Man cave: Day 10

Not as much today as I hoped, but progress none the less.

The old side window is bricked up, at last; the new external door and window have temporary wood frames in now the brickwork is dry so they can board up outside properly while waiting for window and doors; the power and network sockets are fitted but not live yet; the door entry readers are fitted and the exit button boxes are ready for me to wire up; the old internal door is removed ready for a new one; the plumber fixed a leak.

Turns out that the plasterer did not quite do what was expected Friday (Paul, the builder was not here Friday), so he did the walls (good) but did the internal doorway (bad, as door is being changed) and did not do the surround for the external door or window as asked, so a slight pain.

I like the sockets I picked, flat "black nickel" LAP from Screwfix. The cat6 sockets actually work nicely without trapping the tag in the socket. The power sockets come with a USB charger option. I think they look nice.

Tomorrow promises to be busy - finish the cat6 cabling to the patch panel; make power and lighting live; install the lights; paint the walls; finish a few other electrical bits; fit the internal door; fit the motorised lock to the internal door and complete the alarm wiring for that; fit PIRs.

I have also picked the flooring - engineered wood in a dark oak. I have also picked the wall colour - Egyptian cotton.

Over the weekend I planned out the work tops and shelves and so on using tape (looked like some strange CSI crime scene), and even made a new 3D model. I ordered a sink that fits in a 300mm wide module so I have space for a fridge. I worked out the bar has to be a bit of a token gesture as much further in to the room and you could not walk around a sofa. The sofa is from sofaworks and is a nice sofa bed in charcoal black and won't arrive until November!

I expect that end of this week we will start to get days of no activity waiting for things like a door, or a window, or for wood stain to soak in, etc. I have to get a few furniture items (TV stand, coffee table, book shelf) and we still have to plan boxing in the meters and power and so on.

The alarm stuff is fun - I am doing it all myself anyway, it is not hard, and I have the manual for the alarm panel. Just like the office with door entry readers and motorised locks on the doors. I may look in to better readers some time if they will work with this panel and upgrade house and office. That will be a separate project. For now, I have it texting me when alarms set/unset anyway.

What was bloody strange was that in my testing I found that the bell box / siren did not work at the house. We have text alerts and video cameras (I did promise a separate post on those), so the actual bell is less important, but how does it not work. I checked, and the internal battery was flat and rather oddly no connectivity from panel to bell. The muppets that installed the system (the people with the proper training rather than me doing it) looped the tamper at the panel, so no alarm at whatever point the cable failed/broke or was cut. I do not suspect foul play but how the hell does that happen? Anyway, new alarm bell box / siren.