Repurpose shipping foam as a cable manager

Today like clockwork my notebooks power cord fell into that void between my desk and the dresser the moment I unplugged it. Swearing like a sea-captain and scraping my arm whilst surely looking like a crazy person performing contortions to get that darned cable back I thought to myself: There must be a better way. After looking around the house for something slightly more elegant than duct tape to keep cables in place, I came across some shipping foam in the trash can.

[step 1] Using a carpet knife I cut the foam into a thick rectangular piece that easily fit under the lip at the back of my desk.

shipping foam

[step 2] Then I made several cuts about half way into the foam (to hold the cables) and glued it directly to the back of my desk using a hot glue gun (the desk is cheap and the glue comes off easily).

handy dandy cable manager

[step 3] Next I wedged all my various cables into the slots on the foam and…Voila! Now when I disconnect cables they stay stuck in the foam instead of slipping and falling off my desk, yay!

One Response So Far... Leave a Reply:

  1. Clay Fortin says:

    Cool…this works pretty well! I like the paperclip cable holder method cuz it looks better, but some of my cables are too thin for those. The foam holds my audio and charger cables.