DIY Charging Station



Ok, so as the mom of this house, somehow I'm also the finder of socks, the returner of library books, and...the locator of power cords. Do you share these roles with me? I was so fed up with cords hanging from every outlet in our house, and kids who kept forgetting which outlet they left their chargers in, that something had to be done.

Enter a scratched up wooden art caddy covered in marker scribbles that we got for free from somewhere or other. It had always been too big for our daughters' desks, so I repurposed it into a charging station. The compartments seem like they were meant for our two phones, two tablets, two iPods, and Nintendo DS. It was kismet.

Impatience made me forget to take a before pic, sadly. Just imagine ugly, beat-up oak. I first used a paddle bit to drill holes large enough for the ends of charger cords to slide through. I drilled four in the back and two more in the middle that divides the front sections from the back sections. I hand sanded the holes, wiped the whole thing down, then sprayed it with two coats of black semi-gloss spray paint. After it was completely dry, I used a hot glue gun to adhere bin labels (which I had spray painted gold first).

When I threaded all of the cords through the holes I drilled, I was still left with a bit of tangle behind our new charging station. To help with this, I used twist ties to bundle up the excess length of each cord. Then, I stuck Velcro dots on the back of the charging station and on the plugs of some of the cords we don't use as much. When they're not plugged in, we can just Velcro them to the back of the charging station to keep everything nice and neat. I also highly recommend a USB outlet. It maximizes the amount of cords you can plug in at one time, and for us, eliminated the need for a power strip because we don't need all seven things plugged in at once.

How do you handle the power cord conundrum in your house?

Most of the charging stations I've seen, by the way, cost around $50. Make one yourself for half as much!







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