adorne-ing The Nursery With Custom Accessories

It’s time for a beautiful switch. Their words, not mine, but one might say that they basically took the words right out of my mouth. Over the next few months, I’ll be partnering with Legrand to showcase its adorne line of outlets and switches as part of a big–and very necessary–electrical system overhaul in our new home. A joyous makeover!

First things first: You can win $500 in adorne product. It’s hot stuff. Legrand is hosting a giveaway through the end of September (it’s not exclusive to merrypad readers, so spread the good word). Click the graphic or follow the directions below for a chance to win!

Step 1:  Submit your name and e-mail address through the entry form on the Adorne contest page.
Step 2:  Share a photo of the room where you want to add the adorne Collection. There are three ways to enter, as shown below. Pick just one or do all three to increase your chances of winning!

• Twitter:  Follow @LegrandNA and post your photo with the hashtag #adornemyhome
• Pinterest:  Follow @LegrandNA and post your photo with the hashtag #adornemyhome
• E-mail:  Send your photo to adornemyhome@legrand.us

Next on the docket: I’ll be installing adorne products in my home over the next few weeks and showcasing the progress here. We consider ourselves lucky to have gotten through the home buying process for a house that still functions on fuses. Both our insurance company and electricians have been really surprised (or amazed, or dumb-founded) that the bank would mortgage us a home without first mandating us to switch the electrical system to breakers (apparently this rarely slips through unnoticed). We were surprised too, but we kept our mouths shut and vowed to take care of it ourselves so that our family home is considered safe. This overarching electrical job–that quite frankly we have no option but to outsource to professionals–will cost nothing less than thousands of dollars, and is something we’ve been planning and slowly saving for over the last few months… you know, on top of wanting to replace the floors and needing to replace the barn roof and wanting to repair the chimney before wintertime.

The Legrand collaboration you’ll be reading about here is a case of perfect timing, the perfect opportunity to make over our home exactly in the way we envisioned. You’ll be seeing a lot more of the products that Pete and I carefully picked out, but one of their cooler, most customizable products that I’m showcasing today is the Custom Wall Plate. BAM, it’s cool like that.

Immediately, you can tell that this is a lot different than your everyday switch and switch plate, your brain is about to explode; all of the switches and outlets are square in design, which means that the products can only be used in conjunction with the adorne wall plates (there are lots of different options to choose from too, colorful, natural wood, etc). In our kid’s bedrooms, we opted to swap the single light switch with this customizable product from the adorne line, reason being that we wanted the opportunity to make these rooms a little more full of their personality (or, for the time being until the newbie arrives, our personality).

The custom wall plate comes with a removable face (neutral in appearance) that can be painted, glittered, updated any way you wish. Alternatively, you can use the face as a template for your own material, if you wanted to instead use a piece of wallpaper so that it camouflaged into its surroundings, or wanted to use children’s artwork (which we might do in Julia’s room – let her decorate her own).

For the nursery, I decided to do a modern design that skewed a bit Vintage Scandinavian, and found this Pinterest board that offered hi-res royalty- and cost-free graphics. Hopefully that’s legit. I pulled three that I liked, cropped them to size in Photoshop, and comped them up to see how they would appear when printed. Pretty awesome, pretty cute, and pretty wow.

I really liked the yellow design best, so I saved it as a hi-res PDF and brought it to FedEx Office (my default resource when I need something printed in color), where they printed it for me on 110# cover stock for $1.50. I used the template that was included with the product and my mat cutting kit to trim it to size.

I was initially a little nervous that the edges of the paper would want to curl up in the wall frame, or it would be easy for my fingers to nick when I’m turning on and off the light, but when you pull back the adhesive that is on the wall plate itself, the paper sticks right to it, no muss and no fuss. I still am curious how dirty it will get, because it won’t be something we can clean… it’s almost as if I should fashion a little plastic cover to guard it (which might also add a finished sheen).

The installation itself was just about as simple as any other light switch update; I turned off the power (no desire to mess with fuses, so I just kicked the whole house), and swapped the switch from Legrand right inside the existing electrical box (we chose a push button switch design for the bedrooms, and also included a locator status light that illuminates the center of the switch, for convenience at night). As far as the tools I used to install, even with the power off I rocked some insulated screwdrivers that we invested in recently… until this house is updated by the electrician, I consider it unpredictable and crazy. One thing was for certain, I don’t think those switches had moved in the electrical boxes since they were installed in the early 1950’s. The wiring was tight and compact and I had plenty of length to work with. Also, the wall behind the plate was rose pink.

What you’re seeing above is the backplate for the custom wall plate – this is what attaches to the wall. The adorne switch fits right into place within it, snapping in securely with four locking tabs that keep the switch itself from being pushed in or falling out. The custom wall plate, shown below, fits right over that, snapping in along the edges.

The install took about 8 minutes, as I read through the directions while I did it.

The finished piece is adornable–sorry, can’t help it–and the sweetest little addition to this blossoming nursery.

The customization and review of the products featured is my own, and I’m not being compensated other than for accepting free product. If you’re in the market for new electrical features in your home–whether it be contemporary, cottagey, or traditional in design–check out the Legrand website for a full inspiration suite and enter the adorne contest through 9/30/13.