It's the cabinet project!

I have a wire problem. And a kitten problem. Kittens love wires. But also, I have a lot of wires. I have a lot of stuff on my desk. Some of it is normal: papers, writing stuff, etc. But a lot of it is gadgets. With wires. Did I mention lots of wires? So I gotta do something about the wires. Because it's ugly. And the kittens love wires.

• The original problem on 09-Jul-2004.
• A first attempt to solve it on 18-Jul-2004.
• The crux of the problem on 13-Apr-2005.
• Start of prototype on 09-Dec-2005
• Finished prototype on 10-Dec-2005
• Backup power finished last fall but photographed 25-Feb-2007

What I want to do is build a cabinet to go in the space where the current shelf is. I think this will offer several benefits:

• Dust control
• Wire control - keep the cats away from the wires
• Should look a lot better
• Clear up desk surface
• Maybe better airflow and cooling?

• The far right edge of the desk is 20" deep.
• The surface is a standard 30" from the floor.
• The widest gadget I think I want to put in there is about 10.5". So I think I want an inside width of 12". With 3/4" sides, that's 13.5" wide?
• Some of the gadgets are heavy. Not stereo-system heavy, but some have transformers and whatnot.
• I probably want to use cherry, to sorta match the desk.
• I want the shelves to be adjustable, because gadgets will come and go.
• I want the shelves to be no more than 16" deep, maybe even less. I want to be able to do cable management up and down the back of the cabinet. Some of the wires aren't so bendy, so we need plenty of space back there.
• I think my deepest device is about 10" so 14" probably would work.
• I need the back to be removable for access, but it doesn't have to be hinged or anything: screws should work.
• I want a false bottom to hold power strips, transformers, all the crap that is on the cookie cooling rack right now. Update: I put in an 8-port serial adapter box in there so that all I can program all the radios. This might also include where the antenna wires and power comes into the box. Or maybe just antennas and have AC power come in the back?
• I also want to make it easy to plug things in temporarily without taking the back off. I have a 12v powerstrip that should get mounted in there as well.
• I ran all the external speaker jacks to a pair of these cool ART Power Mix I 4-channel mono mixers and then ran each of the two outputs through a Clean Box II hum and ground loop removers, and then finally to the line-in on my desktop so I can record anything I'm listening to.
• Finally, I probably need some cooling mechanism. Small quiet fans to blow air out near the top? The desk has a 1/2" inset from the surface to the legs for the top 6" (and about 7/8" for much of the 20" run) so that might be the place to put fans [on the left side of the cabinet].

Am I asking for too much?

I'm reminded that it could be much, much, worse. And also: this.

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