Fortunately I was running on batteries (I have a laptop) during the outage, but I could have lost valuable work had I not been momentarily battery-powered.
So, if you've ever had this happen to you, or if you've ever cringed when you looked under your desk at that unsightly labrynth of cords, have hope. For about $13--or less, if you're one of those DIYers--you, too, can have a clutter-free corner of the world and let your wild toes roam free.
HOW, you ask? By reading this article.
Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of the before. But here's the after.
Plenty of room for toes to explore and it looks nice, too:
A look underneath:
From foot-level. None of this is visible while standing.
A little closer underneath:
Wide shot of the completed setup:
I'm not done yet, since we have one more power strip on my side of the desk... but it'll be the same process: mount the power strip to the wall as high as possible with drywall screws, coil the remaining cables up into the cable trunk, and enjoy the cleanliness that is our workstation. If you were wondering, the power strips didn't fit inside the cable trunk with everything plugged in (as it did in the post I told you about above), so I decided to mount the strips to the wall.
Side note: you should make sure that you are pretty clear about your desk equipment being situated exactly where you want them; once this system is implemented, it'll be a pain in the ass to uncoil everything and sort everything out. I didn't use zip ties for this example, but if I had, I probably would have grouped common cords (ones that don't move much) together and zip tied them, while leaving other cords, like my cell phone data cable, speaker cable, etc., free so that I can reposition them if needed. Most things like printers and monitors don't move much, so those wires are easy to strap down a little more permanently with zip ties.
Have fun! Post pics of your setup if you decide to try it. Before and after would be great.
