Last year while remodeling our house, I took the opportunity to wire up the whole house with cat5e Ethernet wire, as well as coaxial cable to every room, and some lower quality wire for security to each door and window.
Some people think Ethernet is unnecessary with wireless access points and cards being so inexpensive, it’s great to have around, but for permanent (non-mobile) devices I much prefer a wired connection, so I decided to wire the whole house up.
One problem is where to source all the wires to, there ends up being quite a few. A commercial enclosure is big and expensive, and the alternative of just screwing everything directly to the wall with a bunch of wires hanging around wasn’t very appealing in the nice finished room.
This cabinet I found from Ikea is perfect with some easy modifications. It’s meant to be a wall mounted laptop desk for children, it has the generic name “IKEA PS”, and I can’t tell if it’s in any particular Ikea series.
It has two compartments, the main compartment is lockable and has the main wiring and equipment, and the lower small compartment I use for all the AC/DC adapters and a small battery backup.
Width: 27 1/2 "
Depth: 7 7/8 "
Height: 22 7/8 "
Width: 70 cm
Depth: 20 cm
Height: 58 cm
For assembly, you basically just don’t include the internal side shelves and the metal sheet that is the work surface. With the work surface out, the small vent on the front of the door is functional. If you have a lot of equipment you may need to add a fan or better venting, for my uses it seems fine.
I cut two holes in the top and used masking tape to cover the sharp edges, the wire will enter from the ceiling here.
I used the standard mounting holes with some better toggle bolts to mount it to the wall, it’s mounted fairly high so that there is still space below for a shelf, or whatever comes along.
Here’s a shot mid-way though, I labeled and put ends on all the wires right away.
Here’s what the setup looks like now, all the Ethernet and coaxial wire is for the most part finished, With a bit more cable management and time, I should have space for the security system I plan to build someday.
There is enough space for the cable modem, a good router, a 8-port gigabit switch, and a 24-port 10/100 switch, they all happen to have vents on the edge, so stacking them is fine.
All in all I am pleased with how well it worked out, the size is perfect, and it looks good on the wall. No need for a bunch of random wires hanging about. This setup is actually nicer then many small companies I've worked for.
Edit: I chose to directly end the solid-core wire instead of using an additional patch panel to terminate all the wire on. Technically this is not the best practice, but I have had excellent connection quality thought the house, for the moment I don't see a reason to change it.
Be sure to buy the correct heads for the wire, stranded heads have crimping teeth that run parallel to the wire, solid core heads usually have a extra notch or run perpendicular to the wire.