Easy Fix When Your Switches Don't Line Up with the Cover Plate

After painting all the interior walls in my home, I decided to get update my light switches and cover plates from plain white to elegant ivory and oil rubbed bronze.

My husband is the son of an electrician, so I knew swapping out the light switches would be a breeze. (For him, anyway).

What I didn't expect was, that after all the new switches were screwed firmly into their electrical boxes, they didn't line up with the cutouts in my gorgeous new cover plates.

What?!

Did we get defective switch plates???

No, turns out...

When your switches don't line up with the cover plate, there's an easy fix:

First, I have to let you in on a little secret: The devices themselves are meant to have some "play" in them, so you can adjust them left to right and up/down to match up perfectly with the cover.

See how the screw hole (highlighted in orange in the image below) is an oval shape? It's bigger than the screw that mounts the switch to the electrical box.

All you have to do is loosen the screw a little bit and push the switch (or outlet) in the direction you need it to go in order for the cover plate to line up.

See?

Once it's in the proper position, just screw it back in tight and you're good to go!

After we made some minor adjustments to this switch shown here (and some others throughout the living room), everything lined up perfectly.

You may need to adjust all of the devices in your electrical box to get a multi-gang plate to line up with each switch.

So simple!

Side note: My husband didn't think we needed to go to all this effort to replace the electrical devices and covers, but now that they're in, he loves them!

IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTE: Always shut off the power to the device(s) before making adjustments to positioning.

Shop Kyle Switch Plates for new electrical devices and quality cover plates. An online superstore for high-end and hard-to-find electrical components - find solutions you won't get at your local hardware store.

Covering Switches When the Wall Cutout is Too Big

If too much sheetrock was cut out along your electrical box, you'll need an oversized switch plate to cover extra wall space around your switch or outlet.

Shop oversized light switch & outlet covers here.

Sometimes, your situation is unique, and a typical oversized cover won't fix your switchplate problem.

It's good to know that blank fillers and switch plate cutout converter inserts can help you create a custom solution to a tricky electrical cover plate problem.

Here, for example, is a setup with 4 toggle switches mounted horizontally along the wall, with extra space cut out on both sides:

A regular or even oversized 4-toggle cover plate will not cover the hole in the wall around these switches.

But, you can go up to a larger cover - an oversized 6-toggle plate, and then fill the first and last toggle opening with a blank toggle light switch filler:

Then, the entire wall cutout will be covered by the plate, and the extra toggle openings will be filled.

This is an easy custom solution to a problem the homeowner had been living with for years. All parts were simply ordered online at Kyle Switch Plates.

Have a tricky situation with an electrical cover that's causing an eye-sore in your home? Contact Kyle Switch Plates to work out a solution. It's probably easier than you think!