home improvement: electrical box disguise

I blogged earlier this week about adding a kitchen cabinet door, and this is a blog post about an electrical box door. This is the week of doors! Tony and I have a long, long queue of home improvement projects in our house. And the projects we move up in the queue are the things that are annoying me at the time, haha. Once we fix one thing, something else always pops up as a glaring annoyance. And what had been annoying me lately was the industrial gray electrical box in our living room.

I needed to soften the color, so it wasn't such an eyesore. I decided to paint the electrical box glossy white to match the trim, outlets and vents.

I unscrewed the door from the wall. I roughed it up with steel wool, and then I wiped it clean. I propped the door open with a spare can of spray paint and used two pieces of scrap paper to protect the labels on the inside. And then I taped off the handle and the hinges.

The thing got about 15 light coats of spray paint with several minutes of drying time between coats. Tony and I were doing some work in our backyard that day, so every 5 minutes or so, I'd walk over to the door and give it another light coat.

And the electrical door is no longer a glaring annoyance. Mission accomplished. And if you have a gray utility box in your house, know it's an easy project to tone down the color. It's the little things that are making me love this house even more.