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Other Design Dilemma Electrical Wiring

Electrical outlet color question?!

3 years ago

In general —What Do you match your electrical outlet covers to ???Suggestions?? the baseboard color (which is white)? Or interior door color (which is miniwax Golden Oak— on solid pine interior doors) like bone or brown? Or hardware color— which is matte black?

I do have some special cases where I will be matching my backsplash... but, the others are what I’m concerned about.

Thanks.

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Comments (7)

PRO
Patricia Colwell Consulting
3 years ago
IMO the best is to match the walls where they are they are not IMO decor items so best be as invisible as possible
kvdjas
Original Author
3 years ago
Ok thanks. My door hardware is matte black... and my flooring is antique dirty goat hardwoods with various colors. ... I’m going for a modern industrial look.... so I think I’m going to do black outlet covers.
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You might have adjustable boxes. Mine have screws on the side which, when loosened, allow the box to be pulled forward to adjust to the thickness of the backsplash.
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User
3 years ago
honestly, I wouln't even do black. just get white or off white. black outlets make me think of aggressively masculine 80s interiors.
PRO
Sabrina Alfin Interiors
3 years ago
You can get paintable outlet covers. Then paint them the same color as the wall so they blend in. But I generally go with white/off white, depending on the colors of the room.
Nick
3 years ago
It also depends on the room. In our kitchen, where we have a lot of dark surfaces and the outlet covers are higher up, I have black nickel covers. I wouldn't do that in our bedroom or lounge.
TXSkeeter
3 years ago
Its actually quite easy to use wallpaper (vinyl seem to work best) on outlet/switch covers when you want something snazzy or for an accent. One has to play around with the "glue" a bit to see what sticks best and take a couple of trial runs on cutting the correct shape to be able to fold under the edges but the wallpaper sticks quite well and seems to last forever.

The biggest issue is who wants to buy a whole roll of wallpaper for just a couple of switch covers...
kudzu9
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
Use white outlet plates. As far as I'm concerned you want innocuous cover plates and not a design statement. Unless you have walls that are so dark that light-colored cover plates would be jarring, stick with simple. Having colored wall plates means having colored switches and receptacles as well, and then there is a lot to change out when a room gets re-painted a significantly different color.

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