Recessed Electrical Outlet

This recessed electrical outlet is a super cool innovation, because your plugs won’t stick out into the room behind furniture and etc.  But this outlet is high up on the wall in a powder room , so is probably to service a lighted picture or mirror or similar.  The recessed outlet will allow the fixture to sit flush with the wall .

Here it is pulled out of the box, so I can place wallpaper behind it. This pic shows some of the electrical connections.
I did some searching, but couldn’t come up with definitive information about if a special deep electrical box is required.  But my guess is that it is. 
Either way, these types of outlets are a super good idea for both items that need to sit flush with a wall (lighted mirrors, TV s) or with every day appliances like lamps and home electronics. 

Getting More Light Into A Room

This small hallway in a 1936 bungalow in the Eastwood neighborhood of Houston was very dark , with just this hanging light fixture . It’s gorgeous … Art Deco style , and probably original to the home. But just not putting off enough light for me to install wallpaper .
So here’s my easy solution . The metal fixture has an open hook type area that will hold my extension cord . But if not, I have dollar store hair bands (beauty dept) that I can rig up there to hold the cord. The plug-in socket s are available at Home Depot or the like for about two bucks. You can also plug them into a wall outlet .

Modern Electrical Technology Makes Hanging Paper Easier

Bad photo, but I’m to put wallpaper in this room, including the tall and deep fir-down at the top right, which has two recessed light fixtures in it. You want the paper to go behind the light fixtures, not cut around them, if at all possible. In the photo, at the far middle left, you can see one fixture dangling by it’s wires below the fir-down.

Some of these recessed fixtures are tricky to take down (many won’t come down at all), but these ones turned out to be held in place by tension springs, which fit into sideways hooks, which you can see at the left inside the hole.

Here’s a closer look. These are the same type springs that hold the vent covers to exhaust fans in place. As you push them upward, they spread apart and hold the fixture securely in place. Easy-peasy! You can also squeeze the springs together and remove them from the mounting housing, which lets the fixture dangle from its electrical wires.

That’s what I’ve done here. Now it’s much easier to work the wallpaper around the fixture. But it could be made even easier – by removing the light fixture all together.

Most light fixtures have black and white wires coming from inside the wall that connect to black and white wires on the electrical fixture and are connected and held in place by a twist-on screw cap or wire nut. What’s very cool about this particular fixture’s electrical connections is that it’s made by this orange plug, which fits into the orange receptacle – no wires to twist or cap, and no need to cut off the power. It’s all simple and perfectly safe.
Here I’ve disconnected the two orange parts.

With the light fixture completely out of the way, it’s much easier to install the wallpaper, and no paste gets slopped onto the fixture.

Here’s the wallpaper installed and trimmed around the inside of the opening.
Oh, and don’t mind the slight pattern mis-match on the left … there were issues with un-plumb and un-level walls coming into play.

And here I’ve reconnected the orange plug parts, and placed the spring back inside those hooks, then pushed the light fixture up and back into place. Look at how nicely the flange (outer ring) of the fixture covers the cut edge of the hole and the wallpaper.