DIY Charging Station in a Nightstand

Learn how to create a DIY charging station in your nightstand to hide ugly cords and keep your devices charged at all times!

Most of the projects we do around our house come about because something starts bugging me. Something is inconvenient or in the way. It’s hard to get to or just plain ugly. And eventually it bothers me enough that I can’t help but do something about it!

This exact scenario played out recently with my nightstand.

I was storing all of the devices that I use often in one of the drawers– my eReader, AirPods, and FitBit, plus I would park my phone there at night. But I was getting frustrated because my devices never seemed to be charged when I needed them.

I didn’t have enough outlets to charge everything at once. Some of the devices were sharing one charging cord, so if they were both out of battery I had no way to charge them both. And the chargers I had were plugged into an extension cord that laid on the floor looking messy.

I finally decided that I’d had enough and recruited Donnie to help me turn the top drawer of my nightstand into a DIY charging station for all of my devices.

How to Create a DIY Nightstand Charging Station

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.

Step 1- Gather your charging station supplies.

Step 2- Drill holes for the power strip cord.

After clearing out the top drawer of my nightstand, we had to create a way for the cord of the power strip to be able to exit out the back of the nightstand.

Some nightstands may come with a hole already created in the back of the drawer for something like this. If that’s the case for you, great! You get to skip this step.

If your nightstand is like mine, though, and doesn’t have a way for the cord to exit the back of the nightstand, it’s time to break out the drill!

We used a cordless drill with a spade drill bit to create a hole in the drawer that was big enough for our cord to get through. (Ours was a 1 3/8″ bit.)

Since our nightstand drawer was not easily removable, we just left it in place as we drilled the hole. If removing the drawer is an option for you, it will definitely be easier to maneuver the drill if you take it out!

We were able to approximate the placement of the hole in the drawer and created a hole of the same size on the back of the nightstand itself so that the holes lined up. Again, we used a spade drill bit to create the hole.

Step 3- Attach the power strip to the drawer.

Once I had a way to get the cord where I needed it, I was able to attach the power strip to the back of my drawer.

I used two sets of Scotch velcro fasteners on the back of the power strip to adhere it to the nightstand drawer.

I was then able to thread the cord through the holes we had created and plug in the power strip to an extension cord, which plugged into the wall.

All of the cords fell behind the nightstand, staying neatly tucked out of sight– yippee!

Note: You’ll want to make sure your cords are long enough to have a little give. This will allow them to move back and forth when you open and close the drawer.

Step 4- Plug in your devices in your charging station!

Once my power strip was attached to the drawer and ready to go, it was time to plug in my devices. I played around with the placement a little bit until I found an arrangement that worked best for me.

I ended up putting my phone closest to the bed so I could easily reach it. For my phone, I used a 6′ cable because often by the end of the day, it is low on battery, so I will keep it plugged in while I’m using it. The longer cord allows the phone to be easily reachable from the bed while it is plugged in. When the phone is sitting in the drawer, I just coil up the cord and everything sits neatly.

I used shorter cords for the other devices so they wouldn’t get all tangled up and messy.

Step 5- Add bins or trays if desired.

To keep my devices and cords neat and tidy, I decided to use small bins to divide up the drawer and give each device a designated home. The bins also helped to hide the cords a little more so the drawer has a neater appearance overall.

I used my Cricut cutting machine + adhesive vinyl to create labels for each bin. You can learn how to create adhesive vinyl labels in this post.

(I also added an adhesive drawer liner to each of my nightstand drawers to protect the drawers and add a pretty pop of pattern!)

Step 6- Enjoy your new DIY charging station!

I have LOVED being able to charge all of my devices in one spot, tucked away neatly without ugly cords everywhere. This was a simple project, but it solved a problem that had been bugging me for months!

All of my devices are now charged up and ready to go whenever I need them, which allows me to use them all more often.

Thinking of adding a DIY charging station to your nightstand? Be sure to pin the image below so you can come back to this post and reference it later!

[Psssttt… You can also find ideas for organizing every single room of the house in this post!]

How do you keep your devices organized and charged? I’d love to hear about your favorite methods in the comments below!

Thank you so much for following along! Have a great day!

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.