A stencil that helps keep track of all the boxes that electricians add to walls and ceilings to avoid hanging drywall over them.
Now, this is going to be a very cool pro tip that you can use in your own projects, whether at home or on the job to build professionally. I'll tell you how it came about. I was walking through a competitor's construction site in Vail, Colorado, and I was admiring the careful workmanship and the overall neatness of the job. "This is one good builder," I thought. But I kept noticing on the floor throughout the house kind of like hieroglyphic symbols painted onto the floor—boxes, circles, and numbers. When I looked up on the wall, just as I suspected, those pictograms represented outlets, ceiling cans, and other rough-in elements that often end up buried behind drywall. "This guy's a genius!" I thought. "I bet I can get some of those stencils for my own."
So, when I got home, I Googled it. I looked for electrical symbol stencils—nothing came up. I searched for drywall stencils—I found nothing. So finally, I called the builder, who said, "No, that's something my drywaller does."
A homemade stencil improves the accuracy of hanging drywall
I went back to the job the next day, and they were still hanging around, so I had the chance to meet with Lasso, the genius behind this drywall stencil method. Lasso is frustrated by losing stuff and having to dig it out. "The area where the room... and I can mark it 'cause the floor will still be the way it is, right? Yeah, and that's the only place we lose the box—cool. By using this stenciling technique, Lasso never loses an electrical box in the wall or a can light in the ceiling—except, of course, in the garage where the floor remains exposed, and he cannot stencil on the concrete.