In working on my baby daughter’s room, we decided to put up bead board and chair rail.  Kids are hard on paint, and I’d prefer a nice hard enamel based paint and something harder than drywall underneath. Anytime you’re paneling the walls, cut outs for the various outlets can be a bit of a pain. I’m pretty proud of my little invention here:

I took a piece of hardboard the size of an outlet and hotglued two outlet covers on. It was easiest to actually just push the outlet covers into the outlet and then glue them to the hardbaord to be sure they fit perfectly.  Next, I simply put a layer of whatever paint is laying around on it, stick it into the socket, and press the panel against the wall. It leaves a perfect outline of where I need to cut out.  I make the outline a little darker with a pencil then drill two holes, and use a jigsaw to cut it out.  Its a perfect fit everytime.

This only works currently for electrical outlets, but I’m thinking of building one for RJ45 (Ethernet) and RJ11 (phone) jacks as well.