Hiding the cords! (Ick)

Hello all! How was your weekend? I was out of town all weekend in Nashville and I’ll probably share some pictures from that later this week. There were some amazing shops down there I wanted to show you!

Even with about eight hours of sleep in three days I still was able to able to get a little project done when I got home. After a nap of course. :) I’ve been meaning to tell you more about this for a while and now is the time…and I’m about to rock. your. world.

I blogged about this before years ago (oddly almost exactly five years ago to the day!), but it’s worth another mention. Or ten. Keep in mind this is not something some of you probably even care about, but it keeps me from waking up in the middle of the night sweating because of my deep, burning hatred of electrical cords.

Yes, I loathe them. In somebody else's house – would probably never notice them. In my house, hate. them. And it does drive me crazy when I see them on a design show or in a magazine. I mean, they’re going to create this amazing space and then you see them laying on the floor or hanging around? Shiver.

So here’s how I deal with them. And this is for smaller things like lamps or whatever. The whole TV cord thing is a whole other post (which I will do too).

Here they are…my loves:

These are cord hiders. Otherwise known as the best things invented ever in EVER. I find mine at Lowe’s on the end cap near the cable stuff. Not the electrical aisle – near the cable supplies.

This is how I use them – when I have a lamp cord that hangs down behind something (that I can see – I don’t care if it’s something I can’t see. Not that crazy.) I will use my scrap pieces of the plastic cord things and stick them on the back of the furniture:

They have a sticky back – you just peel off the paper and stick them on. And to cut them you just score them with your scissors (turn them around between the blades) and then snap it apart.

I also put them on the wall above the outlet:

I actually wish I had made that piece a little longer. I can deal though. Kinda.

So instead of having the whole long cord hanging down behind the desk, you just see a little bit:

And yes, I’ve considered painting the cords. Nothing is above me. Not quite to that level of crazy just yet.

You may have noticed no cords showing when I showed you my new blue lamps last week:

Same thing there – I took a piece of the cord hider and stuck it down the back of the pedestal table: 

Have I blown your mind? Huh? Yeah? Boom.

These are actually made to snap shut too – so that open side you see above could be closed. I don’t worry about that since you rarely see these in the first place.

I did it again in the kitchen/family room so that you can’t see the cord behind the console table:

Oh my. That is beautiful, right?

You can also paint these things:

I hung the sconces that used to be in the bedroom down in the basement and used these to hide the cords going down the wall:

I’m not totally crazy about that look, but it’s something that hides dangling cords. I’d love to eventually have something hard wired there so this is a temporary fix. (And I tried one of the hiders along the bottom but realized the cords were less noticeable on their own since they match the wood top.)

The cord hiders come in a variety of sizes and I use them for our TV component stuff too. That little section at the hardware store is a magical place, be sure to check it out. ;)

Oh, and when I put them on the wall like above I don’t take the paper off the whole strip and stick it to the wall because they can damage the wall when you remove them later. Or sometimes the residue sticks too well and stays on the wall -- that’s my only complaint about these things. I just take off a tiny bit so just a smidge is sticky – it’s usually enough to hold them in place just fine.

There you go. How I survive life. First world problems, hiding cords. These things come in about five foot lengths and I think they’re like $4 each? But I usually cut them down so they go a long way for me.

Be sure to come by tomorrow to kick off our fall parties and link up your fall mantels!:

See you there! :)