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Saturday, January 28, 2012

The Path to Our Dream Home: Media Closet

Today we continue the Path to Our Dream Home series with a less visually appealing space that is super-high function - the Media Closet.  To catch up, you can visit Back to the Beginning, the Main Bath, the Guest Bath and the Utility/Storage Room.  Each post tours the room in photographs, and shows how we work a lot of organization and function into each room of our small house.  There are many project ideas for each room, so none of them is ever "done", but they are all on the path to our dream home!

Among my husband's proudest achievements, we turned a hallway linen closet into the ultimate Media Closet.  Our linens are stowed under the bed in the master bedroom, which freed up this small closet to house the following components:

Home Theater:
Media Center PC
7.1 Surround Sound Receiver

Computer Networking and Communications:
ASUS Wireless Router
Motorola Cable Modem
AT&T MicroCell mini cell phone tower (otherwise our cell phones have no signal at home)
USB Printer

Media Center PC

We are movie and music lovers and have tons of both, along with a bazillion pictures.  We store all of our media on a dedicated computer we have named "Mediatron".  Because it has three hard drives in it, totaling 3.5 terabytes of space, I can procrastinate with the digital clutter project just a little bit longer, but the blog is a great excuse to tackle the digital clutter (more soon)!  ;)  The hard drives also have back-ups in place for the media, as well as for the laptops in the "office" (in the living room).

The Media Closet is conveniently located about 4 feet behind the wall in the living room on which the TV hangs (picture of the view from the living room is below).  When the house was re-wired during our renovations, special wiring and outlets were installed to minimize cables from view. Through the walls and the attic the HDMI cables and speaker wires run between the Home Theater receiver and the TV and speakers, respectively.  Mediatron and the Cable box are both routed through the receiver to the TV.  Within the closet, Mediatron is wired to the router for speed, and the semi-old printer is wired to the router as well, allowing us to print wirelessly from the laptops in our office. The bulky subwoofer lives in the attic and trust me when I tell you that it works just as well up there, and we love not having to sacrifice space for it or look at it!

We use the Windows 7 libraries to organize the movies, music, pictures and videos on the computer.  Then Windows Media Center is the player for all the media we own, both in the living room, and via Media Center Extender and the XBox 360 that is connected to our bedroom TV.  We can also watch TV shows and listen to music online in the living room.  If anyone is interested in more details about our set-up (how Mediatron was built to "scream", back-ups, codecs, add-ins, etc), I will ask my husband to do a guest post on the subject, because we've reached the limit of my understanding!



One Remote to Rule Them All

An IR repeater connects all the components that are controlled by a remote to the receiver, so that all that shows in the living room is the tiny box way up high on the wall, that has a blue light to show that the signal is received from the remote.



My husband programmed the receiver's remote to control the TV, Cable Box, the receiver, and even Windows Media Center on the computer!  We also have a wireless keyboard and mouse that make the computer fully functional.  All the devices are hidden behind the closet door!  It is awesome!!

Proper Ventilation

We installed a bathroom fan and light combo into the ceiling of this tiny closet to give it adequate ventilation with the door closed.  The fan runs at 2.5 sones and you can't hear it at all in the living room with the closet door closed, even with the TV off.  It makes a HUGE difference in terms of the temperature inside the closet, and with the computer working less hard to keep itself cool, I'm sure it works faster and uses less energy!

Paper Storage

After all the functionality of the top few shelves of this closet, I am so excited that there was just enough space leftover for some extra storage.  Along with the camera and accessories, printer paper is stored in black boxes below the printer - white paper on top and specialty papers for printing photos, resumes, etc. below.  On the floor, I put my Iris Scrapbook storage tower, which I use to organize all my craft paper.  The tower holds six clear storage boxes perfectly sized for 12x12 paper.  Each box can slide out and travel to my desk for crafts. 


How do you organize your media?

This post is linked up to the following link parties:

Sundae Scoop @ I {Heart} Naptime

Weekend Warrior Link Party @ Ask Anna

Metamorphosis Monday @ Between Naps on the Porch

One Project at a Time @ A Bowl Full of Lemons

Inspiration Board @ Homework

Overflowing with Creativity @ It's Overflowing

Show & Tell @ Blue Cricket Design

Home Decor and Organizing Link Party @ organize & decorate everything

Delightfully Inspiring Thursday Party @ Delightful Order

Crafty Scrappy Happy Me. Thursday

Hooking up with HoH @ House of Hepworths

Potpourri Friday @ 2805

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