Introduction: Hide Your Wires With PVC

About: Pay it Forward. You Get what you Give.

A quick way to hide those unruly wires!  Hide them with well positioned PVC pipe!
In  addition to making the area much neater, it also makes it easier to vacuum or sweep. 
No wires to get in the way...

Step 1: What You Need

Materials for this project:
PVC pipe
Wood Screws 
Scrap wood

Tools for this project:
Wood Saw
Drill & Bit
Screwdriver
Screws
A rotary cutter or possibly a jigsaw

Step 2: Cut and the Pipe and Attach Scrap Wood

The idea here is to hide and control multiple wires running down the area of the floor molding.  The area that I was covering required a small pipe run of about 39".  You may choose to do a much longer run.  In which case, you can mount multiple pipes butted up end-to-end. 

I cut my length a little long on purpose to about 42". 

In order to cut the long slit, we need something to hold the pipe in position.  Otherwise it will move or roll and then our slit looks wavy or really bad.  I used some 1x2 scrap and simply screwed the pipe into the wood.   

The wood will be acting as a "Carrier" for the pipe.

Step 3: Cut a Slit Opening

Now that we have a way to hold the pipe stable, it's finally time to cut the slit.  You can use a rotary tool like a dremel.  With some additional rigging, you could probably use a jigsaw - but I do not recommend that.  Also you might be able to pull it off with a circular saw - but you better be very good at planning out details! 

I used a rotary tool - a router.  From the picture the function of the carrier wood becomes obvious.  I used a straight flute bit.  NOTE:  Take care not to have the bit raised too high.  You only need to cut through one layer of the PVC wall.  ALSO IMPORTANT:  If you have the bit too high, you risk hitting the screws which are holding the pipe to the carrier board. 

After measuring and eyeballing about 10 times, just cut it. 

Step 4: Drill Some Mounting Holes

Now we need to drill some mounting holes for the screws which will attach the pipe to the wall.  You can see the clean slit cut in the pipe.  I drilled out holes approximately every 8 inches.  Your mileage my vary. 

Step 5: Mount the Pipe

OK now just use a screwdriver to mount the pipe onto the wall.  I mounted mine above the baseboard.  It looks good there and keeps stuff away from the vacuum cleaner.  Note:  I suggest hand screwing these in as you are probably not hitting studs and you have a better feel for the screw dynamic if doing it by hand. 

Step 6: Tuck in the Wires You Want to Hide.

Step 7: Before and After Pictures

Step 8: Extra Suggestions

Next time I do this:
I'm going to use schedule 20 PVC pipe.
Cut a thinner slit down the length of the pipe.

In this instructable I used schedule 40 - because it's what I had laying around in the garage.
A thinner pipe and a smaller slit would probably work better as you could "flex" the slit open when putting in cables.
Then, the pipe would "pinch" back into it's natural position.