Solve your wiring woes and secure your outlets with these clever wiring management solutions.
Does your passion for electronics make you live in a wiring jungle? Modern homes are so heavily wired that it can be mind-boggling to figure out how to hide the cables of TV cords, wires, and other must-use gadgets. But before you give up on technology, take a look at the following wiring management solutions. You can buy or DIY them to discreetly hide or conceal any wiring and permanently improve the organization of your home.
- Hook cords to the back of furniture.
Overhanging cords will disappear as soon as they are secured to the outline of the nearest piece of furniture. To do this, glue a clear cord clip, like this Command Cord Clip, along the back edge of the furniture; as with most of 3M’s tenant-friendly solutions, the clip should be secured for 30 seconds, and after an hour, one or more cords should be hooked so that they line up properly. (These hooks also help hide charging cords and cables on the desk. Great!) .
If you’re feeling a little crazy, you can hide tangled cords behind a TV on a stand by building cord storage into the DIY design of the TV stand. Designed by Heidi of Kruse’s Workshop, this TV cabinet (featured on Tatertots & Jello) stores cables in a recess in the center leg at the back of the cabinet. This stand can be reproduced from recycled wood. Following the blogger’s detailed instructions, a table saw is used to cut a notch in the back leg, and the cables for the TV and other entertainment items are threaded through the cutout in the leg to keep them out of sight.
- Place the cables behind the sofa.
You can make cluttered charging cables less visible with an elongated sofa table from Etsy seller MittenStateWoodworks. The table’s narrow width allows it to fit neatly behind any sofa. It also has a built-in power outlet and two USB ports, so you can charge your personal electronic devices without being noticed. You can also connect a lamp for additional lighting or decorate the table with your favorite decorations. Just be sure to keep drinks and other liquids away from the electrical components on the table.
- Hide TV cables where they can be seen.
If wires hanging from a wall-mounted TV interfere with the screen, cover them with a cable cover such as D-Line’s Cable Raceway. These plastic tracks can be attached directly to the wiring in the wall.
Measure the span of the wall between the bottom of the screen and the floor to effectively hide the TV cables. This is the length of cable cover required and can usually be cut to the appropriate length. For cable runners, cut the base and top of the cable cover with a hacksaw. Then, following the manufacturer’s instructions, screw the cable runner base to the wall, lay the TV cable on the cable runner, and fit the cable cover over the top. Wire covers are usually sold in neutral colors such as white or metallic gray, which will stand out if the wall is a different color. However, if they are painted the same color as the wall (using emulsion paint), they can blend in with the space without feeling out of place.
- Run TV cables inside the wall.
The best way to keep the wiring of a wall-mounted TV out of sight is to hide it behind the wall using a recessed cable plate such as the DATA COMM Easy Mount Cable Organizer Kit. Remove the TV from the wall (if the TV has an adjustable arm, move it aside) and use a stud finder to locate two areas of the wall where there are no studs (behind the screen and under the wall near the outlet). Make cuts with a hobby knife in these areas, fit in the two cable panels, and run the TV cables in and out of the wall. Your new media setup could be mistaken for a wireless entertainment system.
- Tuck the wire mess into the tubing.
Can’t manage the various wires used daily in your home office for PCs, monitors, phones, printers, etc.? Cable kits like MOSOTECH’s 120″ Cable Sleeve, our guide to the best cable management solutions we’ve researched, offer an easy way to integrate all those loose wires hanging from your desk. Simply bundle them together and wrap two feet of flexible foam tubing around the cord to organize them into large bundles and minimize mess. Thanks to its slick shape, the wires can be cut off and redirected along the stretch from anywhere in the group to get them exactly where they need to be.
- Put them in drawers.
A little ingenuity in desk drawers can eliminate the eyesore of bulky power strips and cords overflowing onto the floor. Attach a hole saw head to a drill and drill a hole in the back panel of the desk drawer near the outlet. Then run the power strip cable through this hole and attach the back of the power strip itself to the same drawer panel with double-sided tape. After plugging in the electronics to the power strip, create a space in each drawer to rest the gadgets that are charging.
- Thread the baseboard hardware.
To eliminate trip hazards when routing Ethernet cables in a home office, living room, or bedroom, you can decorate the room’s existing baseboard with baseboard cable channels. This self-adhesive, impact-resistant wire channel is nothing more than a hollow piece of plastic 1/4 round shoe molding. To attach this channel to baseboard, simply peel off the adhesive on the back of the channel, press the back of the channel against the baseboard, and run Ethernet or other cables through the channel opening to conceal and protect the cables from damage. The baseplate cable channels can be stained or painted to match the aesthetics of the interior.
- Wires and routers are hidden in “books.
Routers and modems can look out of place anywhere, but they are especially useful on bookshelves. Consider creating a bookshelf for your home study with creative router covers from Etsy seller Covobox. You can also DIY by reusing a binder wide enough to cover the back and spine of a loose-leaf book and hot-bonding colored scrap fabric to it. Then tuck the looseleaf between the books on an end table, desk, or bookshelf so that the router cables crawl the length of the wall behind the furniture. Voila! An instant masterpiece for eliminating wiring clutter.
