Between 265 & 485 SQ/FT Nick's Two-Car Detached Vdub Garage

nicholam77 · Jan 3, 2026

jonshonda said:
If you've got the time, look into Woolwax and their pro spray gun kit for undercoating. I will admit I don't have enough history using it to really say "this stuff works", but I'm hoping it will help in the later stages of our vehicle ownership. I didn't apply it when the vehicles were new and the Lexus had been through 5 winters prior to application, so it will be interesting to see if the claims of penetration and protection are true.

Denwood said:
On the rust thing...welcome to my world :-( @jonshonda , a cavity gun, woolwax or whatever applied carefully and touched up yearly is pretty much essential stuff for the rust belt if you're attempting to keep a vehicle outside of warranty. I'm using Noxudol 300 and 700, but Woolwax is fine as a water displacer.

Thanks, guys. Once I get it fixed I'd like to maintain a treatment like this. Should have been doing it all along.

Denwood said:
Nick ,best to you and your family

Thanks, Dennis. We had a busy but nice holiday. Hope you did, too.

Denwood said:
Nick, I've got a quick HA question for you. What hardware are you hosting on and what did you use for zwave and zigbee gateways?

Does this mean you're dipping your toes in? Or just curious?

I'm using a 'thin client' Lenovo ThinkCentre M73. No real reason for that model specifically, I was just looking for a cheap Lenovo or Dell mini PC with decent specs. This one has:

Intel Core i5-4570T 2.90GHz, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, shipped with Win 10.

Paid $56.

But any x86 intel machine with decent specs should do the job.

I installed HA bare metal (HAOS) instead of doing any sort of virtualization. So it's a dedicated machine. Considering you can run HA on a Pi, it's way overkill, but I like it that way, and don't really have other services I want to run.

A good amount of people seem to go the virtualization route (ProxMox is popular), and there are some benefits like backups at the virtualization level, but I didn't want *another* layer to learn and maintain.

It's blazing fast and resource utilization is low... completely happy with it. I would recommend similar specs if you can.

For Z-Wave gateway I'm using a Zooz Z800 LR USB stick, and the built-in Z-Wave JS integration. It works great. I don't think I've had to restart it since it was installed. Rock solid. Note it's recommended to use a small USB extension cable (2-3 ft) to get the radio away from the computer a bit. I have mine in a closet next to all my other network **** and it works great!

For Zigbee, I'm using an SMLight SLZB-06. It's excellent.

If you go this route, SMLight has a number of models. I went with this one because it seemed tried and true, but it's not the newest.

There's also two Zigbee integration options in Home Assistant. One is the built-in 'ZHA' (Zigbee Home Automation), and the other is a 3rd party Z2m (Zigbee2MQTT). I would read up on the differences. I believe a certain Zigbee radio chipset was preferable for Zigbee2MQTT which is the integration I used, which is why I used the SLZB-06 gateway.

The SLBZ-06 is super flexible. It can be used with WiFi, USB, or LAN (PoE). I'm using PoE. Which means you can place it anywere you have PoE, and it doesn't need to be right next to the HA computer. As I'm sure you know, Zigbee coordinators / gateways often work best placed centrally, so it's nice to have that flexibility to separate from the computer.

I will say I have to *occasionally* restart the Zigbee HA integration. I'm not sure if this is due to the gateway, my LAN, or the HA integration itself. But it's not often. My current uptime is 43 days. Nothing to complain about, really.

Signal is excellent and none of my Zigbee devices fall off the map or miss commands.

So yeah... I'm quited pleased with all my hardware!

For what it's worth, Home Assistant does make their own official hardware with the ZBT-2 and the ZWA-2, and I've heard good things, but I already had this setup and both of their antennas are quite large.

Denwood · Jan 4, 2026

nicholam77 said:
Thanks, guys. Once I get it fixed I'd like to maintain a treatment like this. Should have been doing it all along.

Thanks, Dennis. We had a busy but nice holiday. Hope you did, too.

Does this mean you're dipping your toes in? Or just curious?

I'm using a 'thin client' Lenovo ThinkCentre M73. No real reason for that model specifically, I was just looking for a cheap Lenovo or Dell mini PC with decent specs. This one has:

Intel Core i5-4570T 2.90GHz, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, shipped with Win 10.

Paid $56.

But any x86 intel machine with decent specs should do the job.

I installed HA bare metal (HAOS) instead of doing any sort of virtualization. So it's a dedicated machine. Considering you can run HA on a Pi, it's way overkill, but I like it that way, and don't really have other services I want to run.

A good amount of people seem to go the virtualization route (ProxMox is popular), and there are some benefits like backups at the virtualization level, but I didn't want *another* layer to learn and maintain.

It's blazing fast and resource utilization is low... completely happy with it. I would recommend similar specs if you can.

For Z-Wave gateway I'm using a Zooz Z800 LR USB stick, and the built-in Z-Wave JS integration. It works great. I don't think I've had to restart it since it was installed. Rock solid. Note it's recommended to use a small USB extension cable (2-3 ft) to get the radio away from the computer a bit. I have mine in a closet next to all my other network **** and it works great!

For Zigbee, I'm using an SMLight SLZB-06. It's excellent.

If you go this route, SMLight has a number of models. I went with this one because it seemed tried and true, but it's not the newest.

There's also two Zigbee integration options in Home Assistant. One is the built-in 'ZHA' (Zigbee Home Automation), and the other is a 3rd party Z2m (Zigbee2MQTT). I would read up on the differences. I believe a certain Zigbee radio chipset was preferable for Zigbee2MQTT which is the integration I used, which is why I used the SLZB-06 gateway.

The SLBZ-06 is super flexible. It can be used with WiFi, USB, or LAN (PoE). I'm using PoE. Which means you can place it anywere you have PoE, and it doesn't need to be right next to the HA computer. As I'm sure you know, Zigbee coordinators / gateways often work best placed centrally, so it's nice to have that flexibility to separate from the computer.

I will say I have to *occasionally* restart the Zigbee HA integration. I'm not sure if this is due to the gateway, my LAN, or the HA integration itself. But it's not often. My current uptime is 43 days. Nothing to complain about, really.

Signal is excellent and none of my Zigbee devices fall off the map or miss commands.

So yeah... I'm quited pleased with all my hardware!

For what it's worth, Home Assistant does make their own official hardware with the ZBT-2 and the ZWA-2, and I've heard good things, but I already had this setup and both of their antennas are quite large.

Thanks for this. I was thinking pretty much the same hardware. I have an older Dell mini PC and was considering the SMlight newer unit with both radios on board. I'm not a fan of virtualization for this stuff so would run it exactly like you.

With regard to HA, yes I'm looking at giving it a go. Hubitat has been 100% fine for me, but I've become rather intrigued by the ESPHome integration to HA and using it for a project using Lidar range sensors in the garage. The elements are a cheap ESP32 board (like I'm using now for some LED projects) loaded with ESPHOME, connected to a lidar sensor and set up in HA.

I'm looking for out of the box stuff to do this but so far not finding much. I'd like to sort out an LED based parking assist setup in the shop.

nicholam77 · Jan 5, 2026

Denwood said:
Thanks for this. I was thinking pretty much the same hardware. I have an older Dell mini PC and was considering the SMlight newer unit with both radios on board. I'm not a fan of virtualization for this stuff so would run it exactly like you.

No problem! If you're able to throw an SSD in the mini PC (if it doesn't have one already), I think that would be ideal.

I haven't heard much specifically about that combo SMLight unit (why do they have so many models?!?), but I know SMLight has been well-liked in the community for Zigbee for some time. I'm sure the combo stick will work well as long as you check out a few reviews ahead of time!

Denwood said:
With regard to HA, yes I'm looking at giving it a go. Hubitat has been 100% fine for me, but I've become rather intrigued by the ESPHome integration to HA and using it for a project using Lidar range sensors in the garage. The elements are a cheap ESP32 board (like I'm using now for some LED projects) loaded with ESPHOME, connected to a lidar sensor and set up in HA.

I'm looking for out of the box stuff to do this but so far not finding much. I'd like to sort out an LED based parking assist setup in the shop.

Nice! I think you will love it. Hubitat is very capable as you know, but imo a bit outdated and too tied to the old SmartThings being Groovy-based. The *only* downsides to Home Assistant most would cite would be the 'steep learning curve', occasionally mediocre or out-of-date documentation, and somewhat confusing technical underpinnings. I can see how it might be overwhelming for a computer newbie, but you'll breeze right into it.

And you can do pretty much anything on your own terms. The UI elements, colors, dashboards — everything is customizable. You're not stuck with the app they give you, it's just serving a webpage and with some CSS you can make almost anything happen.

I also think you're really going to love the data collection and data display capabilities (graphs, charts, in-depth device history).

I haven't broached ESPHome yet, but I am ESP-curious. It seems like a great way to get some cheap customizable sensors with some really cool use cases. Seems right up your alley.

Good luck, and even though I'm no expert, reach out if you have a question!

Denwood · Jan 5, 2026

nicholam77 said:
No problem! If you're able to throw an SSD in the mini PC (if it doesn't have one already), I think that would be ideal.

I haven't heard much specifically about that combo SMLight unit (why do they have so many models?!?), but I know SMLight has been well-liked in the community for Zigbee for some time. I'm sure the combo stick will work well as long as you check out a few reviews ahead of time!

Nice! I think you will love it. Hubitat is very capable as you know, but imo a bit outdated and too tied to the old SmartThings being Groovy-based. The *only* downsides to Home Assistant most would cite would be the 'steep learning curve', occasionally mediocre or out-of-date documentation, and somewhat confusing technical underpinnings. I can see how it might be overwhelming for a computer newbie, but you'll breeze right into it.

And you can do pretty much anything on your own terms. The UI elements, colors, dashboards — everything is customizable. You're not stuck with the app they give you, it's just serving a webpage and with some CSS you can make almost anything happen.

I also think you're really going to love the data collection and data display capabilities (graphs, charts, in-depth device history).

I haven't broached ESPHome yet, but I am ESP-curious. It seems like a great way to get some cheap customizable sensors with some really cool use cases. Seems right up your alley.

Good luck, and even though I'm no expert, reach out if you have a question!

If you had not posted so favourably on your HA experience, I'd likely not be looking at all..so thanks!

nicholam77 · Jan 19, 2026

Happy New Year

Sort of. At least for myself, it's been a a bit of a rough start to 2026 for a number of reasons. But I'm trying to focus on the positive and I owe a few updates here, so here goes.

The holidays for us were... fine. It was fun seeing the kids get excited, which these days is the best part. Outside of that, I had trouble getting in the holiday spirit this year. It was busy, we traveled down to Iowa in a blizzard, and I only had a few days off work, the rest I was busy on a work project. No new tools to show off... we decided (apart from the kids) not to exchange any gifts this year. Our Christmas Cactus bloomed right on time.

December saw a lot of snow, and then we had a few warmer melt days and now it's very icy everywhere.

The snow brought sledding.

I don't think I met all my project goals for last year, but finishing the basement was huge and the main thing I really wanted done.

I don't have any lofty project plans for 2026 as of now, but I do have a few smaller ideas.

- get our laundry room organized. It's currently a catchall mess
- office book storage (cabinetry)
- get the GTI rust situation under control
- build some sort of cabinet / storage / display for my budding blu-ray collection

The pic above is overflow, and it's only grown since that was taken. The rest are in my TV cabinet.

One thing I've really been enjoying is trying to find deals. Depends on the film and the releasing label, but one thing I've come to realize is there are a lot of sales on physical media, and prices can fluctuate a lot for any given title. The searching, scouring, and scoring a good price can be fun. The hunt. Also... trying to balance 'good deal' with titles I actually want to own and have re-watchability. Haven't perfected that yet, but I know I need some storage, and ideally some storage that can display a few of the nicer titles / artwork. I don't have a bunch, but I've dipped my toes into boutique labels like Criterion, Arrow, Shout!, Radiance Films, Oscilloscope, Mubi, and Lionsgate Limited. I've also been picking up a few things on the used market.

I did buy myself a standing desk to try and help my back pain / sitting pain, so that's my 1st official project of 2026.

Above you can see the old IKEA cabinets and laminated tops.

Putting the frame together wasn't too bad, and as always I love having the Wera Toolcheck Plus on hand any time there is a bunch of allen bolts to attack. It's a real thumb saver.

My plan was to re-use the old desk top, but it was barely deep enough, and the width needed to be trimmed down a bit. Track saw to the rescue!

And then of course that meant edge banding the now-exposed particle board core.

These are IKEA laminated tops, but some white melamine banding was a close enough match.

Then I had to center and mark out and drill mounting holes.

All of this became way more time consuming than I thought it would be, and when you factor in moving all the stuff off the old setup, it turned into a big operation.

I was pleased to find the frame had leveling feet, so I could compensate for my lumpy floors!

In the end I got most of it put back, albeit in a messy manner. But at least I can do my work.

Lifting and flipping the heavy frame a bunch, as well as bending and crawling around on the floor, did not do my back any favors and ended up in a flare up for a few days.

Next up will be wire management! And cleaning the mess.

zanyad · Jan 19, 2026

nicholam77 said:

Beautiful.

Sorry to hear the holidays were just meh. Looking forward to continued updates on the office, GTI, etc.

fouckhest · Jan 19, 2026

Desk looks good!

Curious, did it not come with a top or did you just want to utilize the old top b/c it was wider? Interested what you bought, I've searched on/off, but haven't pulled the trigger yet since my upstairs office is still a work in progress, but I loved my standup desks at my old company, did the standup thing for many years.

nicholam77 · Jan 19, 2026

zanyad said:
Beautiful.

Sorry to hear the holidays were just meh. Looking forward to continued updates on the office, GTI, etc.

Thanks! The holiday itself wasn't so bad... just busy. I'll definitely have some updates coming.

fouckhest said:
Desk looks good!

Curious, did it not come with a top or did you just want to utilize the old top b/c it was wider? Interested what you bought, I've searched on/off, but haven't pulled the trigger yet since my upstairs office is still a work in progress, but I loved my standup desks at my old company, did the standup thing for many years.

Thanks!

It's from Desky. I intentionally got the frame only (dual motor) to save a buck. They do have desk tops they sell with or without the frame. It would have been an extra couple hundred bucks for a similar white laminate top... which I already had... so it didn't make much sense to me to go that route.

They have hardwood desktops as well, but expect to pay $700 just for the top.

For my current use case — I wanted it to match the color, material, and depth of the non-standing desk next to it. For now. In the future I'd like to ditch the IKEA cabinets and do a larger custom plywood cabinet build, and likely do new desk tops at that point. But I haven't even designed that yet.

And then yesterday I had an idea to make a hanging / floating mitered drawer unit, something like an homage to Finn Juhl. A few Nano Banana prompts later and I had a visualization. The proportions are way too big, but you get the idea. So maybe that will get added to the project list for this year.

As far as the motorized frame itself, I went with the dual motor just to be covered and due to the width of my desk. The motors are smooth and everything is relatively solid and stable at height. The control panel is fine... the buttons don't feel the nicest and the screen is low res, but it functions fine. It has memory presets. I have a commercial grade standing desk at work that is nicer all around (by UPDESK), but they no longer are in business. So I have a taste of the higher end. I would say for the price, this is a great value and a perfectly good option.

I also wanted a white frame, and they had that option.

fouckhest · Jan 19, 2026

Thank you very much for the detail, Nick!

Love the cabinet idea, that will be super cool.

For my use case, I'd like either just do a piece of butcher block, or even a crude aluminum frame with a wood top. I'll take a look at the link you sent, thanks again!

bdbecker · Jan 22, 2026

The Mexico Trilogy is a nice add to the collection. Smasher was watching "Puss in Boots" last night and I made the comment about how Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek (who voiced the main characters) were in a couple of action movies together. I then made the mistake of showing him the previews for Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico and now he wants to watch those movies. I told him he has to be a little older before he can watch them, which he didn't like to hear at all.

I hear you on 'the hunt' for media challenge. With the record player, it is super tempting to pick up a bunch of random vinyl. It's tough walking away from a deal at times, but I'm sticking to my guns in that I only want to acquire albums that I know I will listen to from start to finish. I was gifted "Brothers" by The Black Keys and "Sound and Color" by Alabama Shakes over the holiday season, which leaves only seven albums on my 'buy list'. The only exception to that rule has been Christmas themed albums. They can be found for cheap at thrift stores. Nothing like decorating cookies while listening to a worn and popping $2 copy of Burl Ives or Andy Williams singing their classics.

Stay warm this weekend... it's going to be a doozy.

nicholam77 · Jan 23, 2026

fouckhest said:
Thank you very much for the detail, Nick!

Love the cabinet idea, that will be super cool.

For my use case, I'd like either just do a piece of butcher block, or even a crude aluminum frame with a wood top. I'll take a look at the link you sent, thanks again!

No problem — butcher block would look great, my brother has the same desk (why I got it) and he repurposed a butcher block top and it looks good.

bdbecker said:
The Mexico Trilogy is a nice add to the collection. Smasher was watching "Puss in Boots" last night and I made the comment about how Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek (who voiced the main characters) were in a couple of action movies together. I then made the mistake of showing him the previews for Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico and now he wants to watch those movies. I told him he has to be a little older before he can watch them, which he didn't like to hear at all.

Yeah, that one falls squarely in the nostalgia camp for me. I definitely saw Desperado at too young an age, and I think it formed a core memory which is precisely why I wanted to own it

. So kudos to you for being a more responsible parent than apparently my parents were, haha. I'm not sure they are even 'good' movies (it's been a long time since I've seen them), but they were enjoyable as a teen. I'd have to re-watch El Mariachi, but I don't think I cared much for that outside of the low-budget guerilla filmmaking story behind it. Desperado, although pulpy, has a moody coolness to it. There are some weird moments (personally I find Quentin Tarantino as an actor to be cringe and dislike his cameo), but overall solid. Once Upon A Time In Mexico is absolutely unhinged bonkers, and I kind of love it for that.

I really should go back and re-watch the last two (now that I own it) to see how they stack up against my memories, but I'm always at odds with rewatching vs. using my limited time to watch new things I haven't seen before.

Puss In Boots on the other hand... is a fantastic film. (and I'm being sincere in case you can't tell over the internet)

bdbecker said:
I hear you on 'the hunt' for media challenge. With the record player, it is super tempting to pick up a bunch of random vinyl. It's tough walking away from a deal at times, but I'm sticking to my guns in that I only want to acquire albums that I know I will listen to from start to finish. I was gifted "Brothers" by The Black Keys and "Sound and Color" by Alabama Shakes over the holiday season, which leaves only seven albums on my 'buy list'. The only exception to that rule has been Christmas themed albums. They can be found for cheap at thrift stores. Nothing like decorating cookies while listening to a worn and popping $2 copy of Burl Ives or Andy Williams singing their classics.

It's so tempting. Sounds like you're more disciplined than me

. Sound and Color is a fantastic album.

bdbecker said:
Stay warm this weekend... it's going to be a doozy.

You as well. —22° F overnight low for us last night. I left the kitchen sink on a slow drip, opened the cabinet doors, and opened the access panel where the water pipe bends in the basement ceiling... and I still had a little freeze by morning.

Mr. Roboto · Jan 24, 2026

Sorry to hear you're having a less than stellar start to the year, but I hope things turn around for you soon! Looks like you're still checking stuff off the lest, so keep it up.

Yikes -22?! Stay warm. "Only" 3F here this weekend, and 12-24" of snow on deck for the next 2 days. Should be interesting!

cccoltsicehockey · Jan 26, 2026

-22F, yeah no thanks. I like the colder weather and some good snow, but I would not like to see that. Hopefully no major home issues from those temps for you.

jonshonda · Jan 26, 2026

-25 here overnight. Saturday I jumped into the shower with the wife for some adult time...and right when things got serious the power went out so we knew it was only a matter of time before the hot water went away, and the kids were knocking on the *locked bedroom door* to report the issue. Adult time postponed.

I immediately went from that mindset to "now wtf is gotta happen". Looked around at the neighbors and saw no exhaust coming from the vents, so I knew we weren't alone. Check our breaker just to make sure and all seemed well. Luckily I had the gas fireplace running already in an effort to give the furnace some help, so at least we had some heat. Nothing I could really do at the time, so we busted out a puzzle and killed some time.

Lucky for us the power was back on 30 min later, and XCEL had sent some guys out and were looking at the power pole and transformer in our neighbors back yard. With the power back on it was time for round 2 with the wife...and I hear *bang bang bang* ON THE BACK PATIO DOOR. Kids were once again knocking on the *locked bedroom door* reporting that the power guys needed to talk. For phucks sake.

bdbecker · Jan 26, 2026

nicholam77 said:
...I definitely saw Desperado at too young an age, and I think it formed a core memory which is precisely why I wanted to own it . So kudos to you for being a more responsible parent than apparently my parents were, haha...

I think it was par for the course in the 90's...

I'll never forget the first time I watched Rambo III. My Mom was working for the HS at the time and needed to go in on Saturday to do some work. Dad also had to work that day, so my brother and I went with Mom. We stopped by the video store that morning and picked out Rambo III. She rolled one of the media carts (the tube TV with the strap over top of it) into the library, put the VHS in, and went to go do what she needed to do. I was maybe 10 or 11 at the time. It was awesome!

What's funny is that action movies, even ones rated 'R', were always fair game (provided there was no ******). At the same time, we weren't allowed to watch The Simpsons. I could never quite figure that one out.

nicholam77 · Feb 4, 2026

Mr. Roboto said:
Sorry to hear you're having a less than stellar start to the year, but I hope things turn around for you soon! Looks like you're still checking stuff off the lest, so keep it up.

Nothing catastrophic, and thank you. I think I might just be burnt out. Kind of a concoction of things had me feeling frustrated... started off the year with busy work projects and Covid (although it was mild). I completed my 12th visit of physical therapy that I had started in late October and I've failed out of that — in fact I'm worse now then when I started it with my lumbar pain. Not sure where to go from here, but it's affecting my ability to do my job without major discomfort. I'm considering a steroid injection (which I don't really want to do), or getting another opinion and updated imaging from a neurosurgeon to see if there's *any* surgical options on the mild end of the scale. And then there's the general unrest and depressing events happening in my city right now, which I'll refrain from commenting on in depth as I value Garage Journal as an apolitical space, but living here it's hard to not let it take over your mindset. And then as mentioned it's been damn cold for a several week stretch, which has prevented me from walking / being outside much, which I rely on to get *some* exercise and fresh air and sunshine, which I find essential in the dead of winter. Being trapped inside all the time is not good.

But... the cold is breaking this week, and I'm trying to get back out there and appreciate the positive, even if it's just a nice sunset.

Mr. Roboto said:
ikes -22?! Stay warm. "Only" 3F here this weekend, and 12-24" of snow on deck for the next 2 days. Should be interesting!

Sounds like good snowmobile weather!

cccoltsicehockey said:
-22F, yeah no thanks. I like the colder weather and some good snow, but I would not like to see that. Hopefully no major home issues from those temps for you.

Other than the kitchen faucet choking a bit that one morning, no issues. Sometimes the roof or framing will make a loud pop. We usually get those temps once or twice a season, so nothing I'm not used to!

jonshonda said:
With the power back on it was time for round 2 with the wife...and I hear *bang bang bang* ON THE BACK PATIO DOOR. Kids were once again knocking on the *locked bedroom door* reporting that the power guys needed to talk. For phucks sake.

Lol!! Glad they got the power back quickly, though, probably best case scenario even if 'inconvenient' haha.

bdbecker said:
We stopped by the video store that morning and picked out Rambo III. She rolled one of the media carts (the tube TV with the strap over top of it) into the library, put the VHS in, and went to go do what she needed to do. I was maybe 10 or 11 at the time. It was awesome!

Classic!

nicholam77 · Feb 4, 2026

Standing Desk Cable Management Pt. 1

Quick little update here. Getting these wires under control.

I had half a mind to make a plywood box enclosure, but took the lazy route and gave more of my money to Jeff Bezos. Damn convenience!

I found a kind of cool wire concealer that is reinforced fabric and hangs from some brackets. Pretty easy install.

Then it folds up nice and neat.

I like this because unlike a rigid box, it's easily accessible if you need to rearrange or add something later.

And it is concealed from the front (user) side of the desk, whereas many privacy panels with built in wire management are more focused on the back side.

I did some preliminary velcro work for the power and network cables that drop down.

Eventually I'll get a white cable sleeve for those.

And then lastly I edge banded the side of my desk in situ that I wasn't able to do when assembling because I ran out of edge banding for the second side.

The next part will have some cable and network management around the floor, but I'm waiting on some 3d prints to finish for that.

zanyad · Feb 4, 2026

nicholam77 said:

Dammit, now I'm looking at vertical laptop stands for my desk. Thanks a lot. :rolleyes2

fouckhest · Feb 4, 2026

Nice work on the desk wiring, I really like that cable manager, slick!

That laptop stand is cool also, I've gotten too accustomed to my laptop being my "teams chat" window, not sure I could give that up, or want to deal with a third full size....D@MN GJ always trying to pile on another project!

zanyad · Feb 4, 2026

fouckhest said:
I really like that cable manager, slick!

would you mind sharing a link?

nicholam77 · Feb 4, 2026

zanyad said:
Dammit, now I'm looking at vertical laptop stands for my desk. Thanks a lot.

fouckhest said:
Nice work on the desk wiring, I really like that cable manager, slick!

That laptop stand is cool also, I've gotten too accustomed to my laptop being my "teams chat" window, not sure I could give that up, or want to deal with a third full size....D@MN GJ always trying to pile on another project!

Happy to help!

At my work office I have my laptop mounted under the desk top which is slick, as well is my Thunderbolt / USB-C breakout boxes. At home I didn't want to go to all that effort just yet so I got the vertical stand to save some space. I actually bring this laptop back and forth depending if I'm working downtown or at home... so the docking setup is intentional.

zanyad said:
would you mind sharing a link?

No problem, it's this one on Amazon. It's pretty good. Black and white options, can clamp on or screw mount underneath like I have it. I got the 48" one.

nicholam77 · Feb 4, 2026

Standing Desk Cable Management Pt. 2

Ok, here's wrapping this up. For the most part.

If you'll look at my old, non-standing setup (below), you'll notice an IKEA cabinet on the left with door.

Inside that cabinet I kept a 8-port network switch, a headless Mac Mini, some hard drives, and power strips. I wasn't sure what to do with that stuff now that the cabinet doesn't fit.

So I started 3d printing.

First is this cable management box to sit on the floor and hide some of the excess wire and bulky adapters / wire junctions.

Then I found a wall-mount bracket model for my *old* Mac Mini. I think it's a 2012 or so. I don't use it much... mostly it just syncs with my iCloud Photos as a 2nd storage location and then backs them up to my Synology. It's not connected to monitors or anything, I just screenshare in when I need to access it.

I like this design because I can now access all the ports and power button easily. Couldn't do that very well when it was in the cabinet.

Then I found this model for a wall-mount bracket for my TP-link 8-port Gigabit switch. Yes, for the exact switch. It's amazing how much stuff you can find online, it saves me so much time messing with Fusion.

The Bambu is still churning out nice parts and not skipping a beat.

I keep a few of these small Grainger / Plano sorting boxes in the house with screws and bits for little installs like this. That way I have a handful of commonly used screws handy without having to go to the garage in the freezing cold.

Here they are mounted up. Looks like I mounted them both a bit crooked.

Still need to fashion a short patch cable ethernet from the Mac Mini to the switch, and tidy up the slack on the wire group that goes up the desk.

It's not the *most* tidy in that you can still see the machines and some cabling, but I'm going to live with it like this for a bit before taking it any further.

Thanks for reading along.

zanyad · Feb 4, 2026

Nicely done!

fouckhest · Feb 5, 2026

zanyad said:
Nicely done!

cccoltsicehockey · Feb 9, 2026

fouckhest said:
Nice work on the desk wiring, I really like that cable manager, slick!

That laptop stand is cool also, I've gotten too accustomed to my laptop being my "teams chat" window, not sure I could give that up, or want to deal with a third full size....D@MN GJ always trying to pile on another project!

Grab a third fullsize and turn it vertical. I put teams and outlook overthere. I could never go back to the laptop screen.

nicholam77 · Feb 20, 2026

Chairmageddon!

I'm back. With a post about chairs. Not garage-related, but whatever, this is basically my personal blog!

But it is sort of a snowball effect from the genesis of this thread. Buying a house and finding Garage Journal got me into fixing up the garage. Which got my into fixing up the house. Which got me into woodworking. Which got me into architecture and interior design. Which got me into Modernism. And hand-in-hand with that... furniture and lighting.

So this post starts a long time ago with me wanting to replace the navy upholstered chairs in our living room.

We got them around 10 yrs ago when we moved in. They are from West Elm and are actually decent chairs. I just wanted something more unique.

I've collected some lamps and furniture over the years, but for a long time I'd been wanting a noticeably 'designer' lounge chair with some sort of historical significance in the living room. We don't have a defined entry, so the front door just leads into the living room and it's the first thing we (and guests) see.

Because the room and couch are oriented the long way (not facing the fireplace) for circulation reasons, I always thought a chair with an ottoman made sense.

Many chairs were considered, most of them out of reach financially.

A few years ago I got side tracked and bought a pair of used Artek 406 armchairs from the 1970's on Etsy. Sort of intended for the living room, but they ended up not being as comfortable as I wanted, and a bit too delicate for kid and guest use. So one is in the basement and one is in the office.

I really love them, the are sculptural and I view them as 'art', but they are not the comfortable lounge chair I was originally after.

As time has continued on, chairs have gotten significantly more expensive. Covid, inflation, tariffs, etc. Some of the chairs on my 'list' are literally $1-2k more than they were 10 yrs ago. Some now out of reach.

The other trick is getting the wife on board. She cares much less about this stuff, but obviously I would want us both to like it.

I came dangerously close to pulling the trigger on the obvious choice — an Eames Lounge — this fall during DWR / Herman Miller's bi-annual 25% off sale. My wife even gave the go ahead. But after measuring, visiting the store multiple times, and sitting in it, I came to the conclusion that it was too much money, too big for our small room, and not comfortable enough to justify the price.

Don't get me wrong — it is comfortable, but it's not really designed for tall people and I am 6'1". And it's a chair that requires a lot of space.

I used AR (augmented reality) to plop it in a multitude of places in our living room, and while it *would* fit, it would basically take up that whole side more perpendicular to the couch.

It's a good chair, even a great chair. Iconic and ubiquitous, and has transcended midcentury-modernism. Even though I love it, it's popularity also makes it a little bit of a basic and obvious choice. And I didn't 100% feel that 'spark' when sitting in it compared to its astronomical price. So I pulled my head out of the clouds and bailed on that.

Around November / December I was driving around and saw this on the side of the road for free:

It's an Ekornes Stressless. Norwegian company. Not sure the exact model, but likely from the early 2000's or possibly '90's. I've heard these are very comfortable, so I immediately called my dad to come help me load it in his truck.

Also a large chair, but very comfortable. Especially when reclined... this is definitely a 'sleeping' chair.

Don't love the way it fills the space in the living room, though. Too big and bulky.

Plus my wife didn't like it and didn't want it 'on display'. And it needs to be reupholstered.

The leather is hardened and cracked, and apparently a Grizzly Bear took a bite out of the ottoman.

So I chucked it in the office to ponder reupholstery.

Back to another chair my wife had previously veto'd, but had a change of heart on. I pitched it a year ago and got denied.

The Lamino Chair, by Yngve Ekstrom for Swedese.

It's not very common in the US as it's a Swedish chair. Using bentwood techniques and designed in 1956, still made in Sweden today.

This chair has been on my radar for about 4 yrs, and I actually came across one in person on one of the house tours I've been on.

Perhaps @patlun knows this chair?

In a bid to get it reconsidered by my wife, I asked Google Gemini to make some of my Sketchup drawings rendered photo real.

Not exactly photo real, but definitely a step up from Sketchup!

Gemini also did a surprisingly good job of generatively adding the chair into a real photo:

AI is scary, but also sort of fun, and definitely helps me visualize things. I think the size is more appropriate than those bigger padded loungers.

Anyways, I'm sure you can see where this is going... a nice December holiday sale from a vendor that ships to the US was the nudge I needed, and I ended up with the Lamino.

I went out of my comfort zone and got 'oiled oak' instead of beech for the wood frame.

Usually I shy away from heavier open-grained woods, but I felt along with the shearling, the oak adds texture and warmth. I wanted it to have a cozy Scandinavian feel. The upholstery that looks like carpet is actually dyed sheep wool.

It's very slender, and assembled with knock down fittings. Fun fact — Yngve Ekstrom actually sold this knock down fitting idea to IKEA, which obviously became a huge part of their furniture construction model.

As such, the arms do not connect with the chair back, which I love, and gives it a light and airy look.

So there you go, after years of hunting, pondering, saving — mission accomplished.

It's pretty comfortable, but also fairly upright, so it's not a sleeping chair. But it's nice for reading. It also rounds your lower back quite a bit, which is bad for me and my back problems. I've been disappointed in that, but I think that's more a me problem.

That being said, I still want a super comfortable chair that my back can tolerate.

It might just be the Ekornes.

I'm contemplating if it can fit into the basement TV room or office. It feels like a 'basement' chair.

And it would be a fun project to refinish the wood and get it reupholstered.

Sorry for the detour if you don't care about this stuff... but I don't have much else going on!

gearhead1960 · Feb 20, 2026

Love the MCM vibe on the house and furnishings. SWMBO and I also share that vibe. The wife spotted a Milo Baughman Recliner 74 in black Leather for Thayer Coggin at Salvation Army year's ago for $50. She was beating people off after she bought it. Here's an example I grabbed off of the web:

This is a very comfortable chair and does also sit in a strait up position. However, my comfort chair is a Milo Baughman for Thayer Coggin Lounge Chair with Ottoman that I snagged at an Estate Sale for $35:

This image is another steal from the web, but mine is the exact same upholstery. The chair & ottoman lock in the position as show, but the chair floats like a rocker when not locked. I recently inherited my mother's couch that was legitimately purchased in the 60's, like this one:

...but in navy and has 4 cushions. Measures around 140" long. You, as a 6 footer would not have any issue napping on it

Sorry for the (show and tell) thread hijack......

. Needless to say, this barely covers our MCM acquistion disease.....

nicholam77 · Feb 20, 2026

gearhead1960 said:
Love the MCM vibe on the house and furnishings. SWMBO and I also share that vibe.

Thank you. My house is not modern or MCM — it's a pretty generic bungalow — but I think a lot of the modern aesthetics and principles can be applied as long as it's not gratuitous. The best way I ever heard Modernism put is it's "an abstraction of design principles, rather than an architectural style", and in that sense I think both the concepts and the furniture can live outside the architecture. Plus... if we ever have the opportunity to move, it's going to be into something that has architectural aspects, so until then I'm 'building my collection' while also trying to stay somewhat honest to the house we're in.

gearhead1960 said:
The wife spotted a Milo Baughman Recliner 74 in black Leather for Thayer Coggin at Salvation Army year's ago for $50. She was beating people off after she bought it.

If I ever came across a deal that good I think I'd have a panic attack.

I'm familiar with the Recliner 74 and it was a consideration. I've sat in it many times at DWR. In fact Design Within Reach had a clearance on the standard black leather + walnut frame about 5+ years ago where it was nearly half price, and I still kick myself for not pulling the trigger although it was a bit much for me at that point. But it was a chair my wife and I both liked. I was even mulling it over recently because it would fit the space and is very comfortable especially reclined... but now they are $6k for leather (or ~$4500 on the 25% off sale). I keep my eye on vintage resellers in the area but haven't seen one come through. And tbh 'known' items like that usually go for quite a bit on the used market, too, as I'm sure you know.

gearhead1960 said:
However, my comfort chair is a Milo Baughman for Thayer Coggin Lounge Chair with Ottoman that I snagged at an Estate Sale for $35:

This image is another steal from the web, but mine is the exact same upholstery. The chair & ottoman lock in the position as show, but the chair floats like a rocker when not locked.

Your other Milo Baughman looks amazing, too. I believe you that it's comfortable. I've seen similar Danish Modern chairs with the floating / locking mechanism but never tried one. One thing I've realized (with some of my own purchases) is aesthetic ≠ comfortable. And I think for it to be 'good design' it should be both.

gearhead1960 said:
...but in navy and has 4 cushions. Measures around 140" long. You, as a 6 footer would not have any issue napping on it Sorry for the (show and tell) thread hijack....... Needless to say, this barely covers our MCM acquistion disease.....

Like the couch, too. Hijack away... those are some killer pieces you have.

Fortunately for my wallet I'm running out of space for chairs at our place.

gearhead1960 · Feb 20, 2026

@nicholam77 Hijacking.....Understood as far as the house style goes. We don't live in a MCM house, but something that would be considered traditional. In my area, the true MCM are out of this world in pricing. Most of the MCM neighborhoods around here have been designated historic so the prices are high, 6 figures to 7 figures just for the buy in. Nevertheless, we have furnished the house in whatever MCM/modern style we find that we like. To say the least our tastes are eclectic. I have also been fortunate to be the recipient of some cool furniture and artwork from my parents who did live in a MCM house and furnished it as such. You already saw the couch.... Not pictured is a cool blond MCM Drexel bedroom set, 2 sets of Paul McCobb night stands, and others. As far as artwork and decor, our house looks like an art gallery. Here's a smattering of what hangs on our wall or is gathering dust.....

This is a Stanley William Hayter that came from my Mother's estate....probably the crown jewel of my artwork. No way I could afford this on my own. Owned by many well known Art Galleries, including the National Gallery of Art. My wife hated this when it was at my mom's place, but has since come to love it. Hangs in our bedroom.....

....did I say eclectic. This next pair is part of a series that is some of SWMBO favorites...again from my parents collection..

...and of course did I say eclectic, and that I love anything with wheels or propellers....album cover art and old ******* ads (from my dad's collection before he threw them out)....

.....or signed, limited edition Robert Taylor prints....

....need some dust collectors?

....Arthur Carlsson Percy tall vase...

...all pieces acquired at thrift shops or estate sales for a smattering of their value....including the following artwork that we found at estate sales....
$5 ($250 in framing costs!)

$10 ($300 in framing cost)...

...and last a David Weidman ($30)....known for his work used to decorate John Hamm's office in Mad Men....

and lastly, we have our own guardians of the gearhead galaxy.....

Hijack over for now.....just love to share my s**t. Oh, and this is just a smattering of what we have....my kids think some of it is cool, but don't want the majority of it.....

patlun · Feb 21, 2026

nicholam77 said:
Around November / December I was driving around and saw this on the side of the road for free:

It's an Ekornes Stressless. Norwegian company. Not sure the exact model, but likely from the early 2000's or possibly '90's. I've heard these are very comfortable, so I immediately called my dad to come help me load it in his truck.

Also a large chair, but very comfortable. Especially when reclined... this is definitely a 'sleeping' chair.

Don't love the way it fills the space in the living room, though. Too big and bulky.

That chair is made to be comfortable, but the design have not aged that well in my eyes. My body would love it

nicholam77 said:
The Lamino Chair, by Yngve Ekstrom for Swedese.

It's not very common in the US as it's a Swedish chair. Using bentwood techniques and designed in 1956, still made in Sweden today.

This chair has been on my radar for about 4 yrs, and I actually came across one in person on one of the house tours I've been on.

Perhaps @patlun knows this chair?

I do, I am actually considering one or two for my new house in white pigmented oak and leather instead of sheepskin, I need to find one and try it out to see if my old body still likes it.

Here is something to read when sitting in your new chair

Today I have a couple of Otium chairs from Hjort Knudsen, that I am pretty happy with. They are nice to sit in, don't take that much space, and they are stable. The drawback is that the leather is not of the highest quality. Unlike the Lamino it will not be worth the money to refurbish them.

bdbecker · Feb 23, 2026

nicholam77 said:
...It might just be the Ekornes...

We had an Ekhornes chair in our college house just like that, only in black leather. Super comfortable. I never knew who made it until your posted about it - thank you! I'll have to keep that in mind when Wife gets sick of looking at the old La-Z-Boy in the living room.

The Lamino looks right at home - excellent choice!

zanyad · Mar 9, 2026

Found this on Facebook, thought you may get a kick out of it:

Simon Prebble in Home Server Setups said:
In the beginning, there was a single HP EliteDesk Mini, and it was good.

It ran Home Assistant, and the heating was automated, and the lights did respond to presence, and it was seen to be efficient, and there was much rejoicing around the house.

But the Administrator looked upon the single node and saw that it was alone, and said unto himself: one is none, for this is the First Law, and the First Law is immutable*.
So a second node was brought forth, and it sat in cold standby, and it was called Redundancy, and it was righteous.
The Administrator looked upon Proxmox, and found it good, and rebuilt both nodes in its image, for this seemed logical at the time**.
And it came to pass that Pi-hole was deployed, and then a second Pi-hole, for the router had two DNS slots and to leave a DNS slot unfilled is an abomination***.

And the second Pi-hole required a home, and the cold standby was right there…
And the Administrator looked upon what had been wrought, and saw that he had two live nodes, one accidental live node, no standby, and a vague sense that something had gone wrong with the world and was troubled in spirit.
And lo, it came to pass the Third Node was added to quiet the unrest, and a Cluster was formed, and quorum was achieved, and the VMs did move between nodes without complaint, and the Administrator looked upon all of this and said it is complete, it is done, it is enough, and there was much rejoicing around the house, and it was good, and this was absolutely, definitively, the last node.
And the Universe, which had been taking notes, smiled quietly to itself.
For the VMs could not move between nodes of their own accord, and the reason was shared storage, and the reason for the absence of shared storage was that nobody had ordered the drives yet, and the reason nobody had ordered the drives yet was that the Administrator was still pretending this wasn't going to happen.

And the Administrator sat with this knowledge for some time, turning it over, examining it from different angles, hoping it might become untrue if observed from sufficient distance. It did not. Shared storage meant Ceph. Ceph meant drives. Drives meant money. And there began the Great Internal Debate of the Third Age*****, which lasted several days and produced no clear winner except the drives, which arrived on Thursday.

And the Cluster had three nodes, and it was stable, and it was functional, and it was built upon the 6500T, which is a chip of the sixth generation, old in the eyes of the benchmarks, venerable in the eyes of the power bill.
And the Administrator looked upon the three nodes and thought: what if one fails?
And he thought: the cluster survives a single node failure, this is literally the point.
And he thought: yes but what if TWO fail.
And he thought: the probability of two simultaneous—
And he thought: they are very old.
And so it was written in the Book of Reasonable Concern that three nodes of aging silicon is not three nodes of aging silicon but rather a liability, and that the only solution, the only SENSIBLE solution, was to consult the Holy Algorithm of Fault Tolerance, which stateth clearly:
FIVE. For four is an even number and even numbers are an abomination before Ceph, and three is insufficient, and two is heresy, and ONE is basically just a computer like some kind of ANIMAL. Five. Not four. Not three.
Five shalt be the number of the counting, and the number of the counting shalt be five. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count six, except that thou then backtracketh to five. Two is right out.
And two more EliteDesks were acquired, and they were called PVE4 and PVE5, and Ceph had five OSDs, and quorum had five monitors, and the pool was size=3 replicated across all nodes, and any two nodes could perish simultaneously and not a single byte would be lost.
And the Administrator looked upon this and saw that it was good, and it was complete, and it was done, and it was enough, and this was genuinely, provably, mathematically the last node.
And the Universe turned to a fresh page.
For the cluster sat in a single building. One building. With one roof. And roofs, as any homeowner will attest, are not to be trusted in the long term. And the brother had FTTP. And the brother had space. And the brother owed him, from that thing in 2019, the details of which are not relevant here but were sufficient.
And a sixth EliteDesk was acquired.
It is in the cupboard of provisioning.
It is going to the brother's house.
It is for offsite backup, which is a real and serious infrastructure concern and not, in any meaningful sense, an addiction******.
And the Administrator looked upon all that had been built, and it hummed quietly, and it was 35 watts per node, and it was the size of paperback novels, and it was, despite everything, and against all reasonable expectation, rather beautiful.
And the wife shall never know.

*The Second Law is that two is one. The Third Law is that by the time you understand the First and Second Laws, you already have five nodes and a NAS.
**This footnote has been redacted on legal advice from the Author's spouse.
***This is not written anywhere. It doesn't need to be. You know it's true.
****In the post-mortem, which was conducted internally and never shared, it became clear that the cold standby had never actually been a cold standby. It had been a live node since approximately the second week. In infrastructure terms this is called configuration drift. In domestic terms it is called not entirely paying attention.
*****The debate was resolved when the Author stopped arguing with himself and ordered the drives. This is called reaching consensus. Ceph also uses consensus. This felt significant at the time.
******It is an addiction. The Author is not seeking help. The Author is seeking better thermals.

nicholam77 · Mar 11, 2026

Sorry for the delayed replies everyone

gearhead1960 said:
Nevertheless, we have furnished the house in whatever MCM/modern style we find that we like. To say the least our tastes are eclectic. I have also been fortunate to be the recipient of some cool furniture and artwork from my parents who did live in a MCM house and furnished it as such.

Cool stuff! Similar situation here... they haven't passed anything down yet but my parents have a nice collection of art, furniture, glasswork, lighting, etc. Definitely some gems I home to inherit someday.

patlun said:
I do, I am actually considering one or two for my new house in white pigmented oak and leather instead of sheepskin, I need to find one and try it out to see if my old body still likes it.

Nice! My wife might have preferred leather, but I wasn't able to find any dealers that would configure leather or fabric that would ship to the U.S.

But in the end I actually love the sheepskin.

I am finding I wish the chair was a bit more comfortable for longer periods, but I'm still happy with it.

patlun said:
That chair is made to be comfortable, but the design have not aged that well in my eyes. My body would love it

The Ekornes? Yeah... it definitely has a chonky 80's vibe. My wife feels the same way about it. Personally I don't hate it. It's not slender or elegant, but the circular wood base is unique and the reclining system is neat. More of a form follows function I guess.

bdbecker said:
We had an Ekhornes chair in our college house just like that, only in black leather. Super comfortable. I never knew who made it until your posted about it - thank you! I'll have to keep that in mind when Wife gets sick of looking at the old La-Z-Boy in the living room.

Definitely comfortable! And I think I want one genuinely comfortable chair in the house haha. The Stressless chairs have been around in many forms for quite some time. They've added more models and more 'comfort tech' over the years, too. New ones go for between $2k - $5k depending on the model, size, features, and material. Obviously prices have ballooned on everything. I haven't looked into reupholstery for this one yet, but I'm sure even that will cost *too much*.

bdbecker said:
The Lamino looks right at home - excellent choice!

Thanks! Still having trouble sitting in it for too long, even with a lumbar pillow, but that's just me and my problems. At least my kids are enjoying it:

zanyad said:
Found this on Facebook, thought you may get a kick out of it:

That is very good! Definitely chuckled a few times.

Fortunately (or unfortunately??) for me, I barely have enough time to devote to the one computer running HA... but maybe I'll regret it when I inevitably mess something up and have no redundancy!

Speaking of Home Assistant automations, I do have some updates on that front I might share soon.

cccoltsicehockey · Mar 12, 2026

zanyad said:
Found this on Facebook, thought you may get a kick out of it:

Ok, this is fantastic! My setup now feels inferior, with only a VM running a single system with RAID6. It does at least have a nightly backup job

cccoltsicehockey · Mar 12, 2026

nicholam77 said:
Sorry for the delayed replies everyone

Cool stuff! Similar situation here... they haven't passed anything down yet but my parents have a nice collection of art, furniture, glasswork, lighting, etc. Definitely some gems I home to inherit someday.

Nice! My wife might have preferred leather, but I wasn't able to find any dealers that would configure leather or fabric that would ship to the U.S.

But in the end I actually love the sheepskin.

I am finding I wish the chair was a bit more comfortable for longer periods, but I'm still happy with it.

The Ekornes? Yeah... it definitely has a chonky 80's vibe. My wife feels the same way about it. Personally I don't hate it. It's not slender or elegant, but the circular wood base is unique and the reclining system is neat. More of a form follows function I guess.

Definitely comfortable! And I think I want one genuinely comfortable chair in the house haha. The Stressless chairs have been around in many forms for quite some time. They've added more models and more 'comfort tech' over the years, too. New ones go for between $2k - $5k depending on the model, size, features, and material. Obviously prices have ballooned on everything. I haven't looked into reupholstery for this one yet, but I'm sure even that will cost *too much*.

Thanks! Still having trouble sitting in it for too long, even with a lumbar pillow, but that's just me and my problems. At least my kids are enjoying it:

That is very good! Definitely chuckled a few times.

Fortunately (or unfortunately??) for me, I barely have enough time to devote to the one computer running HA... but maybe I'll regret it when I inevitably mess something up and have no redundancy!

Speaking of Home Assistant automations, I do have some updates on that front I might share soon.

In for some Home Assistant updates when you have time. Always interested to hear how others are using this stuff, so I can find more uses I didn't originally know I needed.

nicholam77 · Mar 12, 2026

cccoltsicehockey said:
In for some Home Assistant updates when you have time. Always interested to hear how others are using this stuff, so I can find more uses I didn't originally know I needed.

Things have been humming along smoothly for the most part. But I am always making little tweaks. As schedules and habits in the household change, the automations need to be adjusted to match.

I'm going to try not to get too in-depth with the nerd stuff

/ how-to, and just showcase a few things.

Smart Speaker Welcome Home Messages

A voicemail of sorts, that plays when we come home. Or more specifically, the first time we enter the kitchen upon arriving home, the Sonos announces any 'messages' via Text-To-Speech.

These 'messages' are simply events that occurred while we were away, that might be handy to know about.

I'm using the Google TTS engine for this, and the input is template-able, and therefore dynamic based on what events happened.

Leak Detection Notifications

This one is simple. I put some Zigbee water / leak detectors in the places we've had main line backups in the past. Laundry room drain. Basement shower pan.

They have a built-in 110 dB alarm, and then of course I set up a mobile push notification.

I have similar notifications set up for other critical events, like Smoke or CO, or if Motion is detected while we are away (a very simple alarm system of sorts).

Sunrise Alarm

This was a request from the wife. She works hospital shifts and has to get up at 4:00 AM most days. She wanted a 'wake up light'. I usually get up at 6:00 AM to get the kids ready for school, and I am NOT a morning person. In the winter it's still dark, and it's hard to get out of bed! Philips makes a very expensive wake up light, and I figured I could do something similar with Home Assistant.

We each have an 'Alarm Time' input variable that is set in the Home Assistant app on our phones. So we can turn the light alarm on or off and set the wake up time.

Then it will start gradually fading up our respective nightstand lamps over a period of 15 minutes, reaching full brightness by the specified alarm time.

I'm actually using Z-Wave dimmer plugs to do this, because I use special high CRI, low blue, bulbs in our bedroom lamps. But you could easily use a smart bulb.

I did figure out a way to automatically send the earliest alarm in iOS directly to the Home Assistant input datetime helper, which would mean just setting normal alarms on our phones and not worrying about the 'alarm time' in the Home Assistant dashboard. But my wife sets like 20 alarms on her phone out of anxiety of sleeping in, and we decided that would be complicating it too much.

The bulbs I have aren't super bright, only about 450 lumens, but it's a nice gentle wake up.

Now I want to do a similar thing for the kids, because my 4 yr old really struggles to get out of bed in the morning.

Kid's Room Lights

So far I've held off automating much in the kid's rooms. I do have their nightlights on smart plugs that turn on at 7 PM and off at 10 PM.

But they each also have one overhead fixture and two lamps. The annoying thing is I have every other light set to turn off when we leave, or I tell the house 'Goodnight'. But not the kids' lights. So I have to manually run around and turn those off.

I know, I know, once the kids grow up and move out and quit leaving the lights on I'm going to be looking at my wallet with all the money I've saved from keeping their lights off like:

But until then... let's automate!

Their overhead fixture switch boxes do not have neutrals. Most smart switches need neutrals. But these small Sonoff ZBMini relays do not. I've never tried relays, but basically you can use a dumb switch to control the load -OR- by ZigBee radio signal.

The kids' lamps could also use relays. One lamp is a table lamp with a standard inline cord switch, and the other has a push button switch that is integrated into the metal stem of the floor lamp.

For the table lamp, I am looking at a relay + rocker switch + 3d printed enclosure to implement.

For the floor lamp, I think this one will be too hard to dissect, so I might just resort to a smart plug + button remote next to it.

I still have yet to do either of those.

I would like to experiment more with relays, there are a lot of really cool things you can do. I don't have very good electrical or wiring knowledge, but @Denwood has done some very neat stuff with them.

Doorbell Smarts

Currently, I have the Sonos announce when there is a person detected at the front door, or if the doorbell rings, and also get rich push notifications sent to our phones.

But if we are home and checking the mailbox or retrieving a package, I don't really need the Sonos to yell at me that a person has been detected, and worse, send my phone a notification... when it's just me.

So I added a contact sensor to the front door, and added a condition so that the announcements or mobile notifications will not fire if the front door has opened in the last 30 seconds.

That way if we are checking the mailbox, or leaving the house, it does not annoy us.

I have other ideas that I haven't implemented yet, so that's it for now!

Denwood · Mar 13, 2026

nicholam77 said:
Things have been humming along smoothly for the most part. But I am always making little tweaks. As schedules and habits in the household change, the automations need to be adjusted to match.

I'm going to try not to get too in-depth with the nerd stuff / how-to, and just showcase a few things.

Smart Speaker Welcome Home Messages

A voicemail of sorts, that plays when we come home. Or more specifically, the first time we enter the kitchen upon arriving home, the Sonos announces any 'messages' via Text-To-Speech.

These 'messages' are simply events that occurred while we were away, that might be handy to know about.

I'm using the Google TTS engine for this, and the input is template-able, and therefore dynamic based on what events happened.

Leak Detection Notifications

This one is simple. I put some Zigbee water / leak detectors in the places we've had main line backups in the past. Laundry room drain. Basement shower pan.

They have a built-in 110 dB alarm, and then of course I set up a mobile push notification.

I have similar notifications set up for other critical events, like Smoke or CO, or if Motion is detected while we are away (a very simple alarm system of sorts).

Sunrise Alarm

This was a request from the wife. She works hospital shifts and has to get up at 4:00 AM most days. She wanted a 'wake up light'. I usually get up at 6:00 AM to get the kids ready for school, and I am NOT a morning person. In the winter it's still dark, and it's hard to get out of bed! Philips makes a very expensive wake up light, and I figured I could do something similar with Home Assistant.

We each have an 'Alarm Time' input variable that is set in the Home Assistant app on our phones. So we can turn the light alarm on or off and set the wake up time.

Then it will start gradually fading up our respective nightstand lamps over a period of 15 minutes, reaching full brightness by the specified alarm time.

I'm actually using Z-Wave dimmer plugs to do this, because I use special high CRI, low blue, bulbs in our bedroom lamps. But you could easily use a smart bulb.

I did figure out a way to automatically send the earliest alarm in iOS directly to the Home Assistant input datetime helper, which would mean just setting normal alarms on our phones and not worrying about the 'alarm time' in the Home Assistant dashboard. But my wife sets like 20 alarms on her phone out of anxiety of sleeping in, and we decided that would be complicating it too much.

The bulbs I have aren't super bright, only about 450 lumens, but it's a nice gentle wake up.

Now I want to do a similar thing for the kids, because my 4 yr old really struggles to get out of bed in the morning.

Kid's Room Lights

So far I've held off automating much in the kid's rooms. I do have their nightlights on smart plugs that turn on at 7 PM and off at 10 PM.

But they each also have one overhead fixture and two lamps. The annoying thing is I have every other light set to turn off when we leave, or I tell the house 'Goodnight'. But not the kids' lights. So I have to manually run around and turn those off.

I know, I know, once the kids grow up and move out and quit leaving the lights on I'm going to be looking at my wallet with all the money I've saved from keeping their lights off like:

But until then... let's automate!

Their overhead fixture switch boxes do not have neutrals. Most smart switches need neutrals. But these small Sonoff ZBMini relays do not. I've never tried relays, but basically you can use a dumb switch to control the load -OR- by ZigBee radio signal.

The kids' lamps could also use relays. One lamp is a table lamp with a standard inline cord switch, and the other has a push button switch that is integrated into the metal stem of the floor lamp.

For the table lamp, I am looking at a relay + rocker switch + 3d printed enclosure to implement.

For the floor lamp, I think this one will be too hard to dissect, so I might just resort to a smart plug + button remote next to it.

I still have yet to do either of those.

I would like to experiment more with relays, there are a lot of really cool things you can do. I don't have very good electrical or wiring knowledge, but @Denwood has done some very neat stuff with them.

Doorbell Smarts

Currently, I have the Sonos announce when there is a person detected at the front door, or if the doorbell rings, and also get rich push notifications sent to our phones.

But if we are home and checking the mailbox or retrieving a package, I don't really need the Sonos to yell at me that a person has been detected, and worse, send my phone a notification... when it's just me.

So I added a contact sensor to the front door, and added a condition so that the announcements or mobile notifications will not fire if the front door has opened in the last 30 seconds.

That way if we are checking the mailbox, or leaving the house, it does not annoy us.

I have other ideas that I haven't implemented yet, so that's it for now!

Looks like you're really pushing the envelope! How have the sonoff relays been? Do they dim, and are there any issues with flickering using lower voltage LED lights when off? It's always nice to have options in an older home as most switches do not have neutral run to them :-( For those I've gone with HUE etc at the fixtures but the relay is a better option as you can control them with automation, even if the switch is off. Then you can use much less expensive "dumb" LEDs in the fixtures as well.

I'm using a couple Sonos (but the IKEA bookshelf speaker versions) that are set up in Hubitat. I use them to announce if any of the flood sensors have turned off the house water supply. The family of course figures out real quick when the water is shut off, however the Sonos integration announces which of the sensors have triggered. One of them is in the furnace room so aside from the inline humidifier (fed by the water system in the home) the condensate from the high efficiency furnace can create a lot of water...the one source not cut off by the mains zwave valve. The HRV system is the same thing...I've had a leak there that caused some water damage to the ceiling below the unit so added a sensor there as well.

To be honest, I sometimes torment my youngest when she is over-sleeping by sending text to the same system so I can announce she's late in one of the 30-40 voices built in to Hubitat

nicholam77 · Mar 14, 2026

Denwood said:
How have the sonoff relays been? Do they dim, and are there any issues with flickering using lower voltage LED lights when off? It's always nice to have options in an older home as most switches do not have neutral run to them :-( For those I've gone with HUE etc at the fixtures but the relay is a better option as you can control them with automation, even if the switch is off. Then you can use much less expensive "dumb" LEDs in the fixtures as well.

Reliable so far! They don't dim... just simple on-off. No issues with flickering, and they each control a single LED bulb around 800 lumens.

I wasn't sure if I'd have signal issues tucked inside a metal switch box, but everything seems to work. There is a slight (0.5 second) delay from flipping the switch to relay activation, so it doesn't feel exactly like a normal switch, but that's no big deal to me.

I think because they have no neutral, they don't act as a repeater like most powered ZigBee devices.

I've also done Hue in these situations, but then you need to maintain power, and add in a battery remote and prevent family members from cutting the power. Typically I just tie the line + load and slap a Hue Dimmer right over the top of the switch box. It works, it's nice, you get dimming, but it is a higher cost.

Using the relays was mostly driven by the no-neutral requirement, but I also wanted to see how they work in case I could use them on the table lamps.

My other reason for not doing smart bulbs is I use higher quality LEDs in all the bedrooms. The overhead fixtures are 2700k from Waveform Lighting, and the lamps are 2200k low blue bulbs from Restful Lighting. Hue bulbs are fine, but the standard white has a green coloration to it, and are only ~80 CRI. I like the idea of high CRI (95+), no flicker, low blue bulbs in bedrooms especially.

Denwood said:
I'm using a couple Sonos (but the IKEA bookshelf speaker versions) that are set up in Hubitat. I use them to announce if any of the flood sensors have turned off the house water supply. The family of course figures out real quick when the water is shut off, however the Sonos integration announces which of the sensors have triggered.

Nice!

Denwood said:
To be honest, I sometimes torment my youngest when she is over-sleeping by sending text to the same system so I can announce she's late in one of the 30-40 voices built in to Hubitat

Denwood · Mar 14, 2026

nicholam77 said:
Reliable so far! They don't dim... just simple on-off. No issues with flickering, and they each control a single LED bulb around 800 lumens.

I wasn't sure if I'd have signal issues tucked inside a metal switch box, but everything seems to work. There is a slight (0.5 second) delay from flipping the switch to relay activation, so it doesn't feel exactly like a normal switch, but that's no big deal to me.

I think because they have no neutral, they don't act as a repeater like most powered ZigBee devices.

I've also done Hue in these situations, but then you need to maintain power, and add in a battery remote and prevent family members from cutting the power. Typically I just tie the line + load and slap a Hue Dimmer right over the top of the switch box. It works, it's nice, you get dimming, but it is a higher cost.

Using the relays was mostly driven by the no-neutral requirement, but I also wanted to see how they work in case I could use them on the table lamps.

My other reason for not doing smart bulbs is I use higher quality LEDs in all the bedrooms. The overhead fixtures are 2700k from Waveform Lighting, and the lamps are 2200k low blue bulbs from Restful Lighting. Hue bulbs are fine, but the standard white has a green coloration to it, and are only ~80 CRI. I like the idea of high CRI (95+), no flicker, low blue bulbs in bedrooms especially.

Nice!

Ok, great to hear there is a small relay option for my older house circuits. I hear you on the LED thing. I’m playing around in my shop with 95+ CRI (which I know is definitely not the standard today) COB LED at 700 lumens per foot at 5000K and I don’t care about dimming..just reliable on/off. The HUE spectra is not so good…

cccoltsicehockey · Mar 16, 2026

nicholam77 said:
Things have been humming along smoothly for the most part. But I am always making little tweaks. As schedules and habits in the household change, the automations need to be adjusted to match.

I'm going to try not to get too in-depth with the nerd stuff / how-to, and just showcase a few things.

Smart Speaker Welcome Home Messages

A voicemail of sorts, that plays when we come home. Or more specifically, the first time we enter the kitchen upon arriving home, the Sonos announces any 'messages' via Text-To-Speech.

These 'messages' are simply events that occurred while we were away, that might be handy to know about.

I'm using the Google TTS engine for this, and the input is template-able, and therefore dynamic based on what events happened.

Leak Detection Notifications

This one is simple. I put some Zigbee water / leak detectors in the places we've had main line backups in the past. Laundry room drain. Basement shower pan.

They have a built-in 110 dB alarm, and then of course I set up a mobile push notification.

I have similar notifications set up for other critical events, like Smoke or CO, or if Motion is detected while we are away (a very simple alarm system of sorts).

Sunrise Alarm

This was a request from the wife. She works hospital shifts and has to get up at 4:00 AM most days. She wanted a 'wake up light'. I usually get up at 6:00 AM to get the kids ready for school, and I am NOT a morning person. In the winter it's still dark, and it's hard to get out of bed! Philips makes a very expensive wake up light, and I figured I could do something similar with Home Assistant.

We each have an 'Alarm Time' input variable that is set in the Home Assistant app on our phones. So we can turn the light alarm on or off and set the wake up time.

Then it will start gradually fading up our respective nightstand lamps over a period of 15 minutes, reaching full brightness by the specified alarm time.

I'm actually using Z-Wave dimmer plugs to do this, because I use special high CRI, low blue, bulbs in our bedroom lamps. But you could easily use a smart bulb.

I did figure out a way to automatically send the earliest alarm in iOS directly to the Home Assistant input datetime helper, which would mean just setting normal alarms on our phones and not worrying about the 'alarm time' in the Home Assistant dashboard. But my wife sets like 20 alarms on her phone out of anxiety of sleeping in, and we decided that would be complicating it too much.

The bulbs I have aren't super bright, only about 450 lumens, but it's a nice gentle wake up.

Now I want to do a similar thing for the kids, because my 4 yr old really struggles to get out of bed in the morning.

Kid's Room Lights

So far I've held off automating much in the kid's rooms. I do have their nightlights on smart plugs that turn on at 7 PM and off at 10 PM.

But they each also have one overhead fixture and two lamps. The annoying thing is I have every other light set to turn off when we leave, or I tell the house 'Goodnight'. But not the kids' lights. So I have to manually run around and turn those off.

I know, I know, once the kids grow up and move out and quit leaving the lights on I'm going to be looking at my wallet with all the money I've saved from keeping their lights off like:

But until then... let's automate!

Their overhead fixture switch boxes do not have neutrals. Most smart switches need neutrals. But these small Sonoff ZBMini relays do not. I've never tried relays, but basically you can use a dumb switch to control the load -OR- by ZigBee radio signal.

The kids' lamps could also use relays. One lamp is a table lamp with a standard inline cord switch, and the other has a push button switch that is integrated into the metal stem of the floor lamp.

For the table lamp, I am looking at a relay + rocker switch + 3d printed enclosure to implement.

For the floor lamp, I think this one will be too hard to dissect, so I might just resort to a smart plug + button remote next to it.

I still have yet to do either of those.

I would like to experiment more with relays, there are a lot of really cool things you can do. I don't have very good electrical or wiring knowledge, but @Denwood has done some very neat stuff with them.

Doorbell Smarts

Currently, I have the Sonos announce when there is a person detected at the front door, or if the doorbell rings, and also get rich push notifications sent to our phones.

But if we are home and checking the mailbox or retrieving a package, I don't really need the Sonos to yell at me that a person has been detected, and worse, send my phone a notification... when it's just me.

So I added a contact sensor to the front door, and added a condition so that the announcements or mobile notifications will not fire if the front door has opened in the last 30 seconds.

That way if we are checking the mailbox, or leaving the house, it does not annoy us.

I have other ideas that I haven't implemented yet, so that's it for now!

Those are all really great ideas. The returning home announcements are actually a great idea.

I keep saying I need to get the leak detectors. They would have saved me a nice headache last year on the kitchen sink that could have been much worse than it was if we were not home.

I used to have my light do exactly what you are doing, but then it broke somehow, and I never went back and figured out why. I should reinvestigate, as I felt more rested waking up that way.

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