360 ethernet

Tanis and I purchased an Xbox 360 a couple months ago and with that came the need to hook it up to the interweb so that we can destroy our friends in a friendly game of Uno via Xbox Live. Since our house was built in 1922 (just a few years before the Internet really took off) we don't have a nice network (Cat 5) outlet like many of them new fancy schmancy homes come with, and because our home network is not yet sans-wires I knew I had a interesting home improvement project in front of me.

We had a two prong outlet right next to the TV outlet so I figured the best place to install the network port would be in the existing TV outlet. They have this sweet multifunctional system out there now that allows you to do just that. You get to pick and chose the ports you want (CAT 5, phone, TV) up to six different ports and put them into one outlet! It took a couple trips to the hardware store to get the ones I wanted but I think it turned out pretty good.

The problem I ran into was that the TV outlet wasn’t installed correctly. The guy that put it in decided that drilling straight through the wall from the outside instead of feeding the wire under the house and up the wall was a better way…or at least easier. This meant I couldn’t follow the tv cable as a guide to help me feed my CAT 5 cable up the wall. The other issue was that the hole didn’t have the appropriate non-electrical box that allows you to screw in a standard face plate and wasn’t the standard size to even fit the box in the first place. Our walls our made out of wood ship lap which made expanding the hole a little more difficult. (also excuse the state of our walls. We're in the process of removing the wallpaper.) In the end though I was able to feed the wire up the wall and connect the 360 to Xbox Live.




While I was at it I replaced the two prong outlet because as you can see from the pictures, it was a little scary looking.