Let’s face it — right now, everything I write is going straight into the drawer. But who knows what the future holds…
By the time this post was written, the functionality of the numerous sensors and controllers in the house had already outgrown the capabilities of the Raspberry Pi 3B+, which had admirably served as the “central brain” of the home for the past couple of years. It had lived a long and honorable life, building an impressive career in this role. What’s more, it kept trying to fulfill its duties even when the station called “Raspberry Can’t Keep Up” was already far behind.
But miracles don’t happen… At some point, it simply said: “Happy New Year! I’m done, I’m outta here!”
And so, the Raspberry Pi was replaced by a more suitable computer that took on the roles of a home NAS, local web server, database host, standalone torrent client, and home controller management system, among other things.
I threw it together one evening using a case and motherboard with a processor that a Friend had generously gifted me after upgrading his own NAS. All I added were hard drives and as much RAM as I could fit… No photos exist, but there wasn’t much to photograph anyway — just a plain, no-frills PC form factor.
Once the new server fully assumed the role of the home’s “central brain,” it was time to figure out where to stash it so that it was both accessible and out of the way, didn’t take up space, wasn’t underfoot, stayed in a comfortable environment, was safe from surprise Cat attacks, and, most importantly, didn’t stick out like a sore thumb while still being part of the home.
Note from the Future: Later, the smart home moved back to a Raspberry Pi — this time the fifth generation — and under a completely different home automation system. But that’s a whole other story, one I’ll share someday when everything settles in my mind and stops shifting concepts every time I come up with a new controller…
Of course, the idea of a “home server room” didn’t just pop into my head one day. It had been percolating for years, thoroughly chewed over in my mind. As a result, the spot for the project had been chosen long ago and agreed upon with everyone it could possibly concern. Everyone agreed it was the right decision.
We have a pantry in the kitchen for storing all the goodies — an essential and timeless attribute of any kitchen, in any home, anywhere in the world. It could take the form of a separate piece of furniture, like a cabinet or chest. Or, as in our case, it’s built into the wall as a small “room”:
The pantry itself doesn’t occupy this part of the wall all the way up to the ceiling. That’s simply because the kitchen ceiling is ridiculously high, and the pantry’s functionality becomes irrelevant at heights exceeding the average reach of a human female with her arm fully extended upward. As a result, there’s a rather significant chunk of unused space between the top of the pantry and the ceiling, which, until recently, served no purpose whatsoever:
That unused space became the perfect spot for the “home server room” project.
Advantages:
There’s enough room not just for the server itself, but for all the accompanying infrastructure: modems, hubs, switches, routers, fans, access points (AP), power supplies (PSU), uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), and other miscellaneous equipment.
It’s nearly at the geographic center of the entire living space, meaning that the length of any cabling from this point through the attic to end-users in any corner of the house is evenly distributed.
Eventually, the WiFi access point will be relocated there, which will ensure more even coverage of the home network. This is particularly important for all the smart home controllers with their low-power receivers.
The location is far from the bedrooms, so the hum of the server and its companions won’t disturb the Dog’s sensitive nighttime slumber.
It doesn’t occupy any usable space within the home. From the perspective of living area, it’s as if this spot never existed.
It’s the most ventilated area in the house, located at the intersection of airflow from the central air conditioning system — a significant factor for electronic equipment running 24/7.
It’s completely inaccessible to our household zoo. This has been personally verified by the Cat.
Disadvantage:
Without a ladder or stool, there’s no way to reach the server room.
With such a favorable ratio of pros to cons, there was no point in considering any other options.е не надо было…
Though, to be honest, one of the early ideas was to set up the server room in the attic…
One summer, out of curiosity, I placed one of the home sensors up there to see just how hot it could get. Well, I found out. It gets hot. To put it mildly. See the temperature chart…
After uncovering this fact, the attic was permanently ruled out for any current or future projects. At least until the next Ice Age rolls around…
The whole idea didn’t seem overly complicated.
Pink unicorns, drooling magical glitter and farting butterflies, chirped melodiously that all it would take was: cut a hole in the wall, run some electrical wiring, cover it all with a door, paint it white, and voilà — done! Sure, sure… They always say that. And then, instead of the quick and easy “done in a couple of minutes” plan, it turns into a thoughtful construction project spanning a couple of weeks.
In this particular case, the first step was to open up the wall and see what was behind it. I had initially tried scouting out the area from the attic — unsuccessfully. Later, I realized I’d been looking in the wrong place… But that’s beside the point.
Knowing the devious nature of the unicorns in charge of DIY projects, I tried not to demolish too much of the wall, so that, if things went sideways, I could pop the piece of drywall back in and pretend nothing ever happened:
In the photo above, the rectangular piece of drywall had to be put back in place. Not because the project had failed, but simply because the reconnaissance revealed new, previously unknown, and critically important information, which necessitated some adjustments to the plan.
Specifically, it turned out that the cavity behind the wall wasn’t a sealed space but was directly connected to the attic. A cascade of scorching hot air poured through the hole, deeply upsetting our home air conditioner, which immediately switched to high-power mode. This, in turn, disheartened the electricity meter, which also sped up its rotations. And that, of course, threatened to distress the household budget… To prevent this chain of sorrows from drowning everyone, the exploratory hole was temporarily sealed while plans were revised and various preparations were made. This took a couple of days.
The tricky part in all of this was that the pantry’s roof intruded into the volume designated for the future server room:
The challenge here was that all of this was located in the most prominent and lived-in part of the house. It was crucial to make sure that the server niche above the pantry seamlessly fit into the overall refined “architectural ensemble.”
If the design were tied directly to the pantry’s ceiling structure, the large “gap” between the pantry door and the future server room door would create a noticeable imbalance in the overall appearance. In such a setup, it would be impossible to say, “It’s always been like this.”
Once all the necessary adjustments had been made to the plans and the required preparations were complete, the wall was opened up properly, this time with the full dimensions of the planned server room in mind:
The revised model of the pantry and server room showed that trimming the pantry ceiling would have virtually no impact on its functionality. My wife rarely uses the top shelf anyway, as it’s too high to reach easily. That shelf is typically reserved for long-term storage of canned goods that don’t require frequent access or much vertical clearance (in the photo below, the shelf is completely empty because I removed the few cans that were living there).
No other issues were discovered regarding the pantry’s structure. Well, except for a few unexpected wires that had been run across the future server room space, stretching from the attic to the nearest light switch. They were pulled almost taut, leaving no room to move or reroute them:
But that’s nothing, that’s actually a good thing!
Two out of the three wires, as it turned out, ran from the switch to the kitchen ceiling lights. They had simply been extended and routed through a beam along the wall.
The third wire, however — the power line — became the source of electricity for the server niche. Fortunately, it turned out to be part of the least loaded electrical circuit in the house (it only powered two ceiling lights in the kitchen and a wall outlet that we barely use). Even better, this circuit was controlled by its own dedicated breaker in the panel.
Originally, the plan called for running a new dedicated line from the breaker panel to the server room, but as it turned out, there was no need to do anything at all. Everything was already set up. A perfect scenario!
Immediately after the wall was fully opened, the volume of the future server room was isolated from the attic using pre-cut insulation panels. These were installed across both the ceiling and the walls:
Without insulation, even from the room side, being in this area was, to put it mildly, unpleasant (see the temperature graph above).
Once the threat of instant death by overheating — for both living and non-living things in the house — was eliminated, it was finally time to start building and outfitting the space. The first step was to line the interior of the server room with plywood as the base cladding:
Why was an additional narrow vertical niche created inside the server room? The answer is simple…
As usual, the real world and the realm of magical unicorns differ in a few minor yet significant details. For instance, the server, in the form of a “standard desktop PC,” fit into the depth of the server room with almost no margin. From the front door to the back wall, it was an inch-for-inch fit! This left absolutely no room for trivialities like a power plug inserted into the back panel of the PC. And let’s not forget the Ethernet cable for network connection, the USB cord to the UPS, and probably something else as well.
There were three options:
Install the computer sideways in the server room;
Find specialized cables with ultra-compact right-angle connectors;
Make the server room deeper to provide a bit more space behind the computer.
The third option was chosen as the “lesser of evils”:
The placement and configuration of the “sub-niche” were dictated by the construction of the back wall of the server room, which also serves as the dining room wall in that part of the house.
Sure, just placing the computer sideways would have been even easier, but it would have looked like a total mess. The server room door was planned to be transparent, and a sideways computer with its front panel controls facing one direction and a bundle of cables sticking out the back… Yeah, not exactly appealing.
Searching for and purchasing special cables with quirky right-angle connectors would have delayed the project. Plus, I’m skeptical that such a search would have been successful. The fit was just too tight.
For instance, I do have power cords with angled C13 connectors at the end, but they’re not exactly compact enough. In this particular case, they didn’t solve the problem at all. I checked, of course… but no luck.
With the walls of the server room finished, it was time to focus on its interior.
It’s worth noting that — of course — during the earliest stages of planning, the option of installing standard server rails was considered. I even spent several days browsing Craigslist and various marketplaces in search of an inexpensive, second-hand server mini-rack that could simply be slotted into the space above the pantry and used as intended.
Something like this:
There’s plenty of that kind of stuff available on the second-hand market at reasonable prices. But…
I made a list of the equipment I already had and counted how many items could actually fit into standard server rack units. The total came out to exactly two: a power strip unit (which I already had) and, possibly, a UPS unit (which I’d need to find and buy). And that’s it! All the other server room components were already in place and operational. They consisted of purely consumer-grade items that didn’t fit into a server rack format in any way — including, of course, the server itself, which, as repeatedly mentioned, is just a regular desktop PC.
The most sensible approach, then, seemed to be not to adapt the equipment to the server rack, but to adapt the design of the server cabinet to the equipment I already had. After all, the equipment was already there and functioning, while the cabinet still needed to be built one way or another.
“Gotta build a proper server room, just like the granddads intended”
Sure, I could’ve dug out an old sweater from the pantry, pinned a penguin badge to it, grown a beard, and, while belching cheap beer, lectured everyone around about what’s “proper”…
Thanks for the visual, DALL-E. Yes, that’s exactly how it might have looked. Although, I didn’t ask for a cigarette in my mouth. I’ve never smoked those. Only cigarettes and pipes… But, well, the cigarette’s fine too. The badge is downright awesome. Now I want one. And the sweater looks cozy… As for the beer…
Ugh, anyway. In my particular case, going down that path of righteousness would have meant tossing my entire collection of existing devices onto the altar, forcing myself into entirely different and much stricter constraints. It would’ve cost a pretty penny, to say the least. And for the purposes of a home NAS with basic web server functions — something purely for hobby and entertainment — the idea is so unreasonable it’s not even worth pulling out a calculator.
The only standard server unit I had on hand — the power strip — easily found its place in the “sub-niche” that had been created to accommodate the plugs and cables connected to the server.
Power to this unit comes directly from the breaker in the electrical panel via in-wall wiring, so there’s no unnecessary spaghetti of cables dangling around inside.
That said, I did have to construct something resembling a rack. But it’s a truly primitive and compact semblance — just two vertical metal poles. That’s the whole “rack”:
These poles have been part of my projects before and will likely be part of future ones. They’re extendable mop handles whose original purpose has been drastically reconsidered. At some point, I stumbled upon a few packs of these handles, and they’ve since been a go-to for various DIY projects. Lightweight, metal, thin-walled, and laminated — they make excellent crafting material.
This way, at almost no cost, they allow for a standardized mounting system for mismatched, non-standard household equipment that works just as well as a proper server box. And you don’t have to buy new devices or butcher existing ones trying to fit square pegs into round holes.
For example, here’s a mount for a hub:
When you have a 3D printer at home, creating a mount for even the trickiest and oddly-shaped device case becomes a matter of a few hours. The only requirement is that the mounting bracket fits these poles.
Here’s a more complex example. The mounting for a block of terminal strips in the central power supply unit for surveillance cameras:
Why? Well… All the cameras in my smart home setup require the same 12V power. Each camera comes with its own power adapter that plugs into an outlet. At the same time, every camera is connected to a shared hub (shown earlier) via twisted-pair cable. So why multiply entities unnecessarily? It makes more sense to use one powerful central power supply that distributes 12V to all the cameras. Since I already need to run twisted-pair cables from the cameras to the hub, adding a pair of power wires doesn’t change much. Plus, it’s safer this way — I don’t need to install high-voltage outlets all over the attic for each camera’s individual power adapter. Not to mention that the standard cube-style adapters fare very poorly in the harsh attic environment.
Yes, I’m aware of Power over Ethernet (PoE). But at the time, it was prohibitively expensive. At a minimum, I’d have needed to find and buy a PoE-capable switch or hub. On top of that, I wasn’t sure if the cameras I already owned supported PoE… which could have meant replacing all the cameras as well.
The cameras also support WiFi, so theoretically, I could avoid running twisted-pair cables altogether. But, first of all, I already have enough devices clogging the airwaves without the cameras joining in. Second, it doesn’t solve the power issue at all. Something has to be wired — either power or network. And in that case, an extra pair of wires doesn’t make much difference.
I’ll also need to make mounts for the router and modem in the same style. For now, though, they’re still sitting in my office in their original spot. The reason is that the provider’s cable enters the house on one side, and to bring it into the server room, it needs to be routed from the opposite side. That’ll be a task for the second phase of the project.
One way or another, when the time comes, individual mounts like these can be made for anything, anytime. They can easily be adjusted up or down along the poles, swapped around, and reconfigured to arrange the equipment however the current setup demands.
It’s like a pegboard in a workshop for hanging tools. Today, one arrangement might seem convenient; tomorrow, it might be something else. In such cases, modular systems turn out to be much more functional than fixed shelves. And yes, by the way, even a regular shelf can be attached to these poles if needed.
For routing all the cables to the attic, the server room ceiling features a generously-sized opening lined with a PVC pipe fitting. This pipe runs through the ceiling and insulation straight into the attic space:
For now, cables still need to be routed through it occasionally, so the opening is simply stuffed with foam to insulate around the wires. When the time comes, I’ll print some custom covers for the channel, so I don’t have to keep digging through the foam every time.
An exhaust fan was installed in the back wall of the server room:
The fan doesn’t run continuously. Naturally, the server room has lighting and a controller to manage it… after all, this is a smart home! Of course, I couldn’t resist installing yet another controller in the holy sanctuary of the house’s “brain.” This controller also manages the fan, turning it on when the temperature in the server room rises above a set threshold and turning it off when the temperature drops back to the desired level.
The same controller also reports the current temperature inside the server room to the smart home system. If, for any reason, the temperature goes beyond acceptable limits, alarms and alerts will immediately flood all our phones and email inboxes.
The monitoring system is actually a bit more sophisticated than that. It doesn’t rely solely on the data from this controller but also factors in information from the server itself. Based on the analysis of all parameters, the smart home system decides whether to quietly notify me about something suspicious or to launch a full-scale panic alert for everyone it can reach.
The exhaust from this fan, without any frills, vents directly into the dining room on the other side of the wall:
The whole setup produces almost no noise. The fan itself is incredibly quiet — from the “style costs more than the processor” price range. Personally, I can’t hear it at all. I even had to add a special indicator light to the controller just to visually confirm whether it’s running or not.
As for the warm air being vented from the server room into the dining room… well, since most of the equipment in the server room is consumer-grade, it doesn’t generate much heat, including the server itself. The fan runs for about 10–15 minutes every few hours. On particularly hot days, it might activate every hour or so. It has no significant impact on the overall climate of the house.
And this isn’t just an unfounded assumption. The dining room, kitchen, and living room got their own controllers three years ago. Every move is logged! It’s possible to track changes in temperature and humidity in these rooms both before and after the server room was added. Research showed that if any changes do exist, they’re beyond the sensitivity range of the BME280 “climate” chip — which, for us meatbags, translates to “there’s absolutely no noticeable difference.”
This was yet another factor that pushed me away from the idea of building a “serious” server room with a “real” server. For that, I would have definitely needed to set up proper ventilation with an exhaust system leading out through the attic. Otherwise… well, I once had a Sun server under my desk back in Moscow. With that thing running, I didn’t even need to turn on the radiators in winter.
Oh, and of course, I added lighting to the cabinet too. Can’t do without it!
Of course, both the lighting and the fan can be controlled remotely via the smart home interface, without needing to physically enter the server room. However, 99% of the time, everything runs in automatic mode and requires no human intervention.
When the server room setup was assembled in its minimal configuration and the smart home’s brains started functioning in their new location, it became clear that this was exactly how it should be. The concept proved itself, and no significant changes to the server room’s layout were necessary. So, it was time to focus on its decorative facade.
The front opening of the entire niche had initially been cut along the outline formed by the load-bearing beams of the wall — two long vertical posts hidden under the drywall that also support the pantry door below.
Here’s where a detail came up… If the server room door were made to span the full width of the cut-out, it would be much wider than the pantry door below. After all, the pantry door’s size isn’t just defined by the beams but also by its frame. That would look odd and out of place.
So, a sort of frame had to be built for the server room niche, mimicking the thickness of the pantry’s door frame below:
Modeling showed that, once painted white and framed with the exact same trim as the pantry door below, the whole setup would form a cohesive ensemble in the desired “it’s always been this way” style.
For once, reality decided not to mess around and matched the computer screen modeling exactly:
I even managed to use a roller to mimic the “bumpy” texture on the trim (though it’s barely visible in the photos). The original trim around the pantry door has this textured, bumpy finish. Unfortunately, it seems they don’t make trim like that anymore. I found ones with the exact same profile in the store, but they were completely smooth. Sure, it’s up near the ceiling, and no one would notice unless I pointed it out, but I would know! So, I had to add the “bumps” to ensure I could sleep peacefully at night.
The door itself, however, was a bit trickier. It couldn’t be completely solid, whether with glass or not. It needed ventilation openings. Otherwise, the server room fan might start pulling air from the attic through the cable channel, no matter how well it’s sealed with insulation. And that’s not ideal.
As a result, the door is divided into two sections: one for glass and another for ventilation.
That narrow lower section — that’s the air intake:
Of course, for aesthetic purposes, grilles were 3D-printed for it, designed so that no gaps are visible from below:
The glass is acrylic. I didn’t overthink it too much — just a square of moderately thin plexiglass secured with heavy-duty double-sided tape around the perimeter. It looks neat and keeps things simple.
I found some excellent external spring hinges for the door in my stash. However, I had to 3D-print special spacers to compensate for the thickness of the faux frame to which these hinges are mounted:
Lately, it seems like these hinges have disappeared from stores, which is disappointing. I really like them. They’re invisible, don’t require mortising into the doors, are adjustable, and hold the door snugly against the frame. I do have a couple more pairs in my stash, but… well, when the need arises, a solution will present itself. At least for the server room, the door-hanging issue was solved — quite literally.
And that’s it. The project, as expected, took more than the “couple of hours” promised by the unicorns, but nothing particularly complicated came up during its execution either. Over time, a few more devices were added to the “rack,” a large reliable UPS appeared next to the server, and various little things were sorted out.
The result:
It fit in like it had always been there! Since the “server room” doesn’t require constant access, it just quietly exists, and no one even remembers it’s there. Any server-related interventions, when necessary, are done entirely at the software level via a terminal window from any computer in the house.
Even the Cat gave up on it. At first, he would sit for hours below, perched on the bar counter opposite, watching the little lights blinking inside occasionally. But eventually, he lost interest — probably because he realized there was no way to get to it anyway.
It even got to the point of being funny… Some time later, my Wife and I were talking about it, and she insisted that the cabinet had always been there since the beginning of time, and I had merely “repurposed” it as a server room and updated the door. I had to dig up old photos to prove her wrong. Didn’t work. Apparently, they were “Photoshopped,” “AI-generated,” and, anyway, “your memory is full of holes, I remember better.” But to me, this proved one thing: all the project’s objectives had been fulfilled 100%.
