I spent most of yesterday and today working on finally drilling holes and mounting hardware to install all of the new home office computer parts that I have been accumulating since before Christmas 2020. This project has been in the works in some way, shape or form for a very long time. It's still a long way until it's finished, but I made good progress with the big stuff.

Electrical, check! The office desk area only ever had 2 electrical outlets, underneath the desk, with no good way to get cables through to the top of the desk, except through the ragged horribly drilled hole that the previous homeowner made. After having fixed that issue last summer with an in-desk popup tower with Qi wireless charging pad, it's so nice not to have to look at that ridiculous hole anymore.

First I had to drill a larger hole. Not an easy feat with the way this one had previously been cut. Also I really didn't have the right tools to do the job. So I fought with this longer than necessary, made too many trips to Home Depot to get the right tool, and then return the tool that I thought was going to work and didn't, and finally get a simple jigsaw and finished cutting the circle in about 20 minutes. After having spent many many hours on this one simple step.

Then just drop in the new electrical power hub, and push it down into the desk for a nice clean hidden hole, but with the ability to access 4 plugs and 2 USB ports at any time.

Many months after getting this simple, but tedious task finished, I also added 3 new electrical outlets above the desk, and in the back of the upper cabinet, so that there would be no shortage of places to plug in the electronics. I will mount a multi-strip surge protector in the cabinet with 8 outlets and 2 USB plugs.

So, in case you lost count, I went from

2 electrical outlets with 4 plugs,
to
7 outlets/power strips, with a total of 22 plugs and 8 USB plugs. 

Next, onto mounting the Ergotron monitor arm, and putting 2 more holes in the walls to run some cable conduit passthrough routes. I'll explain those installs in more detail next time.