Pro Handyman Blog

If you’ve installed wallpaper before you know it can be messy, but the finished product is very nice. The last think you want to see on your newly wallpapered wall, in a plain looking builder-grade white wall switch cover. Boring! Here is how you can dress it up and make it blend in.

You can cover the wall plate with wallpaper to match the paper on the wall. Use a piece of wallpaper that will perfectly match the pattern. You can cut a large square and place it in the general area of the switch plate to make sure. If you have a complex pattern you will have to be more exact, but if you have, for example, vertical stripes it will be fairly easy to match up.

You are going to dry fit the wallpaper over the switch plate cover, so you will need to remove the cover and turn off the power to the switch. Cut the paper to fit around the cover leaving about an inch of overhang. When you have the pattern matched up, you can use contact cement on the cover. You will need to work fairly quickly as the cement dries fast. Fit the paper and hold it to the wall to make sure the pattern lines up. For the openings in the wall plate, use a blade and cut an “X” at the opening, folding the flaps through the opening and around to the back Let everything dry, and then you can screw it back on the wall. For a finishing touch you can paint the screw heads the same color as the wallpaper.