8 Sly Ways to Hide Household Eyesores

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There’s no two ways about it – when it comes to your home, there are spaces that you’re proud of, and others you wish would never again see the light of day. Eyesores in the home are, unfortunately, a very common occurrence and don’t necessarily reflect the homeowner’s lack of style, money, or imagination. Usually, the culprit in the eyesore-rich home simply comes down to a lack of understanding of how to turn a space of great shame into one of abundant pride. 

1. The Unsightly But Necessary Garage Door Opener
Though perhaps one of the smallest of the visual assaults that we’ll likely explore in the paragraphs that follow, the mounted garage door opener’s uncouth lines and plastic fabrication make it one of the home’s most hideous eyesores. That being said, it’s also one of the easiest to deal with. Using nothing more than a thrift store frame, a hinge, antique drawer knob, and an extra piece of wood, even the most untalented DIYer can create a unique cover to keep this item out of sight.

2. The Wretched Thermostat and Other Offenders
Every home has one – a thermostat, an outlet, or a light switch that just seems to scream as though it’s in the wrong place. One way to hide them is to create a gallery of sorts in the surrounding space. Create a gallery of sorts using frames and other unique hangables of varying sizes, materials, colours, and textures and watch the unappealing fixture vanish before your eyes.

3. The Irredeemable Router
When it comes to style versus function, the Internet router is a necessary evil. Clunky, jet black, and equipped with a number of lights that wink more than your creepy next door neighbour, the router can seriously detract from a room’s style faster than you can “just shove it under the couch”. While you could shove your router under some furniture, doing so would make it difficult to reset. Instead, why not repurpose an old hardcover book and fashion a clever router cover? Simply take an X-ACTO knife and carefully remove the pages. When finished, place your router within the book on an end table with the spine facing out. No one will ever be the wiser!

4. Build a Hideaway Wall to Conceal Electrical Room/Water Heater
Even if you’ve transitioned from a standard storage water heater to a tankless water heater, chances are you still aren’t taking your guests on a tour of your electrical/utility room – and for good reason; these rooms are utilitarian, required for the proper functioning of your home’s environmental systems. A hideaway wall in your basement not only gives you additional shelving space; it also makes sure that no one ever stumbles upon this most unflattering domain.

5. Bathroom Fans
Bathroom fans are a must for helping to remove unwanted moisture from the room after a hot shower – so why is it so difficult to find one that actually looks good? Thankfully, you can build your own using a bit of paint, some wood, and a decorative metal screen to give this ubiquitous feature a little zing.

6. Pantry Shelves
Who doesn’t love some extra pantry space? What most people don’t love is the use of wire or cheap wooden shelving that’s often part of the default build of the home. This, of course, is understandable, because it doesn’t really make a lot of sense to use expensive building materials when they’ll experience a lifetime of canned goods being shifted around. To hide this eyesore, simply fashion a shelf cover for your shelf using poster board, a fun and stylish, fabric, some painter’s tape, and a little spray adhesive. The best part is, you won’t need to remove the existing hardware and if you get tired of your shelf cover or if it gets damaged, it’ll be easy to change it out.

7. Wall Mount TV? Hide the Cables Using Crown Moulding
There’s no two ways about it, if you have to have a television in a room, mounting it to the wall will save you a ton of space. The problem with a wall-mounted television is, of course, the unsightly cords and cables that suddenly have no cabinet to contain them. One sneaky way to hide them is to build a hollow shelf made from a piece of crown moulding shelving. Because the shelf is hollow, it provides more than enough space to store your entertainment system’s many cables.

8. Looking to Hide a Textured Ceiling?
Though we can’t say if textured ceilings every really looked good, if you’ve got one, you’ll be happy to know that you don’t have to live with it forever – nor will you have to pay someone to refinish it for you. If you’re handy with a nail gun and have a couple hours of free time, tongue and groove planks are a quick inexpensive way to say goodbye to dated texture.