If you've ever installed a ceiling fan or pendant lamp, you're familiar with the frustrating step of trying to stuff the wiring connections into the ceiling cup to close it all up. It's particularly troublesome on a short-stemmed ceiling fan, where you can't slide the cup down far enough to properly access the wiring.

To address this, Swedish industrial designers Lars Wettre and Jonas Forsman created the CableCup:

"The cup is made from soft polyurethane material which makes it possible to turn it inside out when mounting," writes Forsman.

"This provides a number of advantages," adds Wettre. "You can see what you're doing when you're hanging your lamp and there's always a perfect fit between the lamp and ceiling, without gaps."

"The soft material also means that the rose's shape adjusts itself to the length of the ceiling hook and it works perfectly even when the ceiling is inclined."

Wettre came up with the idea after learning of the trouble his brother-in-law had while trying to install a pendant lamp. "He found the ceiling rose impossible to get straight and tight to the ceiling," Wettre writes. "He realized that this must be a common problem not yet solved in a good way and came to me to find a solution." I love this kind of nuts-and-bolts ID.