Hello AT,
The back of my desk faces my living room and is a nest of wires and cord running from the computer to the cable box to the tv, etc. Any good suggestion on cord control? I've tried those "cord-turtles" but they don't do it.
Thanks. Stacey
We have the same problem. The problem for us is that the more you enclose the cords, the less accessible they are, so we have opted for the "see it, but make it neat" route. We use Cleverline Cable Mangers which bind cables tightly, but are easy to take off. We also found Velcro Wraps and these Cable Wraps which do a similar job.
Then there is the Spiral Wraps and these cable tunnels to wrap the whole thing. Nothing is perfect, but if you do a neat job, it won't be unsightly. MGR
I recommend building a cable raceway under the desk. It should be a little tray that runs lengthwise under the desk to a leg. Cables go in the tray, then to the leg down to the floor. Use velcro ties to make it neat.
If you are trying to hide A/V cabling, separate the power lines from the signal lines to reduce interference. If possible, run them in opposite directions, or only cross them at right angles.
I came across a helpful solution from all places, Martha Stuart. It uses a wire desk basket, and 4 cuphooks. Screw in the 4 cuphooks into the bottom of your desk and put a powerstrip (or two) into the basket, then hang that from the bottom of your desk with the cuphooks. The basket will hold power transformers, and the bulk of your cables. It would be good to coil and velcro them nicely in the basket. Then you just have a single power cable going up to your desk, along with the phone cord and coaxial. With that you could use a wire loom. The hooks make the basket easy to get to.
I use velcro cables both here and at work. They aren't as nice and aesthestic as these other two ideas, but they are easy to attach and detach. I don't recomend any cable hider or keeper that is hard to pull wires from, since I tend to mess up pretty wires when I'm in a hurry, and it only makes me mad when I don't want to deal with un-spiralling something. I don't like those cable turtles, spirals or little plastic snakes for that reason... I have my TV on a wheelie stand, and I've set it up so that I only have two cables coming out from it -- one for power that goes to a strip, and the main cable-cable. Everything else is nicely velcroed in so that I can move the cart around easily and not have to yank on wires or worry about things coming undone.
Check out Velcro's Plant Grip Ties, which i found through Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools. [kk.org/cooltools]
Only one side is velcro'd, and it's not so sticky that it'll pick up everything - but it's slim, unobtrusive, easy to manage .. and cheap.
We just got the "horizontal cord manager" from Room and Board this weekend (you can see it on their website). It works well but you do still have a bit of a mess where they all plug in. The people at the store in Soho didn't really know they carried them--they are in a bin in the cellar by a black armoire