Do your gadgets make you crazy? Cords all over your counters? Here are ideas to organize that electronic mess.

Like many families, we’ve recently gotten many more new iPads, Kindles and phones, but all that convenience does cause a lot of clutter.  This is what it looked like when my parents came to visit, and this is the norm in many households. That’s two ipads, two kindles, and three or four phones. That’s a lot of cords and plugs taking up a lot of real estate on the kitchen counter.

You could shell out some serious coin for organizers.  Check out the http://www.kanexlive.com/sydnee/ for $150.

http://dailytekk.com/2012/02/10/10-ways-to-charge-multiple-ipads-iphones-ipods-at-once/ has more ideas.

I like the look of this bamboo charging stand, and the price is good, too, at only $35, but it’s backordered when I last checked.

What started out to be a fun little project to find a better way to organize became a clear necessity when I noticed the damage done to come of the charger cords by the felines of the house.

Really, these little guys are murder.

So I started with one of my favorite little kitchen products, a letter organizer that you can find at many decor stores, like HomeGoods and TJMaxx. Order this desktop letter holder online in white (affiliate link).

Really, even if you just bought this desktop letter organizer and did nothing else, it’s still a good way to make space for everything that needs to be charged. In my case, I wanted to clean up the cord mess a bit more, so I made a few little adjustments with a power drill and a hole-cutter bit…

Screwed on a short extension cord to the backside, and carefully arranged all the gadget plugs, then threaded the cords through the hole into the compartments. You can save a little more space these days with extension cords that feature USB charging connections, like this one.

You can save a little more space these days with extension cords that feature USB charging connections, like this one.

I ended up with a really nice, safe place to stash all the gear.

I gave this particular one as a gift, but we still use a desktop letter holder as a phone charging station in my kitchen. In fact, NBC10 liked it so much, they featured this charging station in a Back to School TV spot recently.

Is getting your counters and desk clutter contained on your to-do list?