A little update on my weekend adventures then, and we’re now at the plastering stage. For those of you who haven’t caught up, check the previous updates in this feature. Basically I’m creating lots of holes in our house in order to put some HDMI, Ethernet, power and satellite cabling in the wall without it being seen. The end result should be a lovely desk, two monitors for a laptop and a big gaming screen above it.
I’ve ordered a number of module ports to go in the wall but rather foolishly I’ve just found out that you need quite a depth behind each one of these, and – with all the cabling I’m whacking in – it’s a squash to say the least.
Channeling out the wall was just part one. This project has grown as I’ve been doing it. Some of you may have noticed that the sockets at the bottom have grown in size now too.
In the image above you can see where I’m adding some of the cabling. The electical cabling (in grey) is in there too.
This weekend it started off with me getting quotes for plastering. The walls need to be re-plastered as they’re a bit damaged and this all needs filling in properly. So, ahead of all that I needed to get some metal galvanised steel channeling. This is about £3 from the mighty Screwfix and, as some of you out there will probably noticed, I’ve smashed it into a channel which is clearly too narrow. Not only is my main “duct” too narrow, but it’s also diagonal in places, which has my electrician mate screwing his face up in disgust.
So, don’t think for a minute that this is perfect. This is a DIY job and I’m doing what I can.
The plasterer tells me that he needs to bond the chasing, so I had to get the metal channeling in. This is basically needed so that, if you do accidentally drill into the wall without checking first, you’ll hit the galvanised steel before drilling into a live electrical cable.
There’s more than just one electrical cable though. At the very top there’s a power feed, 3 HDMI cables and a satellite coax feed. In the middle, two HDMI feeds and a power feed. Then all of that goes down to the bottom, where there’s 5 HDMI inputs, an RJ45 (Ethernet) and another power socket.
Luckily the channel is quite deep, so although it’s not wide enough, it is deep enough.
A little tip if you guys are doing this stuff. Get a face mask. Blimey. The sheer amount of dust this has kicked up in unreal. Luckily the carpet and underlay is gone so it’s just a case of getting it off the floor, but you’ve also got to keep the door in the room closed to stop it going everywhere in the house.
Oh yes, and one other thing – the skirting board has now gone. This one room is being totally re-done from floor to ceiling now – new skirting board, new ceiling, new decor, new carpet, blind, curtains and more. Big job.