I finished caulking and painting in the kitchen yesterday - only the cupboard doors left now. When people on renos make perfect caulking beads and run their finger along I want to know just how they do it without being covered in goo...I haven't worked that out yet. Now that it's done I can start putting things back in the kitchen - a functional kitchen. I can hardly stand the excitement! I'm going to do it bit by bit to reorganise and declutter the kitchen...
I discovered a very evil thing though - when Dad and I carefully measured and cut the glass tiles to fit around the outlet holes in the kitchen with the diamond saw we were very proud of ourselves at how well they fit. Unfortunately, I learned yesterday when trying to put the covers on the outlets that we had neglected to make sure there was room for the little screws that go in to hold in some of the the plate covers.
Yeah. Not cool.
It's all glued and grouted and sealed now, so I'm putting on my thinking cap as to how to get around this. I think I've found a solution - putting thick metal plate covers and adjusting the outlets out a bit and bracing them with wire or metal, leaving room behind the adjusted out outlets for the screws to go through. I might have to grind down the screws a bit in length or find some super short ones. It's a little annoying thing that is rather a big deal and annoyingly, neither Dad nor I noticed this, even when he went through at the end of the job and carefully adjusted the outlet height for the covers! I could try and drill holes in the tiles, but that's just asking for trouble. That is a last resort. I think I'll try my adjustoplate thingymabob first. Or velcro...or double sided tape...or something. *sigh*
It's always something you take for granted that is the biggest deal of all.
Here's crossing my fingers - if anyone has any solutions I'd be grateful...
3 comments:
Do you mean you put the tiles right up to the edge of the outlet box without leaving room for the covers to sit flush with the tiles? That sucks. That is totally something I would have done.
Depending on the kind of cover you have, could you just put longer screws in the existing cover plates?
Heh...wish it were that simple! Luckily we have adjusted out the plugs so they are flush with the backsplash as we placed the tiles...but the new style outlets have the little holes that the screws go through to hold the plate covers on them *outside* of those screws...heh...those are where there there is tile behind them.
If worst comes to worst I can replace them with the old style outlets that have the hole to hold the cover on in the middle, but...
In an internet search for a solution other than using double sided tape to hold the cover plates on I discovered some "screwless" coverplates that mount to the screws that hold the plug in place and then have a cover that snaps on top - a bit more pricey and they are way too fancy for a kitchen, but they look like they will do the trick as they won't need the screw holes for holding on the covers-they use the screw already there that hold the plugs in...
oops...
Hope you can come up with a solution....
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