Usually I self-paralyze by setting up dominoes and then refusing to knock the first one down. "Well, I can't do A until I do B, and that can't happen until C..." etc. In this case, I had the communications gear sitting on the floor of the utility room and the shelf + brackets on top of the laundry. But I finally got a bug up my ass and attacked mounting the shelf to the wall
Pulled out the stud finder, which seemed to output some close, but not identical, data. The center of some of the studs seemed to float a little. It's very possible that this was due to the collection of lines in the wall, drifitng left or right, and it was picking them up instead of the studs. I marked off the areas that most consistently registered hits, and then positioned the first bracket. I leveled it, and marked out the screw holes in the wall, and then grabbed the drill. I quick prayer that there weren't any current-bearing lines behind the bit head, and I had three neat holes to hammer drywall anchors into. Once I had the bracket mounted however, I discovered that it was leaning about a quarter inch to the right. Being not quite sure how to deal with that, and unwilling to let that derail my attempt to finish, I quickly advanced to the second bracket. It was slightly off-camber, so I'm not sure what's happening between marking the wall and mounting the bracket. It's not unsightly, for sure. I placed
It's certainly not the most amazing or ambitious home improvement project, but I think it kinda counts as the first thing I've "built" for the condo, so I consider it a win.
Remaining:
* Screw shelf to the bracket
* Find shorter CAT-5 cables to pretty up the wall a bit
* Cable-tie all the cords together, for the same reason.