For reasons that are probably already obvious, I will never have a blog about decorating. But I had to show you this piece of furniture that Jim and I transformed into a charging station and place to store laptop computers.
We have as many laptops as we have people in this house. (All low-end PC’s, some of which are nearly worn out. Nothing worth stealing, just in case there are any bad-guys out there reading this.) Four of these get used on a regular basis. That means that most days find laptops scattered on end tables, kitchen tables, couches… And when we want to put them all away, there has been no where to put them.
Combine this problem with the need to charge all kinds of devices – from my Kindle to iPods to MP3 players to phones. Cords were taking over the house.
The week after Christmas, Jim and I started scouring Craigslist for a dresser. We found this little desk that turned out to be perfect. Here it is in the “before” state.
Jim had already given it a light sanding and taken off the bat-wing hardware when I remembered to take a photo.
I painted it with white paint, using the suggestions in this eBook from Altar’d. We swapped out the old brass bat-wing hardware for something nicer.
Then Jim removed part of the backing and drilled holes behind each drawer to feed cords through. He mounted power strips in two of the drawers and also in the top.
We don’t use all of the outlets and we turn them off when something isn’t charging. Also, we have two wall outlets near this cabinet, so we were able to plug into both. I’m not sure that you’d want this many power strips plugging into one wall outlet.
It’s so nice to have a place to tuck away laptops and charge things when needed. And it feels good to have a successful DIY project done too.
I’ll be back to posting about food tomorrow. Thanks for letting me share about something different today!
I’m showing this off at Crystal & Co. Mommy Solutions
Oh my gosh, how clever!!!! I love this idea. This is exactly what our home needs. I hope to find one inexpensively somewhere to transform into a “treasure” such as yours. Thanks for sharing.
Awesome idea!
Great idea and it looks so good! You guys did a great job 🙂
Jennifer
Very lovely idea! Oh how good it feels when you come up with wonderful changes like this!
Fabulous! I’m going to link to this in my next “links” post! Great job!
Awesome idea! Thanks for sharing!
I LOVE IT!!!! Excellent job.
Thanks for sharing on my site.
This looks fantastic! What a great idea!
Love this idea! Pretty soon all cords everywhere will be hidden in breadboxes and desk drawers! Way to go!