Hello friends, I promise you won’t be hearing from me every day but this is a project I am really enjoying already and I realized that I haven’t shared with you. Do you have a good place to get all your stuff charged? If you do, I would love to see where and how you charge all of your stuff. Until recently we did not. It stunk. There were some things plugged in on the counter by my stove, some plugged in in our bedroom, and even the bathroom. One thing that I have discovered about an open concept home is that in order to have all that open space, you give some things up. Things like walls to hang art on, hall closets, and other storage areas. I love having a big open room when we are having company. We enjoy the ability to have a pretty large group in our home for meals and entertaining so the trade off is worth it to us most of the time.
Because there isn’t much storage space, we have struggled with a place to charge everything. We have two laptops, an iPad, an Apple watch, two phones, a Bluetooth speaker, and wireless headphones. All of the stuff has different cords and a a tangle of wiring. I hate it. It looks awful and is always in the way. There is just something about seeing a bunch of cords and cables that wears on me. Am I alone in my neuroses? I even had my husband wrap white tap around the foot of cord that connects our television and Dish because it drove me crazy. I started looking for charging station options. (Like these here) but they just wouldn’t work for us. They just aren’t big enough for the two laptops, iPad, phones…
I also do not enjoy things being out on our counter top in our kitchen. It is a constant struggle to keep the counters cleared. Constant. Never ending.
Fortunately we had a weird space in our house that always bugged me. Always. Like since the moment we walked into the house to look at purchasing the home. There was this little niche/shelving/cabinet thing with two bottom cabinet doors, a counter then glass shelves that were adjustable. They were the problem. The peg things were slightly off from each other- like a quarter inch. That meant the shelves were all crooked, and glass, with brass brackets. It was just enough to bug me. I don’t think I have any photos of he offending shelves because I don’t generally take pictures of things that bug me.
Mr. Math fixed both problems for me with one solution. A charging station with closed cabinet doors. The doors hide all the cords, we now know where everything is- or should be- and I can actually charge every stinkin’ thing at one time now thanks to some ingenuity from the hubby.
First we ripped everything out.
It was glorious to get those shelves down and metal (uneven) brackets out. It was so glorious that I didn’t stop to take a picture for fear of losing momentum. Once everything was down filled all the holes, and spackled the walls.
We were lucky in that there was an outlet in the kitchen that hubby could use to run electricity into our new charging station.
He installed an outlet with two usb outlets. Genius. I have no idea how to explain electricity but here is a blog that explains how to add an outlet. Once all the wall work was done we painted the interior with our go-to paint color Behr Moth Gray.
The next step was to add wooden, level shelves. They are basic 3/4 inch plywood cut to fit with veneer on the front. He attached them on little rails across the back and sides. He cut a little square on the back side of the lowest shelf so that we had access to electricity on two shelves.
The shelves all in and the little square cut out, we bought this great surge protector. It was a little pricey but each outlet can move around to make room if things don’t fit on the strip and it also included two usb outlets.
I know what you are thinking when you look at the picture above… what a mess. You are right, it does look like a mess but all that mess is in one location and I can shut the doors! When people come over I don’t have to rush into the kitchen and grab up cords and devices.
We now have a place for DVD’s and cookbooks (yep we still have DVD’s -don’t judge).
The result isn’t beautiful but it is contained and covered with cabinet doors that Mr. Math built to match our kitchen cabinet doors. He had to make them super tall to fit the space, but I like the look. He is so talented.
It makes me happy to know we solved one of our points of contention. Now on to the next project.
I hope you have a great day. I love hearing from you.
Blessings,
Karen
