Since the house was previously rented out to 4 college students (1 per bedroom), cable was run in every room. You’d think that was a good thing.

I guess it was but it was done in the craziest way. I’m guessing the cable company came in and did it. A cable came in through the back window of each level.

On the first floor, the cable came in low on the back right window & ran up the edge of the window trip to the crown molding.

{picture taken before we closed, so that’s not our stuff}

It then ran along the crown molding, through the wall above the pocket doors & into the parlor.

{Cause dark gray wire isn’t at all noticeable on yellow paint. /sarcasm}

Upon entering the parlor, it ran across the top and down the left edge of the pocket doors then along the floor to the corner.

Kinda like this –

On the 2nd floor, again it came in low on the back left window. This time, instead of running along the right wall, it took the long way around.

Of course there was carpet, so you didn’t really notice it running along the baseboards. BUT this route also had a few doors to span. They just ran it up one side, over the top, and down the other side of the doors.

{The circle with an X indicates a splitter.}

The 3rd floor was even wackier. Again, it came in low on the back left window and ran left.

Much of the cable was already loose by the time we took possession of the property {which you can see in the lower left of that picture}. This time, after going up & over the back bedroom doorway it came through the wall into the front bedroom small closet.

Where it ran around the baseboard, through the wall in between the doorways, ACROSS the floor of the walk-though {not up & over}, along the baseboard of the cubby and ended near the mantle.

Phew! I know cable guys aren’t picky about the placement of the cable, just so long as it works. But yeesh!! I don’t think they could have run it in a more obtrusive manner.

I’m not all crazy obsessive when it comes to design. I think homes are made to be lived in, not kept as showrooms. But c’mon. Even painted the wall/baseboard color it would have been a constant eyesore.

SOOOOOO

The dads fixed it.

Of course they did.

Best dads ever.

The original plan was to run it up through the mantle in the dining room, go through the side of the mantle, and behind wall into the parlor.

Even with this monster mason drill, we couldn’t get through the brick.

From the dining room mantle we could see the mantle in the garden apartment.

Plan B – go through the pantry closet.

We were still able to see the mantle in the garden apartment from the back left of the pantry, so we ran one line down.

That line will run behind this pipe.

We’ve already run the garden apartment cable {coil to the left} along the back side of this pipe. The upstairs cable will join it along the back of the pipe. Both will run, discretely, out the back of the house.

Excellent. Now back to the pantry.

In the left wall of the pantry, we installed a 4-way splitter {hence all these wires}.

One wire for the dining room, one for the parlor, one for then 2nd floor, & one for the 3rd. This also seemed like a good place to keep the wire hub. Out of the way but no so built-in that we couldn’t get to it again.

We ran the parlor cable behind the baseboard over toward the parlor mantle.

A box was installed next to the outlet and to the left of mantle.

The 2nd & 3rd floor wires ran up through the pocket door opening {but back far enough so the pocket door won’t interfere}.

Despite what the blueprints show, there’s a small closet in between the cubbies on the 2nd floor. It’s a scary scary closet.

A little demo later…

Once it was all demoed, the 2 cables were run through.

We left it coiled up on the second floor because we’re not really sure what we’re doing with the closet space on the 2nd floor yet.

The 3rd floor cable was run up and installed into the baseboard at the bottom of the cubby in our bedroom.
{picture missing, will update when I take it}

So there you have it! How we went from a tangled, visually distracting mess to a nice tidy solution.