No, not the distribution board, but the cupboard under the stairs where all the electrical things that make the house work are hidden. This has been chosen as a central point to marshal cabling to other rooms etc.
So AV network and phone cables from each room make there way to the cupboard, with each rooms worth of cables exiting it’s own hole in the wall so we can keep track of what goes where. In the case of coax cables, there are 2 spares to each room in case we want a satellite feed in the future. Until needed they will remain coiled up.
Television distribution is taken care of with a distribution amplifier tucked up out of the way.
All network cables make there way back to the broadband router, tucked up again at the top of the cupboard. Again presently unusued cables remain coiled up. If we need more network points than the router can handle on it’s own, a network switch will be added.
Another key function of the cupboard is to house the satellite receivers / pvr’s. From here they will feed the 2 main rooms via long hdmi cables built in at this stage. This removes “set top box” clutter from the other rooms and means regardless of where it was recorded it can be watched in both rooms.
This cupboard is also home to the network printer, and a hifi system (here shown with the cover off as it’s undergoing some upgrades). The idea being as this is remote controlled, it does not need to be on view in a particular room. It will be wired to speakers in each room and apart from when you want to put a CD in the drawer, you never actually need to see it.
The next shot shows the speaker cables. I have yet to implement the speaker switching. The side wall that is yet to be boarded will be filled with CD storage within the wall thickness.
In order to control all this stuff remotely inside a closed cupboard, I have a “powermid” remote control extender system. Here is the sender unit on yet another little shelf high up in the cupboard where it relays the IR remote control signals to the equipment
This esentially being an air tight house, I had to leave some provision for getting cables into the house. I did this in the form of a hockey stick set into the floor to feed aerial cables in and out, and just one place to seal up when done. Here a lonely network cable is using that route.
You might wonder what happens at the other end. Well in the case of the big living room that will have a tv on a free standing unit, the big bundle of cables will just exit a brush plate. The snug room will have a tv hung on the wall with all cables hidden.
And lastly, on a very losely related subject, I have moved my electrical workshop into one of the nearly finished bedroom in the house (it had previously still been in the garage of our old house). Trust me, you will never see that work bench so uncluttered ever again.
