ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Painting outlets neatly

And from the Wal-Mart archives comes the 20 amp monoplex outlet that the EC had painted orange and assured the manager that the store computer was connected to an IG receptacle...

Well, I guess I can understand someone wanting the room to "match", and the devices to be "invisible", but the multi-million dollar projects that are designed by "top designers" that I'm building lately in Southern California are designed with a different approach. They figure, "why hide it". The designers actually embrace the devices and covers as part of the look of the house, and let me tell you, the results are very impressive.

I just finished a "Frank Lloyd-Wright" (spelling?) style home that ran about $3.5M with water features, marble and stone everything, top-shelf appliances, glassed in everything, etc., and I put in gray (deco) devices with stainless steel plates on white walls (mostly). Beautiful. The look adds to the elegance of the design.

If top designers are doing it, it may be a cue to the DIY homeowner out there. Find the right color combo and keep the paint on the walls where it belongs. Besides, a painted device looks horrible after only a few uses anyway.

Zapped, any pictures?

I've seen people who paint computers dismantle all the [non-removable] fronts off the DVD drives and floppy drives and tear everything down to take to the paint box and give it all a beautiful airbrushing that looks factory & professional and doesn't risk getting one droplet of spraypaint into the electronics. If an outlet were used that the plastic fascia could be removed for painting without irreperable harm, it might satisfy people like this. Would be expensive though, that's for sure, and I'd imagine it would still violate the UL listing...

zapped:

Only 3.5 mil?

That's a townhome in Hawthorne nowadays. Or was that the price of the remodel?

The last screening room project I was on the whole house is at $38 million and counting.

On topic, the bar and several other areas have recepts that are faux finished. The painter did an excellent job, not one bit of paint in the slots.

That last bit is the key to all this: IF done carefully, with no paint into the slots or on the contact areas, I see no problem with doing it. And none of the AHJ's have had issues with it either.


I would challenge that inspector to prove it. (Not the flammable paint part. But then again, the plastic of a recept. will burn quite nicely with enough heat.)

Show me in the UL white book where it says one cannot paint a device.

Prove that the paint did indeed make its way into the device's working parts. If no paint is inside (see my bold/italic above) then IMHO the inspector is dead wrong.

In reality, the people who do faux finishes are very careful and I would have no reservations about any device they finish.

edited for spelling



[This message has been edited by mxslick (edited 10-05-2006).]

Winni,

Mr Bean is great !

He jumpstarts his Mini from a streetlight, and just pushes a plug on a lead for his TV and it works just to name a few.

Great that it is possible in a comedy like that.

BTW, Rowan Atkinson allias Mr Bean, is a fully qualified electrical engineer.

denversparky: I've shot some pics, but the quality is not so great (I'm still geting used ot my new-fangled digital camera). I plan on being back out and I'll see if I can get some nice ones to post here.

mxslick: $3.5M for quite a bit of remodel/room, kitchen & bathroom addition/etc. work on a remodel of an existing home in Carona Del Mar. Ended up being a complete re-wire, service upgrade and all, to accomodate all the new neat-o appliances and what have you.

$38M and counting? That sounds like a lot of fun!

Yeah, it was indeed fun!! The screening room turned out great, the client was blown away by my sound system and film projectors, it all ended quite well, but there were a lot of migraines getting there.

So far, the most expensive house I was involved with was a mansion done up in French Baroque (sp?) style, several thousand square feet, a Grand Ballroom (about 40 by 125 feet).

Original budget? $55 million.
Final cost? $72.4 million!

The screening room, with interior, furniture, equipment and our labor was close to $3.2 million alone. (Our equipment cost/profit and labor was only about 10% of that figure.)

I've seen a few rooms which do look as though they were decorated by that method!

Everything in the room was painted one color, and I do mean everything: The floorboards, the ceiling, the walls, the window frames, the window handles, the radiators and their fittings, the switches and outlets, and even the cords on the hanging pendant lights.

There was another British show called "No, Honestly" about a newlywed's first year together.
She painted EVERYTHING in the room white, even the lampshades.
As he tried to take her paint brush away from her, she cried "Why, why can't I paint?"
His answer..."Don't ask me, but you obvioulsy can't".

Gotta love those BBC shows.