I Sent a Designer Photos of My Chaotic Cords — Here’s the Genius Fix

It happens like clockwork: Whenever I tell someone I write about interior design for a living, they always ask me if my home looks like something out of a magazine. The truth is, sure, I take a lot of pride in my home and like the eclectic beachy look my husband and I have created, but, like most people, there are some parts of my home that are problem areas. Case in point: the absolutely chaotic area under my television.

When my husband and I moved into our current apartment, we were blown away by our massive living room. Despite the ample space, we were stumped on where to place our television. The center of the room would make our generous footprint feel choppy, and the screen couldn’t fit on our built-ins as it did in our last apartment.

We ultimately mounted our television on one of our walls, giving us an excellent vantage point from our sectional. To tie the area together, I found an ultrathin glass console table that fit underneath our television perfectly. The problem? All the cords from our screen and soundbar have been dangling there and creating some visual clutter in the process.

Since we live in a rental unit, we don’t have the luxury of drilling a hole and concealing our cords. (One day!) A lot of friends have white cord concealers that are supposed to blend in with a white wall, but the bottom half of our walls have this gorgeous wood millwork, which means any cables will stand out.

We had to figure out what to do about it, so I tapped designer and HGTV alum Galey Alix to help come up with a solution.

I’ve been struggling to find a solution for years, and I feel a pang of shame whenever I look at the cord chaos underneath my television. “So much for a magazine photoshoot,” I often think to myself. Alix agrees that cord clutter is “a dilemma homeowners have been plagued with.” 

“It’s especially difficult if you’re renting, as you either aren’t allowed to open up walls to hide cords or it simply doesn’t make sense to invest in doing so,” she explains. “Visible cords are not a decorative accent anyone is trying to achieve, but hiding them can also result in piecemeal or forced decorative choices, which also aren’t ideal.”

After being low-key embarrassed by this cord catastrophe, I swallowed my pride and showed Alix my eyesore of a setup. To my surprise (and delight), her solution was design-minded and totally doable. “The key is to combine and condense the cords to take up as little visible space as possible and then visually cover whatever is left exposed,” she explains.

For starters, Alix recommended zip-tying my cords together to keep the visual clutter to a minimum. She also told me to place long, narrow baskets on the bottom shelf of my console table to “fill in the space and therefore hide the cords.” She adds, “If it’s a bit shorter than the height of the console, you can throw blankets or pillows spilling out of the top.”

To minimize the negative space between the bottom of my screen and the top of my soundbar, she told me to mount my soundbar underneath my TV and add a row of books to the top shelf of my console. But since my home is older (and a rental!), I didn’t feel totally comfortable with mounting yet another device to my wall — and Alix has a no-drill alternative.

“Create a row of stacked coffee-table books that all stack to the same height across the top of your console table, and then you can just set your soundbar on top of them,” she suggests. “It will look almost exactly the same as if you mounted the soundbar but without the extra hassle of drilling into the wall!” 

So I took her advice — and am honestly pretty happy with the results. Though Alix suggested some ultra-tall baskets from Pottery Barn, I took the budget-friendly route with a hyacinth set from Amazon. (I wanted to make sure I liked the look before I dropped a couple hundred dollars on baskets.) Not only do the baskets do a solid job at hiding my cables, they also give us a spot to stow throw blankets, board games, and some toys we have on-hand for when kids come over. 

The zip ties made my cables look more organized and less like the digital equivalent of an octopus. Order to the cord chaos, if you will. However, the one thing I’m struggling to figure out is the stack of books. Since this console table is very skinny, it’s hard to find a whole stack of books that are just the right size. 

Who knows? Maybe I will mount my soundbar — or maybe I’ll keep looking for some perfectly proportional tomes. However, if you ask me, I think these tips have done an excellent job making my living room look more presentable. Magazine photoshoot? Not quite, but I’m getting there.