Home Reveal: How We Hid All those Cords

After I got the fireplace painted and we managed to mount the TV into the brick, we had this horrible cord problem.  We've got a cable box and a blu ray player that hook into the TV and hiding the cords in the wall behind the brick wasn't really an option like it is with drywall, so the husband and I had to come up with a different solution.  I don't have a picture of it so this drawing will have to do.

The boxes were on the hearth and all the cords were hanging down and then they were also running across the floor to the nearest outlet.  The TV worked, but it was hideous not to mention a hazard for the baby who is obsessed with cords.

After a couple failed attempts at various solutions we decided we needed a shelf under the TV that would hold the component boxes and then we'd run the cords up the wall and over the top of the fireplace.  So I searched for corner component shelves that were a gazillion dollars and then decided I'd build one myself instead.  And by "myself" I mean, I drew a picture with measurements on it and gave it to the husband and he did the sawing.

The shelf is a triangle with a curved front side to match the curve of the hearth in a pie shape.

I measured the size of the cable box and then designed the shape based on that.  The husband cut two straight pieces of a 2 x 2 based on my measurements.  (At this point, our garage was still full of boxes so his workbench was on the floor of the garage!)

Then, he mounted them to the wall using masonry screws.  This picture gives you a good idea of the ugly cord situation.

Once he had the frame up, he went back out to the garage and cut our pie shaped shelf using a jigsaw.  I don't have a pic of just the shelf piece, we did this at midnight after the kids were in bed so I was tired and slacking.

While he was cutting the shelf, I was inside painting the frame white to blend in with the fireplace.

Then we painted the shelf black, and, once it was dry we just drilled from the top into the wood frame.  Here are a few close ups

Once it was all up I went to Lowe's and got a corner shaped cord channel from the electrical outlet cover aisle and I ran the cords from the outlet through the channel.  The corner channel is barely noticeable and it just sticks to the wall with some double side tape.

The cords go up one side of the fireplace, over the top and down the back.  We've got a surge protector back there that everything plugs into.  I zip tied all the cords together up high to keep them as hidden as possible.

A big thanks goes out to my husband and his handy woodwork on this one.  He's the best!