Many folks don’t know that receptacle (aka outlet) and switch plate covers come in three standard sizes. Home Depot, Lowes, and other improvement stores usually offer all three. They are: standard, mid-size (or mid-way), and jumbo.

Most decorative plates will either be standard size, or somewhere between standard and mid-size, while nylon (plastic) plates will generally be available in all sizes.

Which wall plate size is right for you depends on two things:

(1) Most important: how big of a hole you’re trying to cover. Good drywallers won’t leave much gap between the outer edge of electrical boxes and the surrounding wall board. If you’re lucky, the drywall surrounding the box will not only be cut close, it will be undamaged. If this is the case, a standard plate will work just fine. If you’re the victim of a less-than-optimal drywall job, you’ll have to use the mid-grade or jumbo variety. (If the job is really terrible, and a jumbo plate won’t do the job, you’ll need to do a drywall repair).

(2) Personal taste. Some folks, including me, actually like the look of bigger receptacle plates. If you’ve the luxury of choosing which size plates to install, pick the one you like best. I personally like the look of mid-grade white nylon plates with matching white receptacles, especially against darker paint colors (as found in my dining room). I find the standard plates just look too small, and jumbo plates look juvenile, for whatever reason.

Sassy switches offers a dimensional table at the bottom of their site which can save you that trip to the local big box to buy test plates for your job. Of course, there’s no substitute for seeing what you’ll end up with. Sassy also offers a variety of designer switch plates for those of you who need your switch plate covers to make a statement.

What do you think? Do you have a plate size preference? Is it just me, or do the jumbo plates look silly?

Jocie and I (mostly Jocie) decided to give some old furniture a new look. We used Valspar Interior High Hiding Primer and here are the results.

The Challenge
We have two pieces of hunter green furniture. One dresser and one end table, typical size. Both will be painted white after it’s all over. We wanted to test out a one-coat-primer and chose Valspar.
Valspar High Hiding Primer claims that it will cover
dramatic paint colors and dry fast (straight from
the website).

The Methods

We started with a quick sanding to remove any hidden finishing layers. This also helps prepare the wood for a new coat of paint. Make sure to clean up all surfaces if you sand before painting. We applied the primer with a paint brush and small roller combination.

The Results
One coat primer didn’t hold up to its name. The primer quickly soaked into the wood and dried. But a light green tinge and wood grain could be seen throughout (middle picture). It took another full application before Jocie and I were confident that no green would bleed

through (last picture). I doubt we will purchase Valspar primer again.

What do you think? Do you know a tried and true one coat primer? Have you used any competitors’ versions (Behr, Duron, Sherwin Williams, Ralph Lauren, etc.)?

Post update: Click here to see how Valspar responded (4/3/2008).

Decorative accents can really help make a house a home. A few that always catch my eye are crown molding and wainscoting. They are subtle additions that enhance almost any room.

Crown Molding

Crown Molding is installed to hide the corner where walls and ceiling meet. It can really dress up a room. Molding comes in a variety of materials like plaster, wood, PVC and many more each with pros and cons. Be careful to select a size and pattern appropriate for your room, otherwise, it might make a room feel much smaller. Molding templates are a must have for the first time do-it-yourselfer.

Wainscot (wān-skət)

Wainscoting is wood paneling lining the lower portion of a wall. It will make a bold statement and can make a room feel larger. Framed beaded board and raised panels are the best applications. The panels are fixed using nails and adhesive. Beaded board also has a tongue and groove for a snug fit. Wainscoting not only looks great but helps protect your walls. Here is a helpful guide from This Old House for installation.

What do you think? What home accents do you prefer? Ever use a pre-fabbed install kit?

I saw a relatively neat product on another blog last week that provides a good alternative to the traditional rubber plugs put in receptacles to prevent children from gaining access to them. It’s a Child Safe Receptacle Cover. I like it because it doesn’t visually detract from the space. And, it automatically closes after use (so you don’t fumble putting the little rubber plug back in; or, if you’re like me, so you don’t lose the plug forever the first time you pull it out :-)These are most valuable in locations where you need to frequently use the plug and your 1-year old is likely to explore. I haven’t seen these at Home Depot or Lowes, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they’re there. You can also get them from Amazon here.

What do you think? Is this something that’ll make it into your home?

This week’s Before and After is brought to you from our kitchen. We’ve had a stack of 5 light fixtures in boxes in the dining room for about a month waiting to be hung in the kitchen and hallway. We finally made progress on two fixtures in the kitchen this weekend. We were close to completing a third, but when we opened it, we discovered the finish didn’t match the other two.

Both of these new ceiling fixtures are Portfolio Flushmounts I found at Lowes (Item #168093 on the box). The goal was to match the style of the hanging lamp in the dining room (which wasn’t easy for me - I’m not good at knowing whether things go together unless they already come as a set).

There was one frustrating step in this installation: The two screws that are supposed to hold the fixture to the cross-mount in the electrical box were 1/2″ too short! I ended up buying a box of 8/32, 2″ screws from big orange. Those worked just fine. Of course, what project would be complete without at least 1 trip back to the big box.

Before:

After:

Now it’s your turn! Link in your Before and After posts below using the post’s permalink and then leave a comment here. This B&A post will stay at the top until Monday evening.

P.S. You can click on the Before and After label below to see all before and after posts.

Our basement radiant heated flooring install required us to pour a self-leveling underlayment (aka self-leveling mortar or self-leveling cement) over the ThermoTile radiant heating wire to achieve a level surface for tiling. I’ll say up front, our results were not perfect, but I don’t think it is the fault of the product. Read further for details.

Our Choice: LevelQuik ES

We chose Custom’s LevelQuik ES for the job. LevelQuik ES is an extended-setting SLU that provides 15 minutes of “free flow” time and allows another 15 minutes of “working” time if you rough the surface of the pour. It can be poured up to 2” thick and feather-edged to less than 1/16”, making it ideal for smoothing uneven surfaces.

If you’ve never seen an SLU in action, it is truly amazing. SLUs go on with the consistency of pancake batter, and harden to bear as much as 4000 lbs. per sq. inch. They are truly a marvel of modern technology. That said, they don’t always come out perfectly level — at least, not if you don’t–or can’t–follow the instructions exactly.

How Can You Ensure a Level Pour?

There is a dearth of information available about how to achieve a perfectly flat, level pour with an SLU, particularly if you are pouring over a fragile surface like one covered with heating wire. I was able to find a little bit digging around on the net and I also met with a local concrete contractor to discuss the job. Here’s what I learned:

1. Always follow the directions on the bag. I cannot stress this enough. SLUs that are improperly mixed or installed can delaminate from the surface, cure to an unlevel/uneven surface, or lead to weak bonds with the flooring installed on top of them. (E.g. LevelQuik RS & ES require the use of a latex primer that is essential to a strong bond).

2. Use a gauge spreader. Achieving a very level floor requires dragging a gauge spreader across the pour. Since we are pouring SLU over an electric heating element, a gauge spreader would present risks of either pulling up the wire or accidentally cutting it — both of which are unacceptable in this application. 

Update on 6/28/08: Instead, we tried a few ideas and eventually landed on this idea to modify a squeegee to spread the mortar evenly.  The results in subsequent  pours were considerbly better than what you’ll read below.

3. Pour at least 3/8″, and preferably 1/2″ or more. Pours that are less than 1/2” tend to not level as well as pours greater than 1/2”. Pouring SLU into a floor area is similar to pouring pancake batter into a frying pan. Before the batter completely fills the pan, it will be unlevel unless you purposefully spread it out. As the batter fills up the pan completely, the entire surface tends to level out.

Our Method & Pictures

Due to the heating wire and cost constraints, we couldn’t meet #s 2-3 above, but we still decided to use LevelQuik ES for the job. We poured the SLU into the framed area and spread it out with a large squeegee. The results were good, but not perfect, with as much as 5/16” difference over a 4 foot area. 

The next two pictures show a 3/16″ gap on the far left of the 4 ft. level. This is primarily caused by a crown in the floor near the middle/right of the level. Click on the pictures to see larger versions.

These two pictures show a 5/16″ gap in the middle of the level, caused by a depression near the middle of the level and a crown on the left side. Click on the pictures to see larger versions.

What do you think? Do you have any experience with self-leveling underlayments? Did you have better results?

Soon after we (Jocie and Ethan) moved into our house, Fred and I laid ceramic tile as part of our kitchen remodeling project. Everything turned out beautiful….for a while. The problem was I never took time to seal the grout. Over the past two years, our beautiful floor became rather dingy looking, even with regular cleaning. It really surprised me how much the dirty grout affected the overall look.

A local tile contractor recommended Miracle brand grout cleaner and sealer. It isn’t the least expensive option, but it was well worth the cost (and available at most big box stores). Miracle gives instructions for both basic cleaning and concentrated cleaning. The latter is used for the tough spots.

I considered our whole floor a tough spot. Jocie and I used the concentrated instructions for the entire thing, and went through a few grout brushes along the way. Now it’s time to seal the grout. I figure a good sealer should give us about 2 years before having to clean and reseal again. Check out the difference!

Before:

After:

What do you think? Do you have dingy tile? What cleaner / sealer do you use? How long before it needs some attention?

Isle 9 at the local Home Depot has all the finishing electrical components I’ll ever need: receptacles, light switches, face plates, etc. You name it; they’ve got it - and probably 10 different styles of each.

So I write this post as a reminder to me, and a warning to those who don’t know: Home Depot and Lowes make huge profits on selling home owners individual electrical components. In fact, if whatever you’re buying is individually boxed, its probably an overpriced, high-profit item. An example: I found an individually-boxed receptacle in isle 9 that claimed it was “easy to wire” (presumably because it had push-in style connectors on the back). That receptacle was $2.49! Being the genius I am (ha!), I decided to look further down the isle. All the way hidden at the very end…on the bottom shelf…. in packs of 10, are “builders grade” receptacles. HD sells Leviton brand builders-grade receptacles. A pack of ten runs $3.49.

I did the math. If I re-wired my whole house with individually-boxed receptacles, it would cost approximately $150.00. With builders-grade: $21.00.

Best part? I can’t tell a visual difference between the builders grade receptacles and their high-price counterparts. Even better: The cheapies also have the “easy wire” feature. But, I guess the receptacles are forced to live in close quarters with 9 other receptacles until they’re installed. Such inhumanity.

What do you think? Do you know of any other “high profit” items we should watch out for?