how to reuse dry cleaner hangers and relocate your xbox360 controller

i, like you, have many remotes. i also have a small side table which sits in my living room between my recliners. yes i am one person who has two leather recliners, and i almost always prefer them to a couch (except for those few weekend mornings when nothing else will do, in which case, i feel worse than i would have because i have no couch). i, like you, also have an xbox360. what’s that you say? you don’t have one? well, pretend with me for a moment.
controller holder, holding controller
i had a day off and was quite tired of stacking my 360 controller on top of my many, assorted remote controls. so, i decided i should do something about this. i’ve actually been thinking about this for months as my controller always sits on top of my remotes and blocks me from quickly upping the volume on my a/v receiver to better hear the extremely important, not at all humorous, obviously informative, youtube video i’m watching on my tv.

my solution was simple, grab my pliers, snips, and a few sacrificial dry cleaner hangers to make the ultimate* get-my-xbox-controller-out-of-the-way-thingy. i didn’t really document the process and there aren’t any great secrets to it, but i like it and it works. i will say, it is difficult to bend small pieces of hanger with pliers – get some vice grips – you and your hands/face will thank me later.

(* by ultimate, i mean, one that roughly meets my current needs and able to be assembled in fairly short order with as little effort as possible.)

i started with a long straightened out hanger as my base. i made some very exact measurements to bend the hanger around the “handles” of the controller, making a couple of loops. controller holder, no controllerwith great skill and forethought, i made sure the angle that the loops returned back on the hanger, that they made the perfect-sized opening for the post in my table. then i bent the remaining hanger wire straight up to hook onto…something. dag, i have nothing to hook these braces to. enter, a “loop” which fit perfectly around the post again. man, am i good, or what? twist the ends together, bend the long braces over and cut off the excess.

this led to the perfect under-table holder for my wireless controller…almost. it leaned right against the up-post of the table and made the controller fall off, pretty much all the time. so i made a little flat-loop-dealy to make sure the width of the whatchamacallit-holder-thingy would stay where i wanted it. then a little spacer piece to keep it away from the post and i’m all set. like i said before – perfect!controller holder, the whole view

so, really, this is v1 and i would prefer that it house both my controllers with the same contraption. i also might try – i don’t know – maybe some planning, sketching, measuring on the next go-round. but that will probably be a while because i’m comfortable enough with this one and need to let my hands heal up a little. also, as i mentioned above, laziness will surely play a role in my delayed attempt to make this better. also, this is – uh, like, patent-pending or something legal like that. or it would be if i was ambitious, haven’t you learned by now that i am lazy?

feel free to replicate this (read: steal my idea, you thieving bums). if you have a better way of doing any of this, shoot me an email, post a comment, send me a telegram, whatevs.

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