As I’m in the process of cleaning up my front entry way (slowly but surely!), I’ve been thinking about placing a charging station there. It would keep chargers in a central location so they would always be easily found, not to mention the devices themselves!

Many of the ones I’ve found in stores don’t really suit my taste, so I have been thinking about making my own DIY charging station. Here are some great tutorials for charging stations that I’ve found in my search.

Ryan over at the Weekly Geek created a fabulous charging station with some historic flair! He gives a nice tutorial with lots of in-progress photos. He pulled the whole thing off with about $25 in materials, too. I love the look of this one! My house is more modern/clean lines/minimalist (er… ok, so it’s not, but I’m working my way there, ok?) but I might try something like this! I love that it has a lid, so that it can hide the items from view! I think this looks nicer than having them all just sit on top.
Photo by Ryan at WeeklyGeek.

Here’s one with a nice twist: switches to turn the individual chargers on and off so they are not all sucking power while you charge one device. PROD posted this tutorial on Instructables, so it has lots of nice pictures and instructions. I’ll be honest, though. I don’t know enough about wiring to be confident in trying something like this myself, but if you’re better at playing with electricity than I am, you might want to give this a try!
Photo by PROD.

Two Loose Teeth built herself a neat crafty charging station. [Found via Lifehacker]
It’s a nice take on a crafty/scrapbooking style. The bookplates make the holes in the box look much classier than if they’d just been left plain, and also provide some protection for the cardboard box if the cords are tugged.
Photo by Lisa on Two Loose Teeth.

Instructables goes one step further and makes his charging station a truly decorative piece. You’d hardly guess it was functional!
This is another one I’ll avoid trying myself, since it involves drilling through glass (Michael went to a glass store and got professional help to do this step!) but the end result is very different from other charging stations I’ve seen. I’m not personally fond of big orange fake flowers, but this is so versatile you could put almost anything that suits your own decor in the top. I would advise against putting anything too fancy there (a tray of candles, several small figurines, etc.) as having to take several things off and put several things back on would make it annoying to actually use. If you don’t actually use it, it becomes clutter, no matter how cute it is or how much work you put into it.
Photo by Michael Pap.

Have you made a great DIY charging station yourself? I’d love to see pics! Email me at caitlin [AT] cluttercubed[dot]com, or just add them to the ClutterCubed Flickr Pool!

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