Copying an Easy Ikea Hack

Yes, despite the fact that I am now 5 hours from the closest Ikea, I still torture myself by reading Ikea Hacker. I love to see what clever things people come up with using the inexpensive things they find at Ikea. This post inspired me to tame the tangle under my desk for free! All I needed was some patience, a cardboard box (I did have an Ikea box), empty toilet paper rolls, and some duct tape.

Before:

All of this was visible under my desk, which means my feet were always bumping up against something.Wireless Alarm Monitor: With my desk, computer, and sewing machines in the basement, I like hearing when my doors open and close. With this little unit, a tone sounds when one of the doors is opened. With kids heading in and out all day, I like having a feel for where they are. Also, a tone chimes if a door has been open for a long time.

Universal Power Supply ("UPS"): When the power goes out at our home, for any reason, this baby keeps my computer safe and sound.

Bouncy, Bouncy Ball: A present from someone.

Chamois: Just in case we had some water come in again this winter. Thankfully, it remained unused.

Wires that hook everything together: Too much peripheral stuff means a lot of wires.

Network Cable: What?! You don't have a server at your house?

Power Strip: Obviously, we need far more plugs than a standard outlet gives us. Doesn't everyone have one of these under there desk?

(Oh, and can you guess where we ran out of orange paint when we painted this room?)


After:

Look at this! The only things that aren't still under my desk are the Bouncy, Bouncy Ball and the Chamois. Everything else is still there!! Doesn't it look so much neater? (Now I really need to get more 'mango madness' paint to finish up that "under desk" area!)


So, this turned out to be easier than I thought. I cut two holes in the back of the box. One to feed the heavy cords through (like the power strip cord or the UPS cord) and the other for the smaller gauge cords. One of the holes needed to be pretty big because of the transformers that are at the end of some of the plugs. Finally, since the UPS generates heat, I drilled holes in the lid of the box to allow for the heat to dissipate. I also made one of the holes bigger so the antenna for the wireless alarm wouldn't have issues.

Then I just took my time and threaded everything neatly through the holes and hooked them back up. Then I cut open three toilet paper rolls (you can only see two in the photo) and fed the wires into the sliced holders and closed them up with the duct tape.

Instead of using toilet paper rolls to tame the wires (I know they're so glamorous, but not everyone is enamored of them), Sew Many Ways uses split flexible tubing that she found at Home Depot for approximately $2. If I get around to it, I might switch mine over, but for now, I like free and here even better than $2 and trip to HD.

I love it and I love that it was done with stuff I had around the house. I can actually put my feet under my desk without worrying about pulling out cables or getting tangled up in cords. Sometimes the simplest things make the biggest impact.