# Wrapping Switchplates



## Vinyl 54X (Mar 12, 2019)

Does anybody do this anymore? I started in residential where they would expect you to wrap switchplates, phone jacks and air grills. I had enough and went union and moved over to commercial. Sometimes the client or tenant would ask to wrap the plates. I would always make up something like it's a fire hazard and the inspector would hold up the certificate of occupancy. But I knew guys that would charge $20 -$25 per plate and do them at home after work. But that was piecework days. Just curious if any of you still have to do bizarre crap like hanging over cabinet doors with patterned material. I hope this trend has gone the way of flock on foil but like the measles it seems to be coming back. Just curious if the homeowners want you to hang every inch of material they purchased.


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## dnj300 (Jan 17, 2018)

Vinyl 54X said:


> Does anybody do this anymore? I started in residential where they would expect you to wrap switchplates, phone jacks and air grills. I had enough and went union and moved over to commercial. Sometimes the client or tenant would ask to wrap the plates. I would always make up something like it's a fire hazard and the inspector would hold up the certificate of occupancy. But I knew guys that would charge $20 -$25 per plate and do them at home after work. But that was piecework days. Just curious if any of you still have to do bizarre crap like hanging over cabinet doors with patterned material. I hope this trend has gone the way of flock on foil but like the measles it seems to be coming back. Just curious if the homeowners want you to hang every inch of material they purchased.


I do a lot of residential.. Customers rarely ask to paper the switch plates anymore. Once in a while they still do, and I try to convince them otherwise.. Is a time consuming pain in the a**
On a related note I'm papering a ceiling next week. 15 foot lengths. .. Ugh. 

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## Redux (Oct 27, 2018)

Switch plates, air grills, and phone jacks...no...thing of the past...but I was asked to cover the underside of a toilet seat cover on a tankless bowl, so when someone left the toilet seat cover up it would blend in with the wall..the pattern consisted of large round smiley faces....so rather than install one of the smiley faces from the actual wall covering, I had a very animated photo of the builder’s face blown up, and installed that instead. It was pretty funny..


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## Gwarel (May 8, 2012)

I wrapped some plates for a guy one time and after I was finished he took me into another room and showed me the ones he had wrapped himself. He had cut perfect circles, matching the pattern, to cover the screw heads on the plates. After he made me look bad he tipped me 50 bucks.......


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## Brushman4 (Oct 18, 2014)

Alchemy Redux said:


> Switch plates, air grills, and phone jacks...no...thing of the past...but I was asked to cover the underside of a toilet seat cover on a tankless bowl, so when someone left the toilet seat cover up it would blend in with the wall..the pattern consisted of large round smiley faces....so rather than install one of the smiley faces from the actual wall covering, I had a very animated photo of the builder’s face blown up, and installed that instead. It was pretty funny..


We had one job years ago that the decorator wanted the french windows in the living room hung in the same paper as the wall. We refused to do it, never heard of the final outcome.


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## Redux (Oct 27, 2018)

Brushman4 said:


> We had one job years ago that the decorator wanted the french windows in the living room hung in the same paper as the wall. We refused to do it, never heard of the final outcome.


On the glass? Typical inferior desecrater...I mean interior decorator. Depending on the environment I would think condensation would be a problem. Even triple ply thermal pane units with argon gas experience condensation in my location in the winter. 

I did a one sided installation on passage French door glass, back-painting the glass first with epoxy. Had to pre-cut the panels to exact fit though. It worked out well.


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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

Generally I dont. If Im in the mood I will. I usually just tell the HO that noone does that anymore.

Also, with these new style of switchplates, I dont think it can be done right. Im talking about the screwless ones that snap on. I did a job and the client handed me a bunch of those plates the last guy wrapped, and the all delammed on the sides. I told him I didnt think it was possible to do them properly and put them in the dishwasher or something.

Heres a pic of one. The way the sides are, prevent doing it right, and I dont think you can wrap the paper to the backside or it wont click in place right. Thats my story, and I m sticking to it.


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## Redux (Oct 27, 2018)

Woodco said:


> Generally I dont. If Im in the mood I will. I usually just tell the HO that noone does that anymore.
> 
> Also, with these new style of switchplates, I dont think it can be done right. Im talking about the screwless ones that snap on. I did a job and the client handed me a bunch of those plates the last guy wrapped, and the all delammed on the sides. I told him I didnt think it was possible to do them properly and put them in the dishwasher or something.
> 
> Heres a pic of one. The way the sides are, prevent doing it right, and I dont think you can wrap the paper to the backside or it wont click in place right. Thats my story, and I m sticking to it.


I once banged a client $880 to faux finish one of those newer Lutron light switch devices and plate covers that wasn’t able to be wrapped. The extent of my fine-art abilities is limited to pre-school stick figures at best..even my penmanship is utterly atrocious..not an artist by any means, which I conveyed to the client. 

The “one” device and cover plate entailed a 6 hr commute..I’d made it clear to the client that I’d be charging for travel time as well. After submitting the invoice, I received a call telling me how great the plate looked, asking if I was for hire to do a receptacle plate in the same room..so why would anyone want to go through such an expense for a cover plate?..the following quote from an article in Vanity Fair pretty much sums it up...

“All Valentino has ever wanted—at home as in his couture collections—is perfection.”


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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

Alchemy Redux said:


> I once banged a client $880 to faux finish one of those newer Lutron light switch devices and plate covers that wasn’t able to be wrapped. The extent of my fine-art abilities is limited to pre-school stick figures at best..even my penmanship is utterly atrocious..not an artist by any means, which I conveyed to the client.
> 
> The “one” device and cover plate entailed a 6 hr commute..I’d made it clear to the client that I’d be charging for travel time as well. After submitting the invoice, I received a call telling me how great the plate looked, asking if I was for hire to do a receptacle plate in the same room..so why would anyone want to go through such an expense for a cover plate?..the following quote from an article in Vanity Fair pretty much sums it up...
> 
> “All Valentino has ever wanted—at home as in his couture collections—is perfection.”


I would have just fedex'd it to your house with an SASE. I feel bad about charging that high. I told my designers I want to give them a crash course in room measuring, cuz I hate charging $200 to drive for three hours there and back to spend a minute and a half measureing. I have no problem sneaking it into the quote, but I feel like a crook driving there, and asking the client for a measuring fee. Its something I need to get over.... Its just that literally 
ANYONE can grab a tape, and give me lengths and height, and snap pictures of weird areas. Good designers will email me pics of the walls taken into a paint program with dimensions written out on the picture.


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