rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

Don't you ever talk about a GM product like that again my presence

00TL-P3.2

Maybe if it was the 3.6 V6, those had a fair bit of scoot to them.
The 2.4, though. May as well be MM's Optima.

00TL-P3.2

So, I did [started] a thing.
The prior owners had 5 kids & added this wall, I'm assuming to cut down the noise & probably keep the pool table balls upstairs. We've wanted it down pretty much since we moved in 3 yrs ago.



Started the rough teardown & got the bulk of the drywall off the wall.



Still need to fine cut the edges & try not to tear up the parts of wall that will remain. Then we'll look at disassembling the studs & repairing/painting the remaining wall parts.
The increase in ambient light & better air circulation is already noticeable.

My initial idea was to tear down the drywall on the stair side, but realized I don't have a suitable ladder to do it safely. My 16' a-frame wasn't tall enough & the 28' ext ladder was long enough, but the feet didn't have enough grip on the hardwood floor & it wanted to slide/slip. Ended up measuring & cutting form the upstairs side & pulling the stair-side drywall from 'behind'.

CCColtsicehockey

Dang that is one heck of a project to start to undertake. Looking good though. Definitely looked weird before.

Regarding your extension ladder on the hardwoods slipping. A solution I have seen is a square of plywood with anti skid furniture pads stuck to the bottom. When build a 3 sided box on top of that out of 2x4 to rest the feet in.

SamDoe1

Awesome! That's definitely going to help things. Also that staircase is badass.

civicdrivr

iTrader: (9)

Nice! A well placed razor blade line and a firm shove with your palm should break the drywall off cleanly at the edges, but repairs will be inevitable.

I wonder if they put the bottom plate right on the carpet, or if they pulled the carpet up and attached it straight to the subfloor.

00TL-P3.2

I started with a blade & it was tough going. Switched to a hand saw, made a huge mess & got it done. Pretty much just cut a huge box & pulled off sheets at a time, which you can see stacked on the floor.
Not sure what the footer looks like, and I think I'm going to have to cut up to the ceiling on the upstairs portion to get to the header.
Going to borrow an oscillating Dremel from my buddy at work for the finer cuts at the edges.

Will have to try not to damage some of the baseboards, in case I need some to cap the bases where the wall was. Not sure if they removed those when they put the wall up.

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

For clean edges give an oscillated tool a shot...you can chalk a straight line and carefully walk that along it for a perfect cut.
Looks cool, bro...
wife is gonna have to grow her hair long now so you can climb up it to consummate!

00TL-P3.2

Have an oscillating tool on loan for a buddy. Going to get back to work on it this weekend. Hopefully have the drywall cut fully back & start working on removing the framing.

SamDoe1

Consider buying one. They are incredibly handy to have around all the time.

00TL-P3.2

Yup.
Same coworker loaned it to me when we hung the 60" in our living room to fish the wiring behind the wall.

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

I used it to carve a pumpkin last night.

00TL-P3.2

Got all the drywall & baseboards down on the upstairs side.
Looks like the framing is only nailed on the sides (really lucky it's not nailed into the floor of the railing).
Hoping to start dismantling the framing this week & get at the stair side to get it finished up on removal.

SamDoe1

Won't it be really easy to remove the other side when the framing is out of the way? Thankfully there's already a railing so you don't fall.

00TL-P3.2

That's exactly my plan. Too sketchy to attempt with my 28' ext ladder. I'll get the framing torn down & the electrical capped off & then work on the stair-side cleanup.

CCColtsicehockey

I am interested to see how you handle the remaining floating outlets

SamDoe1

Make them into hard wired extension cords. Done.

00TL-P3.2

Looks like they're all run on 1 line from the wall. Need to try to see how it's terminated, or cup & cap the line & tuck it in the wall.

CCColtsicehockey

I would be shocked if it isn't connected to the outlet on the adjoining wall on the left.

Is that Cat6 coming down from the ceiling in the middle of the wall?

00TL-P3.2

The whole house is wired to the upstairs guestroom. That Cat6 wasn't terminated, but it looked like it was set up to have a TV mounted there where those upper boxes are.

Hopefully the electrical is tied to the outlet to the left & I can just disconnect & pull the wiring.

CCColtsicehockey

Definitely would have been the easiest way for them to wire the power when they added the wall. As for the Cat 6 drop the fact it is coming from the ceiling makes it a perfect place to put a ceiling mount AP for you.

00TL-P3.2

I've got a Ubiquiti in the living room under the TV stand, so it pretty well covers the whole house & pool. Coverage is spotty in the driveway, but that's a lot of walls to go through.

Also the patch panel in the guest room doesn't appear to be labelled/run correctly. The living room & office have dual RJ45 ports, but I'm only able to get 1 active. Am not able to get the kitchen port active at all. Just haven't had the need/time to go through each room & check it, and running around/up/down the house to test each port doesn't seem like a good time.

SamDoe1

Change to mesh wifi and cap off all the CAT6 ports. Problem solved.

00TL-P3.2

That's the long term plan. The Ubiquiti is mesh capable, it's the same model we use in our office (3 of them here).

Haven't had any need to expand, and will be running/enabling ports to hardwire the media room when we get around to tackling that project.

CCColtsicehockey

If you have cat6 jacks why switch to mesh. I would much rather have my APs to all have a direct hardwire connection. It is much better overall for speed. Mesh just keeps breaking down the speed you get from the one connected point the more hops you have to go. I get it for older houses without network wiring but if you have the jacks use them for APs. Heck since you have Ubiquiti you can do POE APs and not even need a power cord.

00TL-P3.2

Right, I meant that the Ubiquiti APs I have can form a mesh network, each hardwired to the jack in the wall.

But, apparently Ubiquiti has a specific POE requirement & the 16port POE switch I put in the patch panel isn't the right standard, so I still have to run a power supply to the AP in the living room.

SamDoe1

Well if the drops aren't in the right spot, it doesn't help much.

CCColtsicehockey

If there is a drop in every room or every other room it is close enough with the power of today's AP. I have 3 APs and will probably add a 4th but they are all on medium or low power though so I get seamless roaming and 5ghz everywhere because 2.4ghz isn't worth anything. I have 3 devices left to get off it and disable it. It doesn't like walls near as much though so thus the extra APs.

SamDoe1

That's fair. My house isn't wired because it was built before CAT5 or 6 was even invented so mesh works well for me. Just have one additional AP in addition to the main router and it covers my whole house. I am thinking of moving it towards the front of the house though in order to get better coverage in the garage.

00TL-P3.2

I'm pondering something foolish (since the motorcycle will be going away) that would put the Malibu into the driveway & might look at plumbing CAT6 into the garage (shared wall with the office) & setting up a micro desktop out there.

CCColtsicehockey

What would the main use of the device be in the garage?

00TL-P3.2

Reference, with a large monitor/TV connected/wall mounted.
Already have a stereo out there & a better BT speaker.

Just an inkling of an idea, but thinking about a Locost (Caterham/Lotus 7 replica ) build, possibly from scratch.....

SamDoe1

You're better off doing mods to a Wrangler and using the money you saved to drive it to cool places.

CCColtsicehockey

Honestly, your better off just putting a Roku or something like that out there. If you want computing capabilities as well maybe a ChromeOS stick in a second HDMI port as well. Then just run them off 5GHz wireless.

00TL-P3.2

Maybe.
I've got a surplus of unused desktops at work, so I could probably snag one for nothing, since they're just sitting idle & not going to be reissued. Only problem there is that they're all full-sized towers, we don't get many of the micro-desktops back from the field without them being destroyed.

I'd also have to add another AP, since the Ubiquiti in the living room doesn't push signal into the garage very well. Easier to pass a hardwire through from the office & run that way, or put an AP in the garage (or in the office), still running a hard line through.

civicdrivr

iTrader: (9)

What about something like this?

https://www.raspberrypi.org/products...ellerType=home

Cheap, incredibly small, and should handle what you're looking to do.

00TL-P3.2

Saw the Pi400 earlier this week, and for $100 it's not a bad deal, especially for a self-contained system. Probably plenty for a web browser predominantly.

Never used the PiOS, but I can't imagine it's hard to learn.

civicdrivr

iTrader: (9)

I had a Pi 2 a few years ago as a media device. It worked well. It's Linux based, but easy to use IMO.

CCColtsicehockey

The AP in the garage is a better idea honestly I think. It will gain you a little coverage in the house. Not much but a little since you said signal doesn't pass much. There probably isn't much you will be doing in the the garage that a 5ghz signal won't be plenty for. I would look at the FlexHD as it already comes with a wall-mount and is much better than mounting a ceiling mount AP sideways on the wall.

The RasPi is a good recommendation as well. I just try not to use Windows anymore for anything that doesn't have to have it and especially in a device that might mainly only be used for media consumption.

rockstar143

iTrader: (6)

I'm a little surprised nobody has suggested Earthlink.