Lutron Cover Plates

Lutron colour co-ordinated switches installed in electrical box. Lutron offers their products in close to 50 different colours to complement any decor. I chose 'terra-cotta' as it looked best for duplexes mounted in the baseboards, and though quite rich, was also a neutral enough colour choice.

The base plate of the cover plate is installed. The openings allow fine adjustements to be made in levelling the switches without having to take this base plate off.

The top plate simply clicks into postion on the base plate, hiding all of the mounting screws, leaving a gorgeous finished appearance, very neat and tidy.

The Ten Step Program To Fixing Holes In Walls!

STEP 1: About ten hours into the job, after determining the best routing for the three wires entering this two gang switch box. One wire is from the source, the others will feed two ceiling lights in the sunroom just outside the main door. These wires travel up and down the inside cavity of the wall on the right.

STEP 2: Sprayfoaming around the receptacle box. These houses have no vapour barrier and no air barrier behind the brick wall, relying entirely on a continuous and unbroken plaster on lath wall to stop airflow. Holes that break through the plaster must be sprayfoamed or sealed in some fashion. While this hole was open, quite a cold draft came in especially when the outside temp fell to -22 C.

STEP 3: After the sprayfoam has cured, it is cut back to just beneath the wall surface, about 1/4 inch deep. There is no need to apply a piece of drywall over the sprayfoamed area, just plaster directly onto it.

STEP 4: Two metal plates are added to protect the cables from any misdirected drywall screw, now or in the future. The holes that the cables are run through are only a quarter inch deep in the wood strapping.

STEP 5: A small section of drywall is cut out and fixed in place with four drywall screws. I never bother taping joints in repairs this size, as multiple layers of drywall compound will be added, and the length of the joints is so short.

STEP 6: The first coat of drywall compound is added, not too thick, to keep drying time down. There will probably be  close to ten more applications with sanding between to achieve a perfect finish. The compound added close to the doorframe is where the old single switch was located (see previous post).

STEP 7: After the fourth or fifth layer of drywall compound is added, things are looking better.

STEP 8: I think it was about 9 layers of drywall compound before the wall was to my liking. Plaster walls are far from flat, so it is a challenge to match the very slight undulations of the walls, and each time  you sand, you remove too much compound from some areas, and not enough from others.

STEP 9: The Lutron switches and switchplate cover installed. Look, no screws! And a magnificently contoured wall!

STEP 10: No photograph for step 10, clean up, and crack open a cold beer!