DIY: USB wall plates

Have you ever wished you could plug a USB device directly into your wall to connect it to a computer somewhere else?  Wireless USB basically doesn't exist.  So I got some generic wall plates and USB inserts.

Pro tip:  connect the wires and make sure it works before you drill any holes.

In my kitchen, I have a laptop that's used for recipes, Internet radio, Netflix, etc.  We have a nice stereo sitting on top of the cabinets, but getting the sound up to the stereo meant having wires hanging down.  That's ugly and it got in the way.  I solved the problem by putting a USB hub up there (with a USB audio output) and running the USB cable from the computer to the hub through the wall.

The bottom plate (with old paint showing around the edges)

At the countertop level, I decided to repurpose a hole in the wall for a phone jack we weren't using.  Above the cabinets, I figured I could safely put the other plate a couple feet to the side.  Nope:  I forgot that the wall contained vertical boards (studs) that the drywall is screwed to, and there was at least one stud to the right of my upper plate that would prevent the wire in the wall from going sideways to reach the lower plate.  (That, of course, was after the first set of holes I drilled ended in solid wood up there, forcing me to drill a second set and patch the first.)  It wasn't going to be pretty up there.

Once I realized the upper plate was going to have to be roughly above the lower one, I drilled a third set of holes and tried lowering the cable from above.  I hit what appeared to be a *horizontal* board in the way inside the wall.  Exhausted, I packed up my tools and gave up.  That was January.  On Sunday I picked it back up again, and realized that (a) the horizontal board didn't block off the whole interior of the wall, and (b) the wall was insulated.

The top plate, with extra holes I had to patch

At this point I resorted to the ultimate homeowner hack:  a straightened coathanger.  I pushed it up from the lower hole, and its tip barely came out of the upper hole.  I attached the bottom end of the USB in-wall cable to the top of the coathanger with electrical tape and was able to pull the cable down through the insulation.  At that point all the wire connections were functional, and all I had to do was screw the plates to the wall.  Done!  Well, except for patching and painting over all the extra holes up there.