Of course there were a few things that bugged us about our 1964 classic home when we moved in, one of which was some of the ways things were added on over the years, like phone lines and cable/internet cables. Apparently the easiest way was to just take a drill and bore a hole directly through our nice oak floors and call it a day. Every room in our house is the same way except in our basement where the cable connectors are actually in the wall…where they should be. While going over the plan with my father on our now underway room renovations, he suggested that we pick up a couple of “remodel boxes” for the cable and phone line wires. What are remodel boxes you ask? I had never heard of them either, but I now consider myself a professional remodel box installer because of how easy they are to install.
Here is what our cable lines looked like before we started the room renovations last week. Total cable chaos.
After we did the initial demolition of the old baseboards, I was able to see exactly how the cable was drilled in through the floor. In order to make this cable a little less wild and wooley, I needed to widen the hole towards the wall so I could feed the cable up through the inside of the wall. For this I used a hammer and chisel to remove a little more of the floor board for the cable to sit in so the new baseboards will cleanly cover it.
This is what a remodel box looks like before installation. There really isn’t too much to it. What makes it great though are the little tabs attached to the screws. After you insert the box into your wall, all you have to do is tighten the screws, and those little tabs pop up as shown, securing it from the back side of the drywall.
I used a small level and pencil to mark where I wanted it to go. I chose to put it fairly close to an outlet, so we wouldn’t have to run any crazy lengths of extension cords when we hook up a television or internet to it. I based the height off of the existing outlet so they will both be on the same plane when the covers are put back on.
Next I used a utility knife to cut out the rectangle.
And it popped right out leaving me with a nice rectangular hole to feed the cable through.
I pulled the cable all the way through and then put the excess back into the wall.
Next I put the cable into the remodel box, set it in the wall, and tightened the screws to secure it. It went in really easily.
Along with the remodel box I also purchased the items necessary to cover it. I needed a wall plate and a cable connector.
I then screwed the connector to the cable in the box.
And then snapped it into the wall plate.
All that was left to do was fasten the wall plate to the box with the provided screws and it was done.
In all, it took me about 20 minutes to complete and it cost about $5.00. It makes a huge difference not having random cables coming out of the floor. The same thing can be used for electrical outlets and phone lines, which we will also be putting in later. That’s just a tiny look at one of the tasks I got to over the weekend, but hopefully I’ll be back later in the week with a look at our newly painted walls and a sneak peek of what we’re doing with our baseboards, trim, and crown molding.
