Tuesday, August 21, 2012

networking project

My house is over a hundred years old and is cheaply constructed. This means running ethernet wire (cat 5e) through the walls is posing to be quite the challenge. And since the garage is detached, I'm having to bury conduit in the ground to get the network over to the feral feeder for a future camera.

Having an older, cheap house means finding a lot of previous work that is sub-standard. The electrical service to the garage comprised of a wire running just a few inches under the ground from the house. There was no conduit or anything, just wire. Yikes! So, since I was digging things up anyway, I figured this would be a good time to run some extra PVC conduit to run the electrical service through.

Of course while I was doing all that hard labor, Oliver was supervising from a safe distance.

Although, every so often, he made his way over for a closer inspection of my work.

Digging the trench was actually the easiest part of this project. The next part was the part I was looking forward to the least. The conduit would go under the back porch, which means crawling in there.

The porch is accessed through this little door. Inside there are about ten thousand spider webs.

This section is right under Oliver's back porch. It was accessed not long ago, so the spider webs are under control.

However, this section, is under the back porch landing. I've never gone under there and very much did not want to! This is where the ten-thousand spider webs were waiting for me.

Thankfully, I didn't have to fight the spiders without assistance.

Oliver to my rescue!

Oliver decided to do some up close supervision.

Oliver, meowing orders to me.

With Oliver's help, that part of the project was completed without too many difficulties. The next phase has been much more challenging, running wire from the basement up to the second floor. Slowly and surely progress is made. An exciting announcement hopefully be coming shortly!


  1. YEAH!! Good work. We know all about old wiring here - ours was making the a/c guy swear over the weekend. That Oliver is a great supervisor!

  2. Unfortunately, ALL old houses have substandard or scary wiring! Our house is older than yours and there's some pretty scary stuff in here. Most of the time you don't know how scary until you have to fix something. PVC didn't exist when these houses were built. Garage wiring was an afterthought. I must give you a lot of credit for tackling these projects - my husband wouldn't go NEAR that stuff!
    On the other hand, it is always comforting to have a cat companion when you are confronting basement spiderwebs. Good work, Oliver!

  3. Wow, that looked pretty scary under the porch to our human. Intriguing to us, though. :-)

    Maybe Oliver would come here and deal with the spiders we don't take care of? ;-)

    Good job, both of you!

  4. Oh my goodness, that is a lot to do! My Dad would have never made it with the spiders!!!

  5. What an undertaking! Looks like Oliver was a great snoopervisor :)

  6. Oh that does look exciting! Oliver is an excellent snoopervisor. And the Woman would not even have considered going into a place like that. Spiders completely freak her out.

  7. Oh yes I know the old house and sub-standard work...we have found so much in our house. You are doing a great job with Oliver's help of course!

  8. you are so lucky to have such a networking expert help you! I mean where would you be with out his help navigating all those spider webs for you.. Sounds like quite a project indeed, but I bet you are going to LOVE the results!

  9. Oliver's such a good boy for helping ;)

  10. Supervision is the key to any successful project! I'm sure your work will be successful since you have a feline supervisor! :)

  11. Wow! I cannot believe what a job that was! BTW I am in love with that rock porch :)

    1. Good thing you had help with the project. I bet Oliver has a lot of expertise with going under houses searching for things. It is good to have some expert advice.
      Oliver just loves you! He follows you everywhere. It is very cute.


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