. In this photo you can see where the internet/tv cable is routed into the orange room.  Look at that lovely pre-Bishopian workmanship.

As you can see, in the daytime it's not very dark or scary under our New House, and it's dry and relatively clean. It's also quite dusty.  The pipes on the left are for the downstairs bathroom.


Wired! 3 - Under The House 2

The second excursion into the crawlspace was to do the actual cable run.  Before descending again we put pull cables through the holes in Bish's and Becky's offices, and we stuffed the bundles of cables through the hole in the orange room.

Looking back toward the orange room you can see the two cable bundles - four cables for Bish's office and two cables for Becky's office.

Look at those pretty cables.

Here you can see the pull cable descending from Bish's office.

And this must be the pull cable for Becky's office.












Cute Cat Interlude

How can we not have the occasional cute cat interlude when we have such cute cats?

Wired! 4 - Termination

With all of the cable pulled it was time to mount the j-boxes, terminate the cable ends, and install faceplates.

The faceplate in Bish's Office. Yes we are aware of the blatant runs in the paint in this photo.

The faceplate in Becky's office.














Wired! 5 - The End

All that remained was to connect everything.  Patchcords were made and plugged in, and it all worked right the first time.  Hooray!

This is everything connected up and the faceplate labeled.  The cable modem is the device at the top of the picture that you can only see part of.  On the right is the 8-port switch that connects everything together.  The lower white faceplate is where the internet/tv cable comes into the orange room.

Bonus Blooms

Today's bonus blooms are brought to you by our tiger jaws succulent.

Until we meet again,
     bIsh