When I started my home network back in 2011, I had all my cables terminate inside a hall cupboard, and it always looked messy and untidy.

I've finally got around to doing something about it. I've built a custom size network cabinet in the hallway as pictured below. The space I had to work with isn't very wide (only 315 mm) but quite tall (1115 mm) and a full depth of 100 mm. So I took advantage of the height/depth to get the most volume that I could.

It has three double power points to allow for extra gadgets in the future. Right now I've just got a router and an eight way network switch in there.

We have ADSL for broadband, so my master splitter is installed in this cabinet and all the star wiring to 4 phone outlets.

I've drilled some 32 mm holes at the top of the cabinet to allow for extra Cat5e cabling in the future and perhaps to terminate all TV cabling here also.

Presently, all the Cat5e comes in from below as I have a number of runs of this in the crawl space.




After I had roughly knocked the cabinet sides together, I had to decide what to use as a door. I had thought of using a painting, but couldn't find something of the right size.

As luck would have it, I found this oak mirror for $30 in a second hand shop. It's a bit bigger than the cabinet, but that doesn't matter when the door is closed. The oak looks great now we've stripped most of the awful white paint from it.