By Elizabeth Seward
New York, NY, USA | Tue May 26 12:00:00 GMT 2009
I've been renovating my bedroom from top to bottom recently. Throughout the process, I've realized that there are a lot of common bedroom items that get thrown out during regular renovations that don't need to be thrown out. Old outlet and light switch covers are included in this list of commonly-thrown-out items. My outlet and light switch covers were trashed when I got around to taking a look at them during this renovation. I've been in the same exact bedroom for six years and my bedroom has been painted more colors than I can recall—leaving my outlet and light switch covers more or less demolished with layered rainbow-colored paint. But even things that are seemingly demolished can be saved.
You don't need new outlet and light switch covers. You just need to put aside some time to revamp the ones that you already have.
How to revamp your outlet and light switch covers with mosaic:
Locate your outlet and light switch covers. Mine were a pretty motley crew.
Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Seward
Paint them all the same base color if you want. This is not totally necessary because the mosaic process will cover most, if not all, of the surface area, but just in case you want a common base color for the wee little edges, etc., now is the time to make it happen.
Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Seward
Mosaic them. (I decided to only mosaic 2 out of my bunch). This is tough part. You don't need to buy mosaic tiles and you don't need to necessarily buy grout, either. It all depends on what you already have. I had leftover store-bought stuff from a project I did ages ago, but you can get mosaic pieces simply from using broken glass, ceramic, or mirror (and being very careful with the edges).
Grout is not as easy to make yourself. If you have extra cement mortar at home, you can mix it 1:3 with sand (1: cement 3: sand) to make a grout. Otherwise, you can go to a craft store and buy a small bag of mosaic grout—one bag will take you far. Everyone's got their own method for mosaic art. My recommendation is to cover your outlet with grout and wedge your pieces into it. Make sure you keep the holes for your outlet, light switch, and screws clear.
Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Seward
Finish the project. If you like the way your covers look after the mosaic and don't want to touch them, that's fine. However, I wanted to paint mine black.
Enjoy! Unless your outlet and light switch covers have completely broken in half, you don't need to buy new ones. You can always revamp things in your home to make them new again and any time you can do that instead of buying something new, you're making a green decision.
Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Seward
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