Organizing for Others: Cords: Part 1

Hello all! I hope you had a relaxing Thanksgiving holiday and found something to be thankful for. In addition to being thankful for my amazing family and loved ones, I am especially thankful for technology. Without it this holiday my travel plans, communication abilities, and fails in my football fantasy would have been much more difficult. {I will choose to go into no further details about my fantasy team, but it was ugly. That's all I'm saying} Anyway, one thing I am not too keen on regarding technology is cords! One of my biggest pet peeves is cords hanging out, on display, everywhere.  And with every new electronic device comes a new cord.

Let me back up for just a second and start by saying, Brit loves gadgets. The man turns into a giddy child when a new gadget is released, he’s one of the first to check woot.com at 1 am each night morning, and his idea of a fun night out is heading to Best Buy for a couple hours and ending with a walk through the Apple store, “just to look”. Don’t get me wrong here, I love my gadget-smitten man, but every time he gets a new gadget, I have a new cord to look at.

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The Problem 

Guys. Look at this. I mean seriously, the man has a watch that has to be charged. He is one gadget release away from becoming a robot {I’m sure if they sold the option, he’d be buying}. 

Anyway, looking at all of these cords drove me crazy! Especially because this is our shared workspace. I tried to designate a space for all of the cords in my handy “desk organizer” {read more about that here}, but there were too many and honestly, Brit never rolled them up and put them back. So I had to ask myself, how can we store cords that will keep them outta sight while still being easy for Brit to get out and put away??

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Creating the Container 

I used a candle, of course!

…

Yup, a candle. I absolutely LOVE autumn scents so I burn through our Fall candles in about a week. I was uber depressed when our Harvest candle flickered it’s last flame, but I also had brilliant plans for the jar, sans wax.

There were still wax remnants in the bottom of the jar that needed to be removed. By sticking the candle in the freezer for about 20 minutes, you can easily remove wax without any struggle {typically}. 

{frozen candle}

Now take the candle out of the freezer after the wax has been frozen and stab is with a knife. Sounds harsh, but it will simply crack the wax. Shake it upside-down a couple times and voila, empty candle jar. 

{make sure the wax actually cracks all the way through. It will make it much easier to remove it}. 

I used some goo-gone to remove the label and the extra goo left behind {flipping love this stuff}, and then cleaned up any black soot on the inside. 

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Makin' it Purdy 

Now, the added touch to keep the cords out of sight! Chalkboard spray paint.

{find it on Amazon here}

I sprayed the jar and let it dry overnight, you really only need to allow an hour, but better safe than sorry. 

I tucked all those pesky cords in the jar, labeled it {Brit’s favorite}, and now no more cords in sight!

All in all, a pretty simple solution to a very annoying problem. And it satisfies both of us. Brit doesn't have to go running around the apartment asking where I've tucked away his latest cord, and I don't have to get tangled up in a cord jungle every time I try to sit at our desk. Ladies and gentlemen, I like to call that a win-win. 

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Cost: Free. Yup, I'm gonna go with free on this one. Of course $$ was spent on the candle and the spray paint previously, but the candle lived it's life and I basically just recycled the remains. And the spray paint? Well, if we're going to count that, based on the amount used, it was about .75 cents. Still pretty freaking cheap! 

Time: This one didn't take a lot of actual labor time, but a little wait time. It took about 5 minutes of actual work + 20 minutes freezing candle wax + 1-2 hours of paint drying time.

How do you organize your cords and devices? Have you done any DIY with chalkboard paint recently? 

Thanks for visiting! 

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