The closet organizer is done. I secured 3 pieces of 3/4 inch plywood to the wall, spanning 6 studs. They are attached with 52 two and a half inch screws- one screw every 16 inches whenever the plywood crosses a stud.
This is a rail mounted closet organizer. There is a screw through the rail whenever it crosses a stud, and a 1/4×20 elevator screw in between those screws, so that no section of rail is unsupported for more than a foot. Then the system is hung on the rail. I’m fairly certain that will hold it. I painted the plywood to match the wall, and now it looks great. One project complete. Including waiting for parts, it took just over a week.
The camera system should be done tomorrow. That project took 4 days of solid work during the day.
For those asking what cameras I chose, there are two types.
For fixed cameras, I bought five Lorex E842CD cameras. They are 8mp cameras that I placed in the central room of the house, the pool, the rear lanai, over the driveway, and at the front door. I am moving away from smart doorbells because it would have to connect via WiFi, and I want a wired setup.
I also added a PTZ camera. I wanted one with a good optical zoom, so I can see things at distance with clarity. I chose the Amcrest IP8M-2899EW. Like the fixed cameras, it’s also 8mp. It has a full 25x optical and 16x digital zoom. Using this camera, I can read license plates at 200 yards and the expiration sticker on them at 100 yards. It has built in AI that performs facial recognition. Don’t ask me how that works, because I haven’t played with it yet.
All of the cameras are attached to a RAID comprised of three 10tb HDDs inside of a Synology RS1221+ running the Surveillance Station software. That RAID gives me at least 60 days’ recording capacity.
At this point, I will be making minor adjustments to settings and things like that. I also need to learn to use the software, so I will be playing with that some. All in all, I have a good system that allows me to control my data and I won’t have to pay subscription fees to anyone.
The firewall keeps the cameras from connecting to the Internet. The VLAN rules only permit the cameras to talk to the disk station. That protects me from cameras that can be hacked or used to spy on my data.
Installing it required a couple of network changes, but I will lay out my final network in a post coming soon.
4 Comments
TRX · June 19, 2026 at 8:58 am
> I am moving away from smart doorbells because it would have to connect via WiFi, and I want a wired setup.
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You’re probably aware of this already, but you can get surface-mount cable runs that attach to the wall with screws or adhesive, to run the network and power wiring through. You can get contrasting colors or paintable. You may have seen them in old buildings – an adjacent county’s administration building predates electricity, and has them. Generally they go up to a drop ceiling or into the attic, though that might not be practical depending what the roof looks like over your entry door.
Another alternative to the ‘doorbell’ arrangement is to move the camera off to the side to someplace easier to cable, and cover the porch and front walk. You won’t get a face-forward mug shot like the doorbell cams, but at 8 megapixels you could get enough zoom to be useful.
Divemedic · June 19, 2026 at 10:15 am
Walls are concrete block. I don’t like the look of a surface mount doorbell. I can mount a camera up near the ceiling, over the front door. I can run that with a somewhat hidden cable.
Elliott · June 19, 2026 at 3:26 pm
Cool. I ripped three panels of rusted steel roof off my shed, replaced them. then proceeded inside to rip up the rotted plywood floorboards, mold, destroyed a carpenter ant colony, made several cuts on new plywood pieces to fit, and used deck screws to reinstall – NOT nails, so if I ever have to go in there again it’ll be easier. All in the 100 degree high humidity of central Tex., was drenched in sweat, better part of two days. Best part, once you’re drenched, it don’t get no worse. Made sure to re-supply the NaCl I sweated off, drinking 0.9% saline never hurt me yet although, it was more concentrated than 0.9 b/c, …. my kidneys are fine and the LD 50 for NaCl is way high up (same with KCl) On a planet of geniuses I reside, every time I mention salt tablets were used forever , back in the day, these modern geniuses always like to spout nonsense. I seem to recall David Brownstein MD having written a book titled: “Salt your way to health”. Imagine a population chronically low in Na…… would they be healthy, in general ? Not !!!!!
Steve the Engineer · June 21, 2026 at 2:54 pm
Not being familiar with the terminology, a schematic would help some of us comprehend what you are doing.
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