Switchplate Swap

Chris and I have found that some of the most satisfying upgrades in a home come from upgrading small details throughout the house. When we moved in the majority of our light switches and outlets were white or off white plastic, builder grade materials like this.

While there's nothing really wrong with these fixtures, they just didn't do much for us, and in an old house with original brass and iron hardware everywhere (for hinges, doorknobs, heating grates, etc.) white plastic on every wall just seemed wrong.

So, we started upgrading them one room at a time, replacing all the plastic plates with these metal ones. Each plate costs around $6, so total cost per room was anywhere from $18 (for our guest rooms with one switch and two outlets) to around $40 for our living room.

When we worked on our first few rooms, we went to the trouble of actually replacing the outlets and switches themselves with brown fixtures to match the new plates, which required us to turn off electricity in our basement, disconnect the old part and wire in the new one. This added around 10-20 minutes (depending on how long it took us to locate the correct breaker) and a few dollars per outlet - not a huge cost or time investment, but it did add up over time.

After a few rooms were completed, we wised up. We had some spray paint on hand from another project, and decided to just see how it went to paint the old fixture rather than replace it. We were both thrilled with the result. It looks exactly as good as purchasing the new part, and provided a great time savings - and spared a few bucks too!

That time and money savings added up. Each outlet took about 5 minutes to prep and paint, and for every 2-3 outlets we painted rather than purchased new parts, we could buy one extra plate!

Here's the process. Note - ignore the crazy paint color changes. I painted this outlet while painting the walls in our nursery, and we went through several color variations before landing on the grey we liked in the end.

Outlet with old switch plate removed.

Paper grocery bags were perfect for prep. We hung the large side on the wall with a rectangle cut out, and folded up pieces of the handles to plug the outlet holes. We opted not to turn off the electricity, and just be careful - but you could do it either way. 

Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint applied.

One coat was enough - and with a drying time of only 30 minutes we were able to move through with little or no wait.

And after! 

Another angle. These photos were actually taken about six months later, so you can see what they look like with some wear. 

We used the same process for light switches (only with a smaller opening for the garbage sack, and no holes to fill).

The nursery was actually our last room to upgrade - we had done the light switch but since both outlets were behind furniture when it was our guest room, we kind of forgot just never got to them. And five years in, we're still very happy with this little upgrade. While we realize that probably no one else even thinks twice about them, we use them numerous times every day and think they were worth a little work.

Are there any seemingly small details like this in your house, that you've decided are too important not to invest in? Or any "standard" building materials you don't care for in your space?

Handy Hardware

The cabinet guys were back in full force yesterday, installing crown and hardware to our cabinets. To be honest I wasn't too excited about it yesterday morning - I kind of felt like this week would be a slow one in terms of progress. So imagine my excitement when I got home to see these lovely details.

Cat added for dramatic effect.
 

We're using a two-piece trim, so you can see in some places where the first piece is in, a flat piece with decorative lines along the bottom. The pictures above of the white cabinets show the final look with both pieces in, and below you can see what the under piece looks like over the dark cabinet.

The crown and hardware may be small details in terms of the overall project, but they make a tremendous difference in the look. We are so happy with how things are coming along, and pleased with the surprise of the dramatic change.

They should be back today to continue their good work, and the stack of glass cabinet inserts, doors and trim left in the kitchen makes us very excited for another day of great strides. They will also putty and put a final finish coat over all the nail holes and cracks for a perfectly finished look.

And while we're on it, let's take a moment to look at the grain in the dark cherry cabinets. My original pictures were in poor light and with my ancient cell phone, so here's a close-up of the grain. We were actually originally going to use oak for our dark cabinets, as that's what the rest of our downstairs trim is made out of, but when we got into the cabinet showroom C spotted a beautiful cherry vanity and the rest was history.

So that's where we are. We appear to be about 3 weeks from finished now (and we're on our 6th week, so we should land around 9 total weeks when all is said and done). Next week they're refinishing our hardwood floors on the entire main floor, so we're busy moving out of the house this week, and have scheduled piano movers to move my 1920's upright (which translates into incredibly heavy but very lovely old piano) out to the garage so that it's out of the way. Then refinishing should be about a week of work/drying/defuming. The following Monday, which happens to be Halloween, will be countertop installation (I'm so excited) followed by two weeks of painting, trimming, installing fixtures and faucets, etc. until everything is finished and we can enjoy our new home!