For better or worse, technology has become a part of our everyday lives. Our homes are filled with electronics—from televisions, stereos, and game consoles to computers and WIFI routers. While these devices have become staples of modern homes, they pose a major problem when it comes to design. Not only are some of these devices flat-out unattractive, almost all of them come with an abundance of cords and cables that are major eyesores in an otherwise beautiful room. But with these creative ideas for hiding clumsy cords and cables, you won’t have to sacrifice look for function ever again. When it comes to hiding TV cords and gaming system attachments, the most obvious solution is a custom console or entertainment system that integrates wires into the design from the very beginning. Recessed televisions are becoming increasingly popular as they create a simplistic and uncluttered look by nestling right into the wall. To accommodate things like routers, cable boxes, DVD players, and gaming systems, designers will include a hidden cabinet with wires running right through the walls to connect devices behind the scenes.

While custom, built-in solutions are ideal, you can also find great options in pre-made, freestanding entertainment centers. These pieces are designed with back panels and small cutout holes that allow you to feed the wires invisibly through the back of the furniture to connect to the power source while the paneling hides them from view. Of course, a TV console or entertainment center isn’t the best option if you have a wall-mounted television or speaker system. In these cases, the most efficient way to handle the problem of unappealing cords and wires is to actually thread them through the wall. You can find affordable kits with step-by-step instructions for how to do this at home, but the basic principle is to create a small hole behind your television, wall-mounted speaker, or light fixture, and a second hole at the bottom of the wall where the device needs to connect to a power source. Simply thread the wires through the wall and hide the outlet at the bottom behind a piece of furniture.

If you aren’t able to take the built-in route, then the first step to managing cords and cables is to make sure they are taking up as little space as possible. By bundling them together, you can immediately minimize the chaotic appearance of wires sticking out in every direction. A cord sleeve is a specialized product designed to consolidate cables by wrapping them in a tube of foam or fabric. Another simple option is to bind them together using plain black twist ties or binder clips.the outside ac unit is not working Once you’ve got all of your wires in one place, you can use tape, glue, staples, or hooks to secure them to solid objects like the wall, the back or underside of a piece of a furniture, the leg of a desk or table, or even the floor. best ac units for the moneyThis will keep your cords from getting tangled together or hanging loosely in plain view.central ac unit is not level

Maybe you’re looking for an even simpler solution for disguising your unattractive electronics. Wireless routers are one of the ugliest devices around, but they often need to be out in the open in order to work effectively. Try laying your router inside a decorative box, then incorporating the box as part of your décor. You can even cut a small hole for the router’s antenna to poke out through if necessary. Add a stack of books, a picture frame, or other knickknacks to distract attention from what’s inside. You can also use stylish boxes or baskets to hold your cable box or power strips. Keep your cords bundled together and tuck the entire thing into the box or basket on the floor or bottom shelf of your entertainment system. If you’re using a box with a top, cut holes in the back large enough to thread the cords through. Most computers come with a small army of peripherals, each with their own set of connections. Attaching small wire baskets to the underside of an open desk provides a place to tuck those easily-tangled cords where they are out of sight, but still convenient to access if necessary.

Incorporating technology into your everyday life means incorporating it into your home design as well. Thankfully, embracing technology doesn’t mean you have to resign yourself to a house full of offensive cords and ugly black boxes. We hope these ideas will inspire you with creative ways to manage technology in your home, whether through quick and easy disguises for your electronics or through long-term design solutions. 7 Cool Tips To Hide Your Air ConditionerStep 1: The Original DesignShow All Items Super clean & secure storagefor your peace of mind. The easiest & most convenientway to store or move. Delivery to your door  |  Let professional moversdo the work for you. Call today for a free estimate Welcome to Hide-Away Storage Superstore. For over 35 years, Hide-Away Storage has been Florida's Storage Superstore. We have everything you'll need when it comes to self storage. Our air-conditioned storage units and drive-up garage storage units are clean and secure for your peace-of-mind, with 24-hour access to all units.

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Unfortunately, one aspect of home-theater setup tends to get overlooked: cable management. What good is a sexy new HDTV and attractive, modern-looking speakers if your living room is overrun with unsightly wires? The last thing you want is for your slim, wall-mounted HDTV to look like an octopus because of all the cables trailing down. The easiest way to pretty up your home-theater system is to organize and hide its cables. Options for hiding your existing cables (rather than doing away with them altogether) range from simple zip-tie organization to under-the-carpet snaking to behind-the-wall wiring. If your home theater isn't too high-tech--for example, if your HDTV sits on a console table instead of being wall-mounted--you may just need to do some organizing. Nixing cable clutter will make your peripherals easier to manage, and it'll make everything look a little more organized if (God forbid) one of your house guests happens to check the behind the TV. 1. Use cable ties to bundle your cables together.

These can be simple zip ties ($3, Best Buy), or cute cable accessories like the Sarut Group's bendable cable monkey ($5, ThinkGeek) and alligator ($7, Amazon). Try to bundle audio cables, visual cables, and power cables separately for more coherent organization and to avoid audio/visual interference. 2. Use cord catchers to prevent your cables from falling behind the table when you unplug them. You can make cord catchers yourself using , or you can purchase individual catchers (such as the Cord Catch, $7, ) or multiple catchers (such as the Cordies Classic, $10, ). 1. Use cable tacks ($2, ) to trap your cables against the back of your cabinet. Cable/wire tacks are a cheap and easy to use (you'll need a hammer or a cable tacker, $17, ), though you ought to have pretty clear idea of what should go where before you start punching holes in the back of your furniture. 2. Screw hooks ($30/24, various) into the back of your cabinet and loop extra-long cables around the hooks. Be sure to use enough hooks to avoid creasing the cables.

Want to put your home theater somewhere far away from an outlet? Instead of haphazardly stringing cables along the wall, cleverly hide them by running them along the ceiling, behind the furniture, or underneath the carpet. 1. Use cable raceways to hide and neaten cable tracks. Cable raceways aren't exactly hidden themselves, but they do hide unsightly cables and provide a clean, finished look. You can paint them to blend in with the wall or trim that you lay them against. 2. Use cable tacks along the ceiling or the floor. If you adopt this approach, it's best to lay down the cable before you put in the furniture, so you can lay the cable neatly along the floor or the ceiling. Be sure to buy the correct type of cable tack for each of your cords--, for example, will pinch and damage round cords. 3. Hide cables under the carpet. Again, it's best to do this before you put any furniture down. The easiest way to hide cables under the carpet is to use a steel fish tape tool ($35, ) to pull the cable from one side of the room (where your entertainment center is set up) to the other (where your cable emerges from the carpet to connect to the electrical outlet).

This is easier than it sounds, even if you've never used fish tape before: gently pull up the carpeting where the cable will enter (about 2 inches of carpeting), and gently pull up the carpeting where the cable will exit. Starting from the "exit" side, slide the fish tape loop beneath the carpet and the padding, and slowly push it toward the "enter" side. Once the fish tape reaches the "enter" side, draw the loop out from beneath the carpet/padding, and loosely tie your cable to the loop. Then slowly pull the fish tape and cable back toward the "exit" side. If your HDTV is wall-mounted and you want to maintain a minimalist look, cleverly hiding cables will take you only so far. Aside from going wireless (see below), the best way to make cables disappear is to park them inside the wall. Unfortunately, unless you're particularly savvy with in-home wiring, it's best to leave this type of work to skilled professionals. "Let me put it this way," says Tom O'Connor, of Palo Alto-based O'Connor & Sons Electric, when I asked him for advice on do-it-yourself electrical work, "About 80 percent of my work is fixing other people's mistakes.

It's not brain surgery, sure, but I went to four years of school for this. What seems easy on paper can be tricky in the real world, especially when there are wires and a $3000 HDTV involved." The good news is that professional electric work is not a break-the-bank expense, and it will certainly cost less than your home-theater setup. O'Connor & Sons Electric charges $125 per hour and says that most HDTV jobs take about 2 hours. Todor Georgiev of San Francisco-based ElectroIntegrity says that jobs can cost as much as $850 depending on the type of wall. "Imagine an old plaster wall, 2x3 studs, old knob and tube wiring, and a $3500 TV--not good," Georgiev writes in an e-mail message, "In that case, it's necessary to brace up that section of wall before installation." Ultimately, the cost of hiding cables in a wall depends on where you want to put your TV, how your house is built, how many components you have, and where they'll be located. Gus Kanakis of San Jose-based Anchor Electric suggests consulting your local electrician and exploring options based on budget, tolerance for construction disruption (taking down drywall, for example), and building type.