Here's the first installment, with a little background.
These first sequence of pictures show the study as it currently is, and what will hopefully soon become the nursery.
As you can see, it's a really cosy affair, that has the added disbenefit of being right next to our bedroom, so noise has often been an issue, especially as my wife does shiftwork, including nights. But it's been gaming heaven for the past 4 years and as much as i love my games, my wife seems to be under the impression that the impending baby is more important and rather than try to educated her to the error in her ways, i thought i'd politely compromise, 'cause that's what marriage is about right?.
The other thing to note here is the first of my problems...
Under the table is where the broadband cable presents and is connected to a wireless router. The router serves the laptop wirelessly, the gaming PC, which is currently in this room and my HTPC downstairs via a network cable that runs back out through the wall, outside the house and down. I can't relocate the broadband cable without costs. So the modem needs to stay here and therefore so does the wireless router.
I had considered soldering the wireless router to an old vinyl turntable in my now defunct loft. Then i could turn it upside down and use it as a mobile for the crib. It even has flashing lights. But the wife read somewhere (again with the wife already) about RF affecting babies development (yawn). So that's another decent idea out of the window.
So i now need to get a cabled connection up to the gaming PC. This is on the assumption that wireless-N isn't suitable for a gaming PC, unless some of you can convince me otherwise???
I won't go into too much detail, but with loft conversions you lose access to the endges of the loft, as you need to square off the room. So running a 2nd network cable up outside the house would be very difficult to get through, and somewhat dangerous. However, i sneakily put on the movie cliff-hanger the other day, to show my wife how easy it would to dangle from the eaves of the roof for 5 mins and feed me through the cat5. I'm not wholly convinced she believed me.
Just to put me off that particular scent, she then had the idea of running the cable up stairs within the house, as we will need to fit new carpet through this area anyway - we can just run it under the carpet. Much as i detest having to admit it to her, she may have the simplest solution. The trick it to wait a few days, get her pissed (which is easier when they're pregnant) and convince her that it was my idea.
This next shot shows you the current study in relation to the stairs leading up to the loft.
And these shots show you the new study in formation. I know what you're thinking, 'it has a shower... WTF'. Well until you've seen me gaming, you have no idea of the physical effort involved in a round of Super Mario Cart. I've put through doors playing Doom. Seriosuly though, the main bathroom of the house is too small for a 4 bedroomed house.
As you can see, there is really on one useable wall to place the desk and computer, and that is against the Chimney Union. I'm in preparation mode at the moment and the chimney is my first job. It was build 105 years ago, in 1904 and was never meant to be seen. So to say the mortar work is not that pretty is an understatement. I'm not going to go mad on it. Just tidy it up somewhat and seal it.
One of the things i want to do with this room, that i've not had before, is to have proper surround sound for gaming. So i plan to install the rear speakers somewhere. It's not the best room for this, so i am thinking of mounting them on those jutting out bits of wall that run the length of the room on either side at about waist height (these are formed around the main roof timbers). This should give really decent separation to the rear.
I am thinking of mounting the front L/R speakers on the edges of the chimney breast at either side (where the cables are hanging now). There will be lighting installed either side there too (ambient and task lighting). The centre speaker will probably just end up on the desk under the screen.
My other concern is sound transference downstairs - both the main bedroom and the nursery are directly below this room. I had initially considered some sort of wooden laminate flooring, but i understand that carpet makes a much better dampener of sound (and hider of cables). Does anyone have any experience with this? Is there some sort of material I can sandwich between the carpet and the floor to help. Is there a better option than carpet?
This won't be a daily or even weekly thing. I doubt i'll have much to report on for several weeks now. But there ya go. A nice little project for the spring and summer.
In the meantime, i'm going to be thinking about the 3-screen setup i'd been considering. Now i have the room to do it. But i'm not sure where to start...
- Do i buy a card with three outputs on it. The card i have in this one is a 9800GTX, so it's still really good. But i can just about justify moving that down to the HTPC and binning the 7900GTX (even though it's still going really well... :crying
.
- Do i by a set of SLi cards? I think that means i'll need a new puter as intel chipset cards don't support SLi.
- Is there another way of outputting to 3 screens?
These are not rhetorical questions. I really would like to hear from you if you know what my options are.
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