DIY 101: Hiding Electrical Cords

Electrical cords are a part of life that I’m happy to embrace because, after all, I’m pretty fond of air conditioning, lights, computers, and my KitchenAid mixer, among other things.  I’d rather not see the cords if I can help it, however.

I usually do a pretty good job hiding cords through a variety of methods that I’ll share here.  They’re all easy for the DIY’er with moderate skills.  Here are my tips for hiding those cords:

1. Tuck them under furniture or behind curtains.  Sometimes I’ll use zip or twist ties to adhere them to a piece of furniture so they don’t sneak back out, or I’ll hide them under a rug.

2. Match the cord to the flooring.  If I have a lamp with a white cord, but the floor is dark brown, then I’ll just use a dark brown extension cord to plug it into the wall.

3. Sometimes I’ll use fabric cord covers; I have a variety in different colors and they are decorative and disguise cords all at the same time.  Buy them here, or they’re a snap to make if you can sew (Our posts contain affiliate links.  If you make a purchase after clicking on these links, we will earn a small commission, which helps to keep our content free.  You don’t pay a cent more than you would otherwise, since that would be tacky! Full disclosure policy here).

If you look closely, you can see an off-white cord cover underneath the television.  That was a great way to hide the cords in our last home (in military quarters).

|  Living Room  |

4. Our current living room doesn’t have floating outlets (i.e. outlets in the floor) and it’s a large space.  We have several small holes drilled in the floor that allow us to plug in lamps in the crawl space underneath the house by removing and replacing the plugs.  This is obviously a fix for more experienced DIY’ers, but if you’re comfortable working with electricity, then {this} is a good tutorial.

The blue and white lamp below plugs in under the house using this technique:

5. For cords on the wall, like for sconces or chandeliers that aren’t wired into an electrical box, I like this plastic conduit.  You can cut and paint it to fit, it’s self-adhesive and sticks to the wall, and when it’s time to change out the fixtures or move, it’s easily removable.

Here’s the before (and Harley; he likes to be in all the pictures if possible):

The product I buy is available on the shelf at Lowes or Home Depot {exact product here} and it’s under $5 for a 5′ section.  It’s called “raceway,” “conduit,” “low-voltage cord cover,” “wire mold,” or “cordmate,” depending on where you’re shopping.  It’s white plastic, and you can leave it as-is, or paint it to match.  I painted mine to match the walls (Sherwin-Williams’ Comfort Gray), and cut it to fit.

Then, all you do is feed the cord into the cover.  It’s easiest to do before you adhere it to the wall.

There’s a long strip of adhesive, what I grew up calling “double-stick tape,” on the back.  You just remove the paper and press it into place.

Doesn’t it make a huge difference?

It really finishes the room.

You can see the rest of the bedroom here, here and here.

Are there any tricks I’ve missed for hiding cords?  Let me know in the comments, please!

I wanted to show you two quick shopping deals I’ve found.  You can tell that I’m all about wraps and ponchos right now because it’s COLD here!  Check out this yummy wrap–it’s only $14.99 and it would look great paired with jeans and boots, or dressed up with black or camel pants and pumps for work {shop here}:

My daughter found these booties; she’s been wanting a pair forever.  She ordered the taupe, but I love the camel and even the red, and they’re under $25 {shop here}:

Have a beautiful day, and thanks for stopping by–