New Year-New Start-New January Challenge! {week 1}: cord control

Oh how I love the blank slate of a brand new year.  Each year, I make my resolutions and also resolve that I will get, and stay, much more organized than the year before.  This year is no different!  In fact, this January, I am going to blog once a week about a quick and easy and (hopefully) inexpensive way to organize a trouble-spot in my home, complete with how much it cost.

Up today: taming the cords under the TV bookcase.  Let me put on record how much I hate messy, exposed cords.  So, I am totally embarrassed that it took me this long to address the tangled web of cords under my TV and the cords going from the power strip to the outlet.  All it took was a little ingenuity and creativity and what was once an eyesore is now nice and neat and under control. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Before - you can see my cords.  Ugly. Embarrassing. Messy. (hangs head in shame)

Want a close up?  OK, here you go.

After - woo hoo!!!  Where are they cords? Where? Oh they're there.  They are just neatly tucked away.

Here's what I did: I knew I had to organize a bunch of things under that bookcase: the powerstrip, the cords going in and out of the powerstrip, the modem and the router.  I thought I had found the *perfect* solution from The Container Store, but when it arrived on my doorstep, holy moly cow, that sucker was huge.  It was way too big for the teeny space under my bookshelf.  Back to the store it went, and once again, I was in search of a solution.  I ended up creating my own.  I bought a cabinet shelf at Bed Bath and Beyond in their kitchen organization section for $5.00.

The problem? It was too tall.  Again.  RAR!

But the height was the only dimension that did not work and I loved everything else about this solution, since it was ventilated, had a shelf for the  router and a place underneath for the modem and powerstrip.  So I decided to try a Tim Gunn from Project Runway and "make it work."  I just cut the legs down to size.  I happen to have a saw for metal in my garage, so I measured each leg and then hacked off a few inches (apologies I don't have action shots of my sawing ... I did this solo and the cat isn't a very good photographer).

Yay! Success.  Of course, the next wrinkle was that it was bright white, so as soon as I put it under the bookshelf, it kind of stuck out.  I took a minute and used some black spray paint in my garage and sprayed that sucker black.  Much better.

And here is the shelf doing its job very well, thank you!  Ahhh ... calm from chaos.

But the job was not finished.  I still had to contend with the cords going from the bookshelf to the outlet.  I picked up one of those baseboard cable covers from the Home Depot.  At $11.00, it was a little more than I wanted to spend, but I knew I needed a pretty thick cord cover since I had a bunch of cords in that space.  I measured the space, cut the cord cover down to size and then popped the cords into their new home. I ended up having to do two strips, one on top of the other, but I think it looks fine.

And here is the after shot! So much better, no?

I am so happy that with a tiny bit of effort and about $16 ($5 for the cabinet shelf and $11 for the cord cover) my television bookcase went from a sorry state of affairs to a much tidier look.  What about you? Got a cord conundrum? Let me know!

See you swoon,