Holey (insert explitive here)

Before we purchased it, our house was built/modified/maintained by crazy rabid squirrels smoking crack. Butt ugly wall paper, over other butt ugly wall paper. Paint colors in the same room that should not exist together in the same zip code. Walls where the framing was WAY more than half a bubble off plumb, as were the framers apparently. Mistakes made and hastily covered up. You get the idea.

We have redone most of the house, and just got finished with a total redo of the bathroom. Now, the contractors were great people, but we don't have the money OR the constitution to have folks in our house to do everything. So we are updating the kitchen ourselves.

Okay, so we stripped the butt ugly wall paper, took down the 6 cabinets that never should have been put up, and we are working on the patching and priming. And we were having a disagreement. See, the CRSSC had put a blank wall plate on the wall behind the stove. We figured it was because the outlet was partially blocked and therefore not usable. So we took it off to get at the wallpaper and found

nothing.

Yup, no wire or anything. Just an empty electrical box. The nearest thing we can figure is that they needed the wire for the above the stove microwave. I wanted to remove it, and patch the hole. The husband said no, it will be hard to get out and it will make a big hole in the wall.

Remember those contractors? Well, they needed to get an electrical box out and patch a hole. So they showed me how. Simple really. You pry the box away from the stud a little bit, then cut the nails. Then you do a bit of fancy cut work with a piece of drywall and voila no more hole in the wall. Easy Peasy.

You do see where this is heading don't you?

Since the hubby is out of town, I figured I would use the time my kids were happily reading books this afternoon to get the box out. Now, the prying part was accomplished by the 6'4" contractor dude with a largish screwdriver. While not wee or wimpy, I was in a tight spot and could not get the leverage so instead, I used a small pry bar. And I did not have the nifty little zip tool to cut the nail, so I used a small hack saw.

It was all going swimmingly. Nails exposed, saw working fine. Got the nail to let go.

Remember that pry bar? Well, thing is, even the small ones are heavy. And it is easy to put a bit too much pressure on the wrong spot. Which, in this case, was the side of the electrical box. Which suddenly found itself not attached to the wall on the bottom. And then found itself outside the wall, unfortunately via a path that took it through a large portion of the previously solid drywall next to the box.

I will let you know if the patching goes any better than the prying...