How to creatively cover wires (aka finding beautiful solutions through the challenges)
You know the room that’s a total thorn in your side?
The one that has that THING that makes it impossible to come together?
What if I told you that thing, that thing, that thiiiiiiiiiiiing 🎶 was actually there to guide your design?
That’s what happened when deciding what the heck to do with our boot room.
Boot room / aka porch / aka vestibule / aka addition-you-enter-our-house-through. A friend called it the “boot room” the first time he came over and I thought it was quaint and British and it’s been The Boot Room ever since. 💁♀️
For years, I’ve heard spiritual gurus say there’s opportunity in challenges.
That hard things are here to help us learn lessons and grow into the people we’re made to be.
As we know, I’m 100% okay with tricking myself into believing things like “everything is happening for you” if it makes it easier to move through life. And I try — operative word: TRY — to look at challenges as being for my own good as an evolving soul. ✌️
But as I struggled with how to creatively cover wires and electrical boxes right smack dab in the middle of this wall…
I forgot that enlightened outlook for a minute.
And the boot room sat for over a year in DIY limbo until the light bulb went off and I figured it out.
And the answer — of course — lied in the “problem” itself.
The challenge: how to creatively cover wires and an old thermostat
THIS is the first sight you’d see if you walked into our house right when we bought it:
Welcome to our home! Here’s an electrical box and thermostat from what I can only assume is the year 1702, wire coverings running up and across the wall, and our collection of outerwear!
I tried to find a print...then a basket...then some kind of sculptural piece I could use to cover the ugly electrical boxes. But their awkward placement — not quite in the middle of the wall but not quite off to the side — meant that everything looked awkward and forced.
And even if I found something to cover the boxes, that still left all the wires climbing up the wall.
I sat with it for months, trying to figure out how to camouflage the unsightly stuff.
And one day, it hit me: THE MIRROR. 🙌🏻
(^^ Obviously said in the same voice as “the claaaawwwww!” from Toy Story.)
I bought this tall mirror from a church flea market about a year ago. (We actually got it the day after Joe’s grandpa’s funeral and it makes me think of him, which I love.) It didn’t quite fit in the space I originally bought it for so it’s been sitting around ever since.
As it happens, the mirror was almost exactly the width of the offending wall when turned on its side.
Not only would it hide the electrical boxes, we could re-lay the wires and hide them behind this big ol’ mirror, too. Double yay!
We’d have to find another spot for the coat rack but we could figure that out later. (And that challenge led to a brilliant idea of its own...)
Plus, the mirror would bounce light around to make the small room feel more spacious. The plan was a go!
The house job domino effect
Is it just me...or does every “little” project set off a chain of dominos you need to complete before the main job can get done?
Before we could install the mirror, we needed to:
1. Remove the old coat rack and shelf (which was a pain because the screws were stripped. This genius trick saved us!)
2. Free the plastered and covered wires from the walls (using a paint scraper, which is quickly becoming my most-used house item).
3. Sand down the ceiling beams.
4. Install the new light fitting (we used this one from Industville).
5. Trim back the seemingly-dead wires hanging out of the wall, crossing every finger they were actually dead and we wouldn’t electrocute ourselves. (Good news: we didn’t!)
6. Pull up the shaggy brown carpeting.
7. Repaint the molding, walls, and ceiling. I used a matte gray (French Grey-113 by Little Greene) and some leftover white paint we had from another project.
8. Reposition the wires and pin them to fit behind the mirror.
See?!! DOMINO EFFECT.
Once we did all that, we finally got to the original job: creatively covering the wires and electrical boxes.
Installing a wall mirror that — small detail — can’t sit on the wall 🤷♀️
The electrical boxes sit about 2” out from the wall. And because we need to access the thermostat behind the mirror, it also needed to move easily.
We ended up drilling a 2x2 wood rail to the wall using 100mm screws so the mirror would hang beyond the electrical boxes. Then we attached the mirror to the wood using heavy-duty door hinges so the mirror swings upward to access the thermostat.
Joe also had the brilliant idea of installing another wood rail at the bottom of the mirror and added a magnet, to keep everything in place. (Not just a pretty face, this guy. 😉)
Ta-da! We (finally) had our creative cover for those unsightly wires and electrical boxes.
Funny side note: This mirror was heaaaaa-VY so Joe’s parents helped us. I asked my mother-in-law to take a photo while we were installing it, thinking she’d get a cute action shot.
We ended up with possibly THE most unflattering photo that has ever existed. 😂 It’s so bad it’s actually pretty funny so whythehellnot — here’s that “cute action shot” for ya:
Point is, we all sacrificed to make this mirror happen. Some of us: sore arms from holding it up, others: their dignity in squishing the life out of their 14 chins.
But we got that puppy installed in the end, so it was all worth it.
The other domino effect
The other cool thing about adding this mirror — besides covering up ugly wires and making the space feel more open — is that the rest of the room fell into place around it.
Since the mirror sits where the old coat rack was, I needed another spot to hang our jackets. And when I looked at the space with fresh eyes, I figured it out instantly.
BOOM — behind the front door.
I’d never considered putting anything there before. But why not? It was completely unutilized space!
The front door can’t open 100% of the way anymore so we did sacrifice about 2” of space. But we’ve still got more than enough room. And if we ever need to bring something huge through the front door, we’ll just remove the racks for a minute (they pop off the brackets easily).
This space’s far from finished but it feels like a good pausing point before heading into Phase 2. I’m feeling good about the transformation thus far!
We’ve kept all the functionality of the original layout while:
hiding ugly wires and electrical boxes
adding more light to the space
incorporating a sentimental object that means a lot to us
And it never would have happened if it weren’t for that eyesore of an entry wall that I thought was an obstacle.
Projects like this help me embrace the possibility that goodness can come out of challenges. Accepting the “problem” of the exposed wiring helped the whole room fall into place.
And that means maybe juuuuust maybe there’s beauty in whatever challenge you’re working through, too. ✌️
