Above is the "before" shot of Lifehacker reader Seandavid010's tangled mess of a desk. But he got a new desk and a new outlook on cord management when he decided to use desk-mounted vinyl rain gutters to wrangle his wires. Click through to see the after photos...
After picking up a new desk at Ikea, Seandavid010 sought out to solve he and his wife's messy cord problem. He vaguely remembered reading about some other troubled aesthetite's rain gutter win in the battle against desk wires and decided to try it himself. After a few home imporvment store purchases that total around $30, he crafted his own cord basin under his desk in around 2 hours.
So what's all tucked in the gutters? Some power strips, a wireless router, a cable modem, usb cables and the power cords for two Macbooks. And it's no longer unsightly and now completely out-of-sight. Check out the Flickr photo album for more shots or the Lifehacker post for a more detailed step-by-step on the project.
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I like that... a lot
definitely a win.
greatly improved!
Awesome.
That looks so much better!
This is exactly the DIY I needed. And I've added "troubled aesthete" to my lexicon.
Thats awesome. Been getting worried about my toddler and all the wires... and unlike the rain gutters outside my house, these I could actually keep clean.
I love how this is seems to one of those issues everyone deals with and something as simple as rain gutters fixes it! Thank you AT, I probably wouldn't have thought of this otherwise.
Simple, functional and beautiful. Can you paint the gutter to match the wall color?
you have just saved my life (and sanity!!)
Given that the table is new, can we assume that the gutter is fasten not to the wall, but to the table? I would also assume that the gutter is plastic or vinyl and not aluminum? I'm asking only because moving the table and contents with the gutter attached to it would be much easier in that only a few wires would need disconnection and not all of them. I also think plastic or vinyl would be a bit easier to work with using simple tools and lessen the chance for burrs that could scrap hands or wires. Other than those observations, I think is a masterful application of readily available items for a new use.
Change the power cord to white and it would be perfect.
The only thing I've run into with systems like this is that laying all the chords on top of each other means that taking one out results in a big tangled mess. But it looks great.
Going to home depot tomorrow
thanks rain gutter wire god!
Very impressive, thank you! I never thought I'd hate an "object" like I've come to hate cords - not just how they look, but like NicodemusBC says, dealing with them. Yet, wireless technology is apparently bad for your health. Which made me then wonder, though the suggestion to use vinyl makes sense, mightn't metal gutters help shield us from all the EMF's running through the cords?