The day I stopped using a drywall square for cutting around outlets

I always used a square to mark my cutouts for outlets and switches, but last week on a job in Denver I grabbed a scrap piece and just eyeballed it... popped the drywall up and the cutout lined up perfect on the first try. Made me wonder how much time I've wasted over the past 10 years being too careful. Anyone else ditch their square for something faster?

3 comments

3 Comments

spencer_gonzalez17d ago

That's a solid point, but did you have to do anything special to get that first try right? Like, did you already have years of muscle memory telling you exactly where the box was, or was it just pure luck? In my experience, the risk goes up fast if the studs are even a little bit off or if the box isn't perfectly flush with the face of the stud.

lucasw847d ago

Man, you're reminding me of this one time I was helping my buddy wire his basement. He swore up and down he'd marked the studs perfect with his laser level, but when I went to cut the drywall, the box was a full inch off from where he said. Turned out he'd been leaning his level against a pipe and didn't realize it. We ended up having to patch two holes and start over. Sometimes all the prep in the world doesn't save you from a simple dumb mistake like that.

green.noah7d ago

Ngl @lucasw84 your buddy's laser level story is the perfect example of how we all get obsessed with the perfect tool or method and forget that sometimes the simplest approach works better. It's like when people spend an hour carefully measuring and remeasuring for a shelf, then just slap it up and it looks fine anyway. There's this whole pattern where we overcomplicate things because we're scared of failure, but the truth is most mistakes come from being too rigid, not too loose. That first try success you had probably came from years of practice plus finally trusting your instincts instead of a tool.