Router (computing)

I’ve seen hollow books tutorials all over blogs and Pinterest and I love them. It’s about 50% of the reason I buy antique books at yard sales is so that one day I might make an army of hollow books. Yet I’ve made none since I really didn’t have a use for a hollow book! Until now.

While browsing Pinterest I came across this

via Anamu

How brilliant is that! So naturally, I immediately went to make one. She has a tutorial on her blog, which honestly I never even clicked on until I was finished. I just LOVED the idea of concealing our router in a book which for some reason I had never thought of, and knew I could do it on my own. Overall, I think her tutorial is far easier and less time consuming then what I did, but I like my finished look better. So you take your pick! Here’s what I did (and I’m sorry these pics are HORRIBLE, I realized after I’d started that hello genius, this would make a good blog post!!! and did not set anything up all pretty at all):

First I gathered supplies (and then realized I never took a picture of said supplies until I was done so pardon the giant stack of cut out pages and lack of nice set up!). I used:

An antique book that fit my router
Scissors
Craft knife
Gluestick (which I ended up not using, but you can if you wish – see below)
Binder clips

First I ~~measured~~ guessed on how much page to leave on the ends. Once I checked that my router would fit, I cut out the middle sections of the pages. Then I used clips to hold the page ends together as I kept cutting more and more pages out of the center.

The clips kept my end page stacks out of the way as I continued cutting down. If you want, you could glue all these end stacks together so they won’t move. . .I did not do that. Our router rarely moves so I’m not worried about the end pages getting jostled. Had this been something that was going to be open and closed often, I definitely recommend gluing the end stacks together. Repeat the cutting/clipping process until all pages are cut out.

Here what it looks like when it’s finished! A nice slot for my router to slide into. Obviously this is not a true hollow book but you have to have the end open so the router cords can fit. . .I do plan on making some real hollow books to store ‘desk things’ in (aka the miscellaneous odds and ends that always finds their way to the computer desk). I think it will so much better than a small tray of clutter don’t you?

Here’s the router on the desk prior to it’s book storage system. Not massively in the way, but not cute either.

And after, all tucked in! I love it! The book page ends are the big difference between how I did mine and how the original post was done. In the original you basically just gut the book so the router sits inside the book frame which looks nice from the front, but I didn’t like the open ends. I like that this looks like a book from all sides (well obviously not the back but no one can see that!). So there you have it, my little hidden router. Hope you like!