Lamp-A-Looza Winners, & Hiding Those Pesky Cords

Last month we had our latest Lamp-A-Looza, and you guys were not shy about voicing your choices! At the rate the votes came pouring in, I feared you thought I was actually giving away a pair of lamps! Turns out, we're all just smitten with the little light sources.

Interested in the final results?

CLEAR showed up the day after the party, with only 12 votes.

BLUE was on-time and brought a delicious dip, with a solid 59 votes.

But GREEN was fashionably late, booze in hand and dancing on the tables by night's end, with an overwhelming 102 votes! I bucked the majority on the Pink vs Navy Doors....but I jumped on the bandwagon this time!

Here are the pretty new lamps for the Living Room!

I was really on the fence between the blue and green, until some of you pointed out that the blue were pretty and safe, where as the green were fun and unexpected. That sealed the deal for me, and I'm in love with these green beauties! Thank you for all your comments, votes and suggestions.

One question that pops up every time the Living Room lamps are shown, is where I plug them in and how I disguise the cords!? So today I'll tell you!

Let me preface this by disclaiming I am in NO WAY an authority on this subject, so follow my lead at your own risk! (That pretty much applies to everything I do and say on this blog!) Hiding the cords in my Living Room is kind of a two-parter....and requires a split cord extension and some tiny, clear Command hooks. (Update: Now Command makes clear hooks with clear sticky tabs (instead of white tabs)! Can't wait to update my project with them.)

Our home has a slab foundation, which means we sit on a block of concrete (and according to Mr. Sugarplum, also an ant hill). So there are no outlets or vents in the floor, only the walls and ceilings. The furniture in this room floats in the middle, away from the walls and subsequent outlets. And to make things even more difficult, there is only one accessible outlet.

I'll use this old room pic for a visual (since it's all I've got right now). The split extension is plugged in at the outlet behind the chair, and runs under the rug. The two female ends of the cord are under the couch, but not under the rug, where each lamp behind the sofa is plugged in.

I know running a cord under the rug puts some of you in panic mode. But I was told as long as you use a new cord (which is required to meet strict safety guidelines), and the connecting parts aren't covered, it is safe.You decide what feels right for you. (Although I do recall you plugging 87 strands of lights on your Christmas tree this year!)

And since the furniture and rug are pulled away from the wall (and outlet), we were left with 18-inches of exposed cord. I was more concerned about someone tripping over them in a wild game of Nerf Darts than aesthetics, so we covered the exposed cords with flesh colored brown duct tape.

Not the prettiest, but holds the cords firmly in place while giving them a bit of camouflage. Now, the reason for the split extension is for Part Deux of hiding the pesky cords. Here we have lovely new lamps, but all we see are dangling wires.

We can disguise that by threading the cord through a series of Command hooks placed along the back of the table, and down the leg. Make sure your hooks are smaller than the table legs so they don't poke out.

Reverse the direction of each hook so the cord stays in place.

Most lamps don't have cords long enough to wrap down the table and over to a center outlet, so this is where the split extension comes in. Each of the two female ends of the extension cord (eeeew) is just under the sofa near the male end of each lamp cord.

Make sense? I've confused myself and I sort of know what I'm talking about, so hopefully you're still with me. Concealing the cords completely only happens in magazines, but this is pretty good for real life.

Same situation on the side table...the cord is hogging all the attention.

Attach the Command hooks (the really tiny clear ones are hard to find, but worth the search) along the table leg and thread the lamp cord through.

And bye-bye attention hog!

If your home is built on a pier-and-beam, floor outlets can be installed fairly reasonably and you can skip all this hub-bub! Do you have any brilliant ideas for disguising cords? Remember, I'm not an electrician, I just play one online.

And for those of you keeping track, here's where we are the Living Room To-Do List (click the link for details on each):

LIVING ROOM TO-DO LIST

Paint Armoire

Paint Brick

New Mirror & Mantel Styling

Paint/Fabric Bookcases
Re-Style Bookcases

Paint (Replace) Table Tiles

Paint Hall Chest

Paint/Wallpaper Nook Walls

Paint Backdoor (decided against it)

Add Nailhead to Wingchair

New Covers for Barrel Chair Cushions

Change Out Lamps

Customize Lamps

These are the For Real Final Lamps

Sand & Stain Secretary

Gold Leaf Back of Secretary

Sofa Pillows Round 1

Sofa Pillows Round 2

Add Some Coordinated Accessories

Determine Fate of Side Table

Close the Hole, Baby!