With the plasterer booked in to skim the lounge at the end of May, it’s time to re-connect the office tech gear into its new home in the finished office unit. What an unholy mess! There are cables, screens and gizmos everywhere. How does it all link up?
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| Any idea how this all fits together? |
What I need is a cunning plan. Unlike the Tories, I have devised a proper plan that I’m sticking to and it’s not just some airy-fairy stuff like they make up on the spur of the moment. Apologies to any ‘airy-fairies’ out there, this phrase is not meant in a derogatory way but Google’s definition sums up the Tory plan perfectly – “if you describe someone’s ideas as airy-fairy, you are critical of them because you think the ideas are vague, impractical and unrealistic.” Yep, I think Google’s hit the Tory nail perfectly on the head!
Here’s the plan I prepared earlier although not on the back of a fag packet as that tiny Park Drive cigarette box I recently unearthed wouldn’t have been big enough for my technological mayhem.
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| Sketch out your IT plan to help re-connection |
Of course, it’s all well and good drawing it out on a bit of paper where everything is easily and neatly connected by a pencilled line. It’s a different story when you have to rig it up in situ especially when you’ve got solid timber standing between one component and another. The answer - Grommets. And holes. But where to put these?
Cable hole covers or computer desk grommets are just the thing to get round the issue of solid surfaces. Ebay to the rescue. Lots available in different diameters and colours.
I’ve gone for a chrome colour 60 mm diameter grommet to cover the hole in the desktop.
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| Desk cable hole covers/grommets |
Remember to buy a diameter large enough to contain all the cables you need to feed through. A 60 mm diameter will cater for a surprising number of different sized wires as you can see from my spaghetti junction.
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| A proper spaghetti junction of wiring |
I’m using smaller black 35 mm diameter grommets for the side holes in the wall units so that I can feed the printer and scanner cables from the sides down into the main desk grommet.
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| Smaller 35 mm diameter cable hole cover |
Annoyingly when drilling the side holes, you really need 2 grommets one for each side of the hole especially in places where both sides can be seen. Since each grommet is around 12 mm deep then the question arises of what to do with the small visible rim left uncovered. I’ve painted this black but to finish the holes off properly, I’ve ordered more grommets which I can cut down to size and make fit.
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| Grommets for holes in the sides of shelf unit |
Drilling round holes into timber or worktops requires a special drill bit which luckily the other half just happened to have.
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| Special drill bit to make holes |
The worktop holes need drilling through from both sides due to the thickness of the material so care has to be taken to ensure both are correctly lined up.
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| Drill holes from both sides of the worktop |
Now being somewhat of a tidy freak, I’d like to have all the cables neatly tucked away out of sight but it’s rarely the case in a home office set up.
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| Too messy for my liking |
Gaffer tape is a tidy girl’s best friend in these instances. Once everything is connected and you’ve figured out how much cable is surplus to requirements, this can be tidily taped up to the underside of the desk to keep it out of the way.
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| Another job for SuperGaffer |
If you are using a docking station with a laptop instead of a desktop or tower computer, I did manage to find a very nifty mounting bracket on the Etsy website that allows you to suspend the dock under the desk.
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| Under desk mounting bracket for docking stations |
This two-piece bracket can also be screwed onto side panels as I have done here to allow easy connection of gadgets and it also means not having to sacrifice valuable work surface space.
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| Position docking station for easy access |
To hide the unsightly wires trailing down from the WIFI router to the telephone socket, I’ve used black D-line trunking.
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| D-Line self adhesive trunking |
Now available in many colours from B&Q, this plastic trunking can be easily cut to size and has a self-adhesive strip on the back so that it can be stuck virtually anywhere. An 8mm sized piece will comfortably accommodate 3 slim wires but bigger sizes are also available.
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| D-Line trunking in many sizes and colours |
After an hour or so of crawling around, bashing my bonce on the desktop and getting my gaffer knickers in a sticky knot I am ready to flick the ON switch. Fingers crossed it all works!!
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| I now declare this office offically open for WFH business |
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