Behind every beautiful “after” photo lies a hard-won lesson (or three): In our summer series, “Gutted,” renovators share the biggest mistake they made on a recent project, how they fixed it, and the wisdom they gained along the way.
When Texas DIYer Renee Bruner saw Kirsten Dunst's kitchen, Architectural Digest, She had a clear idea of the colors she wanted to paint it. “It had really deep reds and purples, and a really dramatic marble island,” Bruner recalls. “It was a mix of old and new, and I loved all of that. That's what I wanted in my house.” After getting rid of the roach-infested cabinets, broken dishwasher, and peeling countertops, Bruner painstakingly applied Portola Paints' Meritage Roman Clay to the kitchen walls. Trowel in hand, she applied layer after layer of plum-red plaster, even to the electrical outlets. She would soon learn that that was a big mistake.
“I didn't want people to stare at the outlets, I wanted them to look at the marble and the lights,” Bruner explains. “So initially, I thought I'd do exactly what I did in the other rooms, which is, if you don't want something to stick out, camouflage it by blending in with whatever surface it is.” She'd seen other people on social media plastering their outlets in half, so she assumed it would be okay. But when Bruner let her Instagram followers know what she'd done, she received a flurry of direct messages pointing out that it was actually a safety hazard: If bits of Roman clay got stuck in the port, it could cause a fire. She quickly changed course.
Bruner first tried searching the internet for fuchsia outlets but came up with nothing. The closest shades to Meritage were brown and black, so she bought five outlets on Amazon as samples. She ended up ordering a total of six brown outlets and one black outlet (for the island) from Legrand's Amazon shop. They matched perfectly.
Legrand Radiant GFCI Self-Test Decorator Duplex Outlet, Amazon
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$15
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“What I like most about this GFCI outlet is that it doesn't have a constant green light like other brands. Instead, it only comes on if there's a problem,” says Bruner. Hoping to instruct other novice homeowners, she shared her solution on her Instagram Reels. She's not embarrassed to point out her mistakes; each one helps her become a better DIYer, she says.
“Three years ago, I had no idea how to do any of this. I was constantly failing and just learning how to overcome it,” she says. “And then it started to feel like it was something people could actually achieve, rather than something that was turned away from them like it was for me before I started doing it myself.”
