By Manasa Reddigari | Updated Jul 20, 2022 11:56 AM

Does your enthusiasm for electronics have you living in a jungle of cords? Given the sheer volume of wires that dwell in a modern home, figuring out how to hide TV wires and cords and cables for other must-have gadgets can be frustrating. But before you hit a point of swearing off technology altogether, check out the cord management solutions below. You can buy or DIY to disguise or hide every wire in sight and permanently improve the organization of your home.

Dangling cords disappear quickly when you anchor them to the silhouette of the nearest furniture. To do so, adhere clear cord clips like these Command Cord Clips along the back edges of your furniture. Like most of the line of renter-friendly solutions from 3M, you’ll need to press the clips in place for 30 seconds and, an hour later, you can hook in one or more cords and have them run neatly down the legs of your console. (These hooks help hide charging cords and cables at your desk really well, too!)

If you’re feeling a bit craftier, you can hide a tangle of cables behind a stand-mounted TV by incorporating built-in cord storage into the design of your DIY TV stand. This one designed by Heidi from Kruse’s Workshop (and featured on Tatertots & Jello) keeps cables contained in a notch that runs down the middle leg at the back of the unit. You can recreate the stand from scratch with reclaimed wood: Follow the blogger’s detailed instructions for how to use a table saw to create a recessed groove in the back leg, then run the cords for your TV and other entertainment essentials down the groove in the leg to keep them out of sight.

Disguise the clutter of all those charging cords with this slim sofa table from Etsy seller MittenStateWoodworks. The table’s narrow design tucks neatly behind any couch and features a built-in outlet with two USB ports for charging all of your personal electronics out of sight. You can also plug in a lamp for additional lighting and display your favorite decor on the table, too. Just be sure to keep drinks and other liquids away from the table’s electrical components.

If the cords dangling from your wall-mounted TV are distracting you from what’s on screen, conceal them with cord covers like the D-Line Cable Raceway, a favorite in our researched guide to the best cable management. Plastic tracks like these mount directly to the wall on top of wires.

To install and effectively hide TV wires, measure the span of wall between the base of the screen and the floor—that’s the length of cord cover you need, and you can often cut to fit. In the case of the Cable Raceway, you’ll cut the base and top of the cord cover using a hacksaw. Then, mount the raceway base to the wall with screws according to the manufacturer’s instructions, lay the TV cords inside the channel, and snap the cover in place over the top. Cord covers are typically sold in neutral colors like white or metallic gray that can stand out if your wall is a different color. But when painted the same color as your wall (using latex-based paint), they seamlessly blend into the space.

RELATED: 11 Ways to Keep Electronics From Taking Over the Living Room

The best solution for keeping the cords of a wall-mounted TV out of sight involves hiding them behind the wall itself using recessed cable plates like the DATA COMM Easy Mount Cable Organizer Kit. Remove the TV from the wall (or move it aside if your TV has an adjustable arm), and then use a stud finder to find two stud-free sections of the wall: one behind where the screen would sit, and another further down the wall near an outlet. These are where you’ll make your cuts using a utility knife, fit two cable plates, and feed the TV cords in and out of the wall. Your guests may just mistake your new media setup for a wireless entertainment system!

Can’t manage the melange of cords in your home office for PCs, monitors, phones, printers, and other devices used daily? A cable wrap like the MOSOTECH 120-inch Cable Sleeve, a top pick in our researched guide to the best cable management solutions, provides an easy way to consolidate all the loose cords that dangle from your desk. Simply bundle them together in your hands, and wrap the two-foot-long pieces of flexible foam tubing around the wires to corral them into one larger one and minimize chaos. Thanks to the slinky shape, you can break out and redirect wires from the group anywhere along the stretch so that they can reach exactly where they need to go.

Making a few creative modifications to a desk drawer can do away with the eyesore of a clunky power strip parked on the floor and overflowing with cords. With a hole saw bit attached to your power drill, drill a hole into the back panel of the desk drawer located near a wall outlet. Then, feed the power strip cable through the hole and use double-sided adhesive to mount the back of the power strip itself to the same drawer panel. As you plug electronics into the power strip, create a space for each gadget to rest while it charges in the drawer, just as home blogger Jenny Steffens Hobick does in her kitchen cabinetry.

If you’d rather buy than DIY, check out the South Shore Vito nightstand with a built-in charging station.

Eliminate the tripping hazard of an ethernet cable running the length of your home office, living room, or bedroom by adorning existing baseboards in the room with baseboard cord channels. The self-adhesive, impact-resistant cord channels are little more than hollowed-out sections of plastic quarter round shoe molding. To mount the channels to your baseboards, peel off the adhesive backing of a channel, press the back of the channel against a baseboard, and then run an ethernet cable—or any other cord, for that matter—through the opening in the channel to simultaneously hide and protect the cables from damage. Stainable and paintable, the baseboard cord channels can be dressed to match any interior design aesthetic.

Your router or modem can appear out of place almost wherever you fit it, but especially so on your shelves. Consider bookending your home library with this creative router cover available from Etsy seller Covobox. You could also DIY a version of this by repurposing a binder that’s wide enough to fit your router and using hot glue to cover the back, front, and spine of the binder with colorful scrap fabric. Then sandwich the binder vertically between some books on an end table, desk, or shelf so that the router cables discreetly run down the length of the wall behind the furniture. Voilà! An instant classic that cuts cord clutter.

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