OK, I actually wanted to call this post “I’m A Genius” but out of love my best friend wouldn’t let me. Do you know when you are so excited about the smallest accomplishment that you want to crow about it ridiculously? Home almost two weeks, I still feel sluggish and am beating myself up for not getting more done at the house. The truth is that the more you near completion, the harder it is to find and finish those details, as in, “will I ever have night tables in my bedroom?” because they need to be such a specific height and size and work with everything else in the room.
So my moment of joy comes from a good idea mixed with some luck. I am slowly organizing and styling the Sonoma bookcase in the TV room that I wrote about previously here. One conundrum concerned the cable box, DVD player, modem and the millions, yes millions, of cords that connect them all (which are even worse than they look here). As you can see in the photo below, even stacked one on the other, the components look skimpy and the cords are an eyesore. I had thought of hiding the players in a basket, but the remotes don’t work.
Yesterday I made the rounds at all my Point Pleasant antique shops and found this vintage delivery box, much like the one I featured here last year, but larger, at what I believe was the Summerhouse booth of Joanna Madden, who I wrote about here last summer. I forgot to take a photo of her display at Canvas House Antiques, but it was just what you might expect – peely paint furniture and glass bottles, lots of charm and patina. An idea of how to use the box was forming in my mind, but I wasn’t sure if it could be done. I stopped off at the local hardware store for some twist ties – no black, only green gardening ones which will have to do right now – and set to work.
Voila! How fabulous is this? The box was just the right size to sit the cable box on top of the open side. This gives the electronic components enough vertical lift that they fill the shelf space nicely (and keeps the “Fancy Print Butter” label right side up). Better yet, all the power cords have been bundled inside the box at the back. The ones stretching down from the TV have been tied to the iron X bar that supports the shelves – I’ll need to improve on those but I was in a hurry. I plan on disguising the modem on the shelf below with a storage basket on one side and some large books on the other, or perhaps I will stumble across some other fun and funky object.
I promise the whole bookcase soon. I just have to get to the Ladies Auxiliary Book Sale next week to beef up on my reading material!
Related Posts:
A Television Solution From My Notting Hill and Ballard Designs
Living Large in Small Spaces…FDR, Home Relief and Cream Cheese Boxes at the Tenement Museum of New York
