Anyone know how to move a plug outlet?

VM placed our plugs and phone outlet at the kitchen desk haflway up the wall. I want to move the plug and it's box down to the backsplash and lay the plug sideways. Anyone of you out there know how to do this without using an electrician and paying 150-200 bucks for it?

I'm not worried about the drywall cut out. I can save that and have my painter fix it up.

 

Note: I'm assuming you're dropping this straight down and you don't need to cross studs and are dealing with an interior (non-insulated) wall.

Step 1 is turn off the power at the breaker! Back in the electrical section of Home Depot, you can find an outlet box for "old work" which means it's meant to be installed in a hole you cut in the drywall as opposed to being installed before the drywall goes up. Use that as a template and cut the hole where you want it to go. While you're there, pick up a few extra feet of phone wire and electrical outlet wire called 12/2. (12 is the wire gauge or thickness, 2 is number of wires in the bundle. 12 gauge is the standard for electrical outlets.) Disconnect everything at the old box and fish the wires through the wall to the new hole, then start connecting every color that matches up. Note that the electric outlet might be in the middle of a chain, so you might need to run the 12/2 from the old box to the new box and then back to the old box to keep the chain running.

 

I have a good follow up question to this one....My kitchen has a phone outlet that is half way up from the counter as well. I want to be able to put a phone on the jack but the problem is that the phone outlet is "smooth and flush" ...it does not have the upper and lower round "pegs" that you can hang a phone onto it...Right now, I cannot hang the phone onto the wall and have been trying to find / figure out how to replace or add the outlet so that way I can do what I want to do. Any advice?

Thanks!!!

 

You probably have to swap out the flush mount jack for ones with pegs, such as this one: http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc...splay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

 

I'll have to take a picture and post it so you know what kind of outlet I have right now...Im not sure how to undo what's behind the current one so I can put the one you are talking about (picture that you posted) in its place.

Will post picture either tonight or tomorrow.

Thanks for trying to help!

 

Here is the picture of said outlet....Have you ever seen this one? How can I remove this one and use the one you posted the link of the picture that allows me to hook the phone up on the wall?

 

Smae one we have. Our phone has no wall attachement feature on the back, so I've got a call into OB to "Consult" over a move of the the base phone to the slender counter area next to the Ovens. It's a two line biz phone, so it has a corderd receiver. If that line can be moved, then I can put a handset on the kitchen desk instead.

 

The one pictured is a small phone jack with a cover plate. Take out the 2 screws to remove the cover plate, then 2 more screws under the cover plate to remove the phone jack from the box in the wall. Then disconnect the wires from the jack either by unscrewing them or just cutting them if they're quick-connects. Strip new ends on the wires if necessary and attach them to a new jack that has pegs for hanging a phone like the one I linked above and attach the new jack to the wall.

 

I'll have to try that! Thanks so much for the advice! Hope it works!