structured wiring part two.

It's raining now I can hear outside the window. Sitting on the couch next to it. Wasn't raining a couple hours ago when I ran out to the garage. Thankfully didn't really rain all weekend. It was nice. A light light sprinkle maybe wandering around downtown Seattle Friday night but we didn't have rain shells and it was fine.

So today I set out to finish the first stage of this structured wiring business. It was supposed to be a relatively simple ordeal - last night I had spent an hour or so down in the basement closet on a ladder crimping Cat 5e connectors to the ends of all the cables I had run -

To run the cables into the house I had used a piece of scrap PVC plumbing, drilled through the drywall from in the crawlspace and caulked around the PVC to hold it in there.

But then the first thing I discovered this afternoon when I set out to start was that all the patch cables I already own were wired the Type B way while I had arbitrarily decided to wire all of my stuff (ports and crimped connectors both) Type A. Good times. Should have checked beforehand. Duh.

Oh well, so that meant I had to rewire all the ports. Then cut off all the connectors I fastened last night and redo. Not the worst thing I guess. So this is what the one in Julian's bedroom looked like (labeling and all) after rewiring and with that decora quickport plate -

The two blanks will likely be RG6 cable in/out.

But once all that was done, I tested - made some more patch cables with my crimping tool, double-checked the ports and the connectors, etc. etc. etc. Had to run two surge protectors cos of the stupid transformer plugs for the two switches, router/switch and modem (cos I also needed to plug in the backup drive and Mac servers) and then I started plugging everything in -

I had drilled a 2" hole in the shelf to stuff all the cables through and then back up - as opposed to cutting them off to length (I had guessed how much I needed when doing the cabling for each run - better to have too much than get all the way across the house and realize I didn't have enough). That way I have extra cable if I ever need it (and with, well, all my shirts back on that side of the closet that wiring mess is pretty well hidden anyway) -

In order to accommodate two Mac servers and a monitor (which is probably something like a hundred pounds), I had to get creative ... the height between the shelf and the ceiling was perfect in that it was just enough room to fit a G4 tower, but that meant I couldn't reinforce it with some 2x4s underneath (cos that would raise it an inch and a half and then the G4s wouldn't fit). So I drilled and found some studs (I could see the crap drywall tape and nails giving away where they were) to secure some shelf brackets underneath and help support the weight of all the computer gear -

Then it was just a matter of heaving them up there and connecting the firewire backup drive to the main server (Titanium) and both it and the backup/auxiliary server Radon (my former Logic workhorse) to the switch -

(where I spent cramped up most of the day ... )

The monitor is up there for now, but likely won't stay. I can control both the Macs via a VNC client on my laptop so they don't need a keyboard/mouse or monitor. So now everything is humming down there instead of, well, in my bathroom. It sounds much more natural to hear the sound of hard drives spinning away in a closet.

And, uhh, someday I'll have my actual bedroom closet back and - well - won't have to use this one anymore. I'm just happy not to have to step on/over the cable that ran from the bathroom out to the living room corner that I had gotten used to doing for the last year or two. Good times.

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So the really frustrating part of the day came when I went to connect the Mac Mini and it - uhh, didn't work. It said the ethernet cable wasn't connected. But. It. Was.

So I tested the same port/cable configuration on Julian's iMac. Worked fine. And the LG ethernet TV. Ditto. So WTF.

As in - WTF!!!???

Ooh boy.

Oh, and the new G5 ... same thing. No ethernet cable even though it was connected. And with the whole Type A/Type B fiasco it took me longer than it should have to realize maybe it was an OS deal instead of maybe me mis-wiring one of the ports or connectors. But finally I Googled around and discovered pretty quick people on the Apple forums complaining about the same problem - an unconnected ethernet cabled despite it being plugged in.

And after perusing some of the responses it looked like the resolution was to manually dumb down the port from gigabit (1000BaseT) to 100BaseT. But why? I have gigabit switches ... and all my Macs were set up on gigabit before. The only thing that I changed now is instead of the wires running directly from each switch to each Mac - now they run from the switch to a port, and then a patch cable from the port to each machine.

I have no idea ... I'm going to be Googling some more to find out why cos it sorta irks me. I want gigabit. But oh well. Reminded myself even though the day was sorta crappy cos of that, a crappy day for me would be a stellar one for far too many people ... always try to keep some perspective.

And I know I've said I hate plumbing but - I think I hate networking even more. Or at least as much. And when I said how I hated plumbing I mentioned how I never use that word. Except for plumbing. And now for networking.

And by no means is this finished - I plan on installing an actual panel for this stuff, and like I said I still have more Cat 5 and RG6 and possibly speaker wires to run ... but the stuff is out of the bathroom now so I can get to gutting the rest of it. That'll be fun! No, really.

structured wiring part one.

So I have been meaning to get around to starting this little networking project for some time now. Last spring I think it was I bought a 500' spool of RG6 and a thousand foot box o' Cat 5E cable (and subsequently found probably another 300' or so at a garage sale the following week which I picked up for something like five bucks). And the crimpers and everything etc. etc. But then it sat and collected dust cos, well, there were bigger fish to fry.

But with the remodel of our Jack and Jill bath looming, I need to get the - uhh, networking sh*t out of the, uhh - bathroom. So, our current networking solution -

G4 server with Apple LCD/keyboard/etc., OWC backup firewire drive, cable modem/router and switches. Oh, and our printer. Yeah, that's right - sitting in the bathtub (that's going to be gone, along with the windows and in its place a beautiful Kohler jetted tub with granite deck and paneling and ... ). And a scanner and other various things lying about in this room that I half-gutted like three years ago and then let it sit. It's slightly embarrassing. But it's going to hopefully be beautiful but that's for another post. Don't get me started.

Anywhoo, I needed to get the computer crap out of there. Which meant crawling under the house, likely a big reason why I had not been all that motivated - up until now with being forced to - to get the structured wiring underway. But after a long-ish day and most of it done, I can say it really wasn't all that bad. Thanks a ton to my little helper who saved me hours of headache cos I could sit under the house after drilling holes up through the sole plates of the walls feeding him cable after cable and he'd yank them up and label each one and then tape them to the wall -

Since my house sits pretty high it's quite spacious under there, and someone had the foresight to install a light fixture so I just sat in the dirt waiting for Julian to finish labeling each cable before feeding him another. I had to get creative with some, but nothing a handy fishtape could not solve. So after it started to get dark, I was pretty much wrapped having gotten cable from the living room and Julian's room (the two rooms needing to be cabled right away) and got the cable dropped (as in video cable for our internet connection) from my bedroom down through the basement ceiling (thanks fishtape!) over to the basement closet where I ran all the other networking cables today (where the electrical panel is) and where all that stuff now in the bathroom will live -

And then once all the cables were run from the various rooms (there's still another set of four Cat 5E runs to make in the front living room corner, a set of four from my bedroom, and some more cable and possible audio/video - speaker wire and such - runs to be made but that's for another day and now that I know it's not too terrible and I have access to everything I need it won't be bad), I got to work splicing the ports onto the ends of each cable (thanks Katie for immortalizing this moment haha) -

(and still planning on getting that Gator rack case for the audio/video equipment and moving it to a different location, then mounting the TV on the wall above where the white paneling will be ... )

I wrote out a schematic for all the runs and ports I am planning on (for now, the diagram will get more complicated as I add in the cable/audio/video stuff) and just went off that and the labels Julian and I had taped to each cable -

It was a simple matter. I ordered these Leviton decora quickport adaptors for electrical boxes where - instead of placing a single low-voltage wall box - I was adding the ports to where an outlet already existed. And I'm cutting out the old, single-gang box and replacing with a double-gang with the quickport adaptors. Easy peasy.

And yeah, I feel accomplished. Finally I can get a proper spot for our networking stuff - and I've got a big chunk of the groundwork laid for any further structured wiring I want to design (HDMI, an audio system in various rooms of the house, etc. etc.). I've overlooked voice for now, but the sweet thing about Cat 5E cable is it can do just about anything - from up to four voice lines to high-definition video - it's über-flexible and expansive. So once the cables are there, it's just a matter of figuring out what do with them. And they can be changed out on either end really easily.

OK - and yeah, like I said - this is just making way to completely gutting this bathroom that has been hideous and more or less unusable for years and start on the remodel of it which I have been planning for something like three years or so. Good times.

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Food for thought:

- existing G4 tower server storing all music/movies and backed-up with existing setup (external drive and SuperDuper! backup software)

- existing Mini connected to main home audio/video system in living room

- old G4/G5 tower or mini or whatever as sub-system for bedrooms - running iTunes of course (same iTunes library file from the G4 server used by all Macs in the house) and connected to my old Pioneer receiver (with A/B speaker configurability) plugged into an outlet with a simple programmable timer (like the kind people get to turn their lights on/off while they're on holiday) so it turns on/off when I want it - turn volume up as far as I'd want on the receiver and the Mac and leave it - that way I could control all the transport functions of the music/video in iTunes/DVD player/QT or whatever and the volume on the Mac using VNC and my laptop - I would never have to touch the receiver or worry about having an IR feed from each room back to it

- in-wall speakers (with possible in-wall sub?) in my bedroom and either Julian's bedroom or the kitchen - connected to the old Pioneer A/B speaker outs

Anyways, just thinking aloud ...

wishful thinking.

Cos it actually did snow once this winter and I quite like this photo of my house and well this is a blog about my house so I am going to post it here.

Maybe it will snow again before winter turns to spring, although it already feels like spring. Ugh.

painting. finished.

Funny - after all those blogs about the progress of the painting, I never posted anything when I - umm - actually finished. So, here it is after all those posts dating back I think to when I was trying to Photoshop a photo I took after I finished putting in the sidewalk testing out different painting options and I thought I was going to be painting my house Benjamin Moore HC-121 peale green. Well, then I came up with this colour scheme. And surprisingly liked it much better. And then I decided what the heck - why not rip out the siding in the porch gable and install cedar shakes.

And then I started. Good times. And two months later I finished. And then I wrote this post.

So ... here it was a long, long time ago -

Whoa. I spy a Julian! And here it is finished -

(No Photoshop this time - none). And with the ultra-wide lens standing right next to the porch so the house is a bit stretched out -

And halfsies -

A lot happened in between. And a lot still has to happen. But I think back to sitting on my porch that morning drinking coffee thinking 'hey, I can build new porch railings!' to realizing if I did I'd kind of have to paint my house cos I am terribly stubborn and wasn't going to paint my newly-constructed railings the same butt-ugly colour that the house was. So take that butt-ugly house colour! And of a 'This Old House' article I read at about the same time that talked about painting a house and saying something like 'you drive up to your house everyday so you may as well have it look nice and be something you're proud of ... ' I agreed.

And after all of that I came home from work today to find this nice little note stuck in my front door (which still needs to be replaced) -

So apparently when it comes to colour (and in this case my house) I chose ...... wisely (which is good since colour is sort of my profession at the moment).

I am happy with it. Actually I really like it.

New Coir doormat from Restoration Hardware. New Whitman porch light from Rejuvenation. Pumpkins by us.

oh yeah ... happy halloween!

This, umm, took a little bit of magic to create but it was all in good fun (carved while watching Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkin on Hulu).

I quite like it.

entertainment.

So I have been enjoying the Mac Mini as A/V hub. I figured out a few things that bugged me -

• How to control the Mini (running 10.6.x) via my Powerbook (running 10.4.11) - had to install a VNC client (I used Chicken of the VNC) on the Powerbook but OS X (from 10.4 and onward) has included the VNC server configuration built-in - just have to enable it (albeit differently for the different OS versions) in the System Prefs
• How to fit the screen of the Mini to my 42" LG - turns out you have to disable 'Overscan' in the Display Prefs and change the LG's resolution to 'Just Scan' instead of 16:9
• Fiddled w/ the Mac OS DVD Player app to get it tuned up to play DVDs (trying to rid myself essentially of everything besides the Mini and my receiver) - I'm not sure it's up to par with a stand-alone DVD but I haven't done a comparison yet - just my initial thought

Oh, and I also finally went through the process of doing the configuration of the surround (I had manually set it up a while ago) - using the supplied mic I attached to myself and let my Pioneer receiver run through its thing (it calls 'MCACC') to determine the ambient room volume, speaker types, distances from me, each other, etc. etc. etc. It did make a pretty big difference - an improvement - over having manually set the distances and speaker sizes. Sweet.

So I kicked back -

Then went to test out running the VNC client -

(which I subsequently set up on all my other Macs - especially nice for the G4 server I have running with all of our music on it).

The speakers I bought when I was in high school (after doing months of research, making a test CD and bringing it to various places to listen with on different speakers to which I had narrowed down the search) are still cranking out awesome sound. It was fun cranking some stuff on them through the Mini. And I messed with all the different surround options on the receiver - sounds awesome, too.

Ah - good times. Trouble is now I won't have much to put in that Gator case I was going to get ...

stairs finally finished.

Yea. I can't remember when I tore out the stairs but it was a while ago. Probably July. So it'll be nice to have some again. No more having to leap up onto the front porch. That was getting old.

So it was pouring down rain today. A guy walking past on the sidewalk said 'just in time for Halloween huh?' and I replied gotta get it done. Started in the garage putting the stringers together -

That took a bit but wasn't bad. Then I had to attach them to the porch. The 2x6 that attached to the porch that then the stringers attached to was tricky - I forgot that they hung pretty low on the porch trim so I figured out drilling at a 30º angle would get the screws up in place -


I predrilled them so that then I could just drive them into the porch trim. Checked the level before doing so -


Then drilled in the pocket hole screws to attach the middle stringer that I added (wasn't on the original stairs - they only had two). Then I was finally able to put the assembled stairs on - check for level lengthwise -

and front-to-back -

All was good. And level. So screwed it in to the 2x6. Then it was just a matter of screwing in all the treads -

And wallah - front stairs again -

Yea!

And just for fun this is what they looked like with the original bent/warped/unlevel stairs after I had finished building the first porch railing way back when -

I painted the ends of the 2x6 treads today - but now it's raining so I'll probably have to repaint. Oh well.

Oh, and one funny thing - I was searching around McLendons today looking for something to spend their 50% promo coupon on when I came across an aisle that had a huge assortment of drawer storage things!

I looked at a few stores but couldn't find anything - been wanting something like this to store all my assorted screws and nails and stuff instead of in the boxes they come in stacked all on top of each other. Good times.

Now ... all I need to do is figure out what to do about the mail slot. Build one to fit the one I got from Rejuvenation or just return it and seal it up for good using a piece of siding I had ripped off above the porch ...

And then - take a picture like the one I took so long ago and Photoshopped - except this one won't have any Photoshop (well, maybe I'll 'Shop the front door in cos I haven't replaced that yet).

uhh, side stairs [finally] finished.

Hmm, let's see ... I started a post back in (hold on I have to check) July about the stairs. So back then, before I tore them out but after I built the sidewalk they looked like this -

Yep.

So then I painted the house. Installed new lattice. Got a new porch light. And finished building the stairs ...

Nothing radically different, but I opted for two 2x6s per tread instead of what the other folks had used (a single 1x12 which bowed cos it got wet over the years) - spaced them out 1/8" so there is room for the water to drain in between them. Hopefully they don't bow. Added roofing felt to the bottoms of the stringers where they rest on the concrete footings I built. And at least now this set of stairs is up to code what with having railings and all. And much more solid than the previous ones, which pretty much moved when you looked at them. Oh, and they're level now, too.

Now this weekend I get to finally finish the front stairs after, uhh, a few months of not having any stairs. Yea!

(Although that means the solicitors may be back - having no stairs and a three or four foot high front porch sort of kept them at bay)

front porch light.

Whoo boy. It always seems so simple. Case in point -

I wanted a front porch light.

So I bought it a few weeks ago from Rejuvenation (of course) cos they were running a porch sale (of course - I've only ever really bought anything from them when they had a sale or a promotion or I found it in the scratch-n-dent section). A simple thing to hook up, right? There was a beautiful, previous porch light after all ...

Well, haha - not so much.

But time to put on my electrician's cap (uhh, and belt) -

I knew the old light had been powered with the last of the original knob and tube wiring (the only remaining circuit to use the stuff was #11 - the ceiling lights, most of which I had ripped out long ago cos ceiling lights in general suck - like in bedrooms and stuff). So I knew I'd have to deal with that. I didn't know the extent of it until yesterday when I headed up to the attic.

I knew there was new Romex running out of the panel cos the whole panel had been upgraded (to 60A) at some point. So that meant somewhere (the key being 'somewhere') there was a splice where the Romex and the knob and tube were patched together. The trick was finding the splice. Fortunately, there was only that one circuit that still used the knob and tube so I could trace it with a tester since it was the only live knob and tube wire (since there was a mess of the stuff snaking all over the attic this was a huge help). But this still meant basically crawling over insulation all over the attic following the live old wiring to find the splice. But after maybe half an hour - hallelujiah! - I found it!

And then I remembered it - I had put that junction box in back when I rewired the kitchen cos whoever did the splice just had the bare wires (well, with wire caps) hanging loose in the attic. I shut off the circuit back at the breaker, disconnected the splice, switched the power back on and tested the Romex on the left side - power! And no power on the knob and tube. Meaning that was indeed the cable coming out of the box that I could splice into with new Romex cable and run to the front porch.

The next challenge was to figure out the wiring schematic for a circuit that was to have multiple lights (I am putting all ceiling lights on this circuit) all controlled by their own switches. After searching the web (and not finding much) and then a call to good ol' McLendons I was able to figure it out and draw up a diagram -

I love electrical stuff (as I've mentioned I think) but sometimes it's confusing as all get out. Once drawn out though it made sense - it's a mess of wires in each box but both the hot and neutrals loop through the circuit in series from box to box and the extra 14/2 cable to each fixture then is what turns each of them off/on (while maintaining hot/neutral over the entire circuit). And anyways, I had just bought a new 250' spool of 14/2 cable so I was good to go. So I headed back up into the attic to run the cable. Had to drill holes through the joist headers in the walls and run my (priceless) fish tape down to the hole I had cut out for the new electrical box, then back up and pull the cable through. A few times.

And then - just for fun - I decided to turn one of the living room outlets into a switched outlet. So I had to crawl under the living room through the crawl space (uhh, thank goodness my house sits high so it's pretty roomy under there albeit a bit dirty) and drill up - hoping not to drill through my living room floor and instead actually make the mark inside the wall. I was apparently blessed with some good luck cos everything worked okay and I got the new cable strung from the new box by the front door (with the new front porch light switch) over to an outlet on the side of the house without issue -

And after all of that - up and down the ladder to the attic over + over, under the house over + over, etc. etc. etc. stringing cables through insulation blah blah blah it all came down to one moment (the moment I love and dread at the same time) - turn the circuit back on and flip the switch.

(hold breath ... )

Boom!

It worked!

Ahh, good times. Now I still have to finish the circuit though - hitting up Julian's closet light (which while I'm doing that I'm going to replace it with a recessed can), the Jack and Jill bath lights (two wall sconces, a recessed can above the shower and a fixture above where the medicine cabinet will be) and my bedroom lights (since both of those rooms are stupidly on the same circuit as the fridge).

coffee table.

So this past Friday I braved the yuppy-laden Bellevue Square to pick up my coffee table - driving up there in my beatup old Toyota pickup (love you Stuart!) to pick it up. Apparently I've had my eye on this thing for years (yes, 'years' = plural 'year') and finally it went on sale a couple of weeks ago. So I ponied up for it to add to my rather sparse collection of furniture (it's a slow process but someday I will also own an actual dresser) -

It serves as a good footrest and place to put the collector's edition coffee issue of Seattle magazine.

Oh, and my National Parks coffee table book -

Oh, and my coffee -

It just needs some maps in the drawers. Or some music paper. Or both.

And about the footrest thing - the timing couldn't have been better as I spent some time this weekend in between crawling around the attic and under the house running electrical cables setting up the Mac mini (for which I can now prop my feet up on the coffee table and put the keyboard in my lap) -

Compared to the Xbox media center (running XBMC which the Mini can also run) the Mini rules - it is absolutely silent (the Xbox sounds similar to a small airplane taxiing down the jetway) and runs digital video/audio out without an adaptor (well, I have to convert the DVI out to HDMI but that's an easy $8 cable solution) whereas I had to get a special connector in order to run optical audio and component video out of the Xbox.

I'll keep the Xbox for playing the old video game ROMs (like Super Mario, Tetris, Raiden and the like) Julian and I do from time to time just for a hoot but the Mini will be the new media center. It sounds awesome, too - I had to get a tiny female optical coupler to put on the end of the mini optical cable out of the Mini cos my receiver is fresh out of optical ins (using the available ones for the TV, DVD and CDR) but it works perfect. I just unplug the optical cable from the TV (plugged into the receiver) and connect it to the optical cable with the coupler attached cos I do not need both of them connected at the same time (I have to admit it took me a little bit of a configuring headache to come up with that nifty little solution after I tried figuring out how to maybe move around the components between the optical and digital coax audio ins available on the receiver).

And for video we can now stream Hulu (episodes of The Office I'll never be around to watch when they actually air) and all sorts of network TV and other stuff (in addition to the LG that already streams our Netflix). No need to ever actually, um, watch traditional TV anymore (i.e. time to cancel our $15/month über-basic cable). Sweet. And no more headaches trying to convert stupid proprietary iTunes playlist XML files to .m3u files which was giving me a total migraine. To celebrate - the first thing I tested listening to was the playlist I tried to convert a few weeks ago but from which couldn't get the XBMC to see more than one song (of the 60+ in the playlist).

And - when the living room is finished there will be white paneling like this and the walls will of course be painted a beautiful Benjamin Moore HC fairview taupe and the LG will be mounted to the wall and ...