Smartphones, tablets and other portable electronics have become important parts of our daily life, we carry them with us wherever we go and you could even say that we’re dependent on them. As smart and as useful as they may be, they do have a downside: they need to be charged quite often and that leaves us with chargers and cables that get tangled up and make a mess. It’s about time we solved this problem and the solution is simpler than you’d think: a DIY charging station.

Building a charging station is pretty easy and there a lot of different ways to do it. This DIY charging dock, for example, is made out of a small wooden box. It looks really neat and beautiful, keeping all the candles hidden and also being quite practical. You could easily display this box on your desk or nightstand without worrying that it will look out of place.

Maybe you know about that cool hack where you can conceal a router inside the cover of a book but did you know you can also use a book to make an original charing dock for your phone? It’s actually quite simple. You need a book, mod podge and an x-acto knife. You have to carve out some of the pages to make a nook for your phone and a slit for the charging cable. You can either close the book or not. Keep in mind that phones can get pretty hot when they’re charging so perhaps it would be better to leave it exposed. Check out caughtonawhim for more details.

This pallet shelf charging station is quite roomy and can hold several devices at once. You can put it up on a wall to save space or you can keep it on a desk or table. Either way, building it is fairly easy. You need a few pieces of wood (a reclaimed pallet would be perfect), some nails or screws, sandpaper and a saw to cut the wood with. You can paint or stain the wood or you can keep it simple, as shown on apieceofrainbow.

We really like this wedding charging station featured onacoastalbride and we think you could actually put something like this in your own home. It’s very pretty and practical too. The planter box is a nice disguise for the cables and a fresh decoration for the room.

How about this cute fabric pocket? It’s a cool idea for a DIY charging station and you can make it out of any fabric you prefer which means there’s a ton of ways to customize this project. In addition to two coordinating fabric patterns (or one if you prefer a simpler look) you’ll also need some fusible fleece, tape piping, a plastic curtain grommet, thread and Peltex. You can find more details on positivelysplendid.

You can make a charging station for the whole family or at least big enough to hold all of your devices. You can make it out of wood, sort of like a box with several compartments inside so the devices can be organized and keep in an upright position. Make holes into the bottom of the box so the cables can fit through and place the charging station next to an outlet. This idea comes from drivenbydecor.

A similar charging station but this time with more compartments was featured on lilluna. Here’s what you need if you want to build something similar: wood board pieces (check the dimensions in the tutorial), finish nails, wood glue, a saw, a drill and paint. You can customize the station with stencils and paint in different colors or using tape to create cool geometric patterns.

If you want to put a charging station in your kitchen, we have an awesome idea: disguise it as a breadbox. You can use an actual breadbox and just make a few minor modifications to its design. You’ll need to make some holes for the cables and to organize the interior space so you don’t make a mess. Check out this transformation featured on thekimsixfix for more inspiration and cool tips.

iPads and tablets in general are quite big and don’t usually fit in a charging station designed for phones so if you want you could make a separate one just for them. You can repurpose a simple magazine rack, as shown on 100things2do. There’s not to do except drill holes for each section and maybe paint the rack or customize it in some other way.

Another clever idea is to repurpose a desk organizer and to turn it into a charging station for your devices. You can find details about the transformation on makesomethingmondays. If you want to make something similar you’ll need an organizer, some scrapbook paper, electrical tape, a sponge brush, mod podge and scissors.

If you want your charging station to be able to hold a lot of devices then you might like the design idea suggested on aninvitinghome. This seems like a cool idea for public spaces like waiting rooms and offices. You can make the station from scratch or you can repurpose a box or an organizer. You can also label the slots.

We also recently came across this decorative box charging station featured on centsationalstyle. It looks very pretty and we like the fact that the devices are not actually stored inside the closed box while they’re charging. You can make something similar out of a regular box if you add a separator inside and you decorate the exterior if you think it needs some more color.

A kitchen island makes it easy to set up a charging station, especially if it has open shelves and a built-in socket on the side. You can actually work with only one of these features, adding the second one yourself. Check out hometalk to see how you can make it all happen.

We really like this charging station although we don’t really approve of charging devices inside small, closed containers because of safety reasons. Still, the design featured on thediyplaybook is very stylish and makes it easy to organize the devices and their accessories.

A simple cardboard box can also be useful if you want to organize your chargers and cables. You can hide everything inside the box and put the lid on, only leaving the ends exposed. This particular design is not the best since it doesn’t really de-clutter the cables in any way but also because it’s not exactly safe to store and use electrical outlets and chargers in this manner.