Following my last post, I have a solid drywall patch installed. This particular piece has the honor of covering an electrical cable buried in the wall. I needed to get that rascal re-connected into a junction box and the outlets fired up again. It would be easier to completely finish the area: seal it up, texture it and paint it, but I didn't have the time to get that far; we'd need power there for the work week, so I planned to re-install the cut-in box that had been there before. 

Like most projects, this one started with a twenty-five foot-long coil of precision digit-ed sheet metal, the sweet measureyness of a tape measure. I matched the height and center location of the outlet on the opposite end of the counter. We don't use the other outlet because it's pretty much right over the sink, not cool or convenient for electrical hair care appliances. 

I like to draw a centered cross-hairs with a torpedo level for precision targeting. No, I didn't break out the laser; it's not that kind of post .

Placing the box backwards on the wall makes it easy to trace. There are are a few protrusions that keep it from being an exact square. 

I hacked out the hole with a sheet rock saw. I like cut it pretty close to the line, then cut little adjustments for the oddities in the box.

With the hole cut, I installed the electrical cable clamp, not too tight, but nice an snug. At this point, my regular readers just gotta know know what time it is right? Time for (obligatory trumpet fanfare) The AZ DIY Guy's Scary Electrical Warning!!!

This metal cut in box is neat. First, it's "gang-able" which means you can pop a side off and "gang" as many of them as you like together. Here, it's a two-gang application. The other neat thing, is the clamping mechanism on each side. They lay flush with the box to slid into the wall, then flip outwards, exposing a screw head. When you tighten the screw they pinch the box against the drywall, holding it firmly. You can make slight adjustments to ensure the box is level before snugging the screws up. It's removable too. In fact, I'm re-using the existing box.

With the clamps tightened in place, the fun part starts. For those of us with large hands, the act of getting the lock-nut on the threaded end of the wire clamp is a fumbling chore. Once it's on there, I tightened it up with a quick whack to the end of a screwdriver.  

The old fumble bumble.

The wiring on the receptacles was still good, I left it in place and wired it to the conductors in the box. A couple quick notes:

• This is a metal box and needs to be grounded. I attached the bare copper ground wire to a green grounding screw in the back of the box and to both outlets. 
• The outlet with the buttons on the front is a Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter (GFCI) plug. It's required in bathrooms. The one beside it is a standard receptacle, but it's wired to a second set of termination screws that provides slaved GFCI protection.  
• In Electrician speak, this double-duplex receptacle layout, is called a "quad". Most Sparkies I know drop the "C" on GFCI and call it a GFI. It's probably more efficient communication to not have to labor through all those extra C's in one day.

"...and cut-in a quad  GFI to the right of the sink"

I protected the receptacles with some blue painters tape. It's going to stick on there nicely, but it won't leave a gummy residue, like the duct tape did when I taped the whole box to the wall during the water leak cleanup. I needed to clean that horror off with Goof Off Miracle Remover and some elbow grease.

This is a roll from the magical box of assorted tape delights I'd received a while back from my friends at EchoTape. 

Next comes the mudding. My bucket of drywall compound from the archives was a bit moldy. I scraped off and discarded the top layer, added water, mixed it up, and it was as good as new. I started by pushing it into the seams.

I laid some drywall tape in the wet compound at the seams and slathered on more mud, smoothing it with a larger trowel.

With the first coat of compound up, I called it good for the weekend. I'll get back to it soon with some sanding and several more coats before I texture it.

I don't think that's gray hair,.. I probably just spattered some drywall mud.

Here's another look at the trick for keeping the outlets protected but in use. An added benefit of using masking tape is that it's a paper based product. You can wiggle a plug right through it. The tape will punch through, and not send pieces back into the electrical guts of the plug. 

The old blue receptacle trick.

I'm not spending much time on the bottom edge. I'm just going to lightly caulk the sidesplash in place when I'm done. We want to replace this "gorgeous" 1970's gold ribboned, faux-marble vanity top in the near future.

I hope your week is going great friends! 

Where did this all start? A plumbing leak in the wall . Ughhhh!!!