Hack’em Sack’em

I spent a good chunk of yesterday putting together a version of this great de-cluttering hack to hide our modem, router, and a number of related cables that had been snaking like jungle vines in our living room.  I should have taken a before picture.  Maybe  I’ll post the  after in a little while.

Our twist on the hack was to mount the pegboard in an unused drawer in a sideboard table.  We turned the drawer upside down and affixed the board using small bolts with wingnuts.   Our pegboard is much smaller than is shown in these examples, due to the size of the drawer, but we have fewer component to deal with, as there is no computer involved.

I found the idea on a site called ikea hacker that presents photos, stories, and how-to’s of how people around the world have run in new directions with off-the-shelf ikea products.  I love this stuff–people are amazingly creative.  I wonder how large a portion of Ikea’s revenue these things account for.  Probably not much.

Wireless and CAT5

One of the things our electrician mentioned when we discussed putting in new outlets, was the possibility of running CAT 5, or ethernet, cable through the house as he was running the other wires.  To hook up new outlets he would have to run wires out of the circuit breaker box in the basement, up through a pipechase or some other crevice, into the attic, and then back down into the upstairs walls.

It seems an awfully long way to go to to get an outlet upstairs, but I suppose it makes sense.  And while you are doing it, it seems to make sense to run any other wires you need or might need, at the same time.

But we have wireless, and it seems to work pretty well throughout the house.  So why bother with cabling?

Well, we may want to finish the attic someday (it is one of our big plans), so perhaps it would help bring internet to our attic. So that might be one argument.  Are there others?  Are there any good reasons to wire your house for internet if you already have reasonably effective wireless?