Lighting options

[Globalpandemicmum]

We’re about to have our house re-wired and one of the contractors we’ve been talking to has told us to consider different lighting levels, whether we want lamp plug sockets so they come on as you flick the light switch.

We’ve never done anything like this so was wondering if anyone here has done anything like this and have any tips or recommendations we should consider?

I wish we’d done that. As it is, I need to go round putting lamps on depending on what mood I want to create and how light I want the room.

One thing we did do that I’d also recommend is putting light switches by the bed in the bedroom.

Ooh good idea, thank you!

Yes - lighting sockets switched at the wall.
No - embedded piddly spotlights.
Yes - two-way switched lights by the bed.
Yes - sockets with USB charging sockets (not everywhere!)
Consider some sockets at waist height for some areas - it save scrabbling about on floor (although you may like that, I'm knocking on a bit so I prefer not to myself)

Circuit breaker if you have little ones or even if not as it saved my life.
I had switches for two rooms downstairs so the light could be switched on before you walked into it.

@Bowerbird5 sorry what do you mean by circuit breaker?

I’ve been reading up about the lighting circuits, do you have to change the plugs on all your lamps?

our house has lighting circuits put in by the previous people and we don't use any of them - waste of space. you have to change the sockets on every lamp, and then you have to remember if the lamp is turned on at the main switch or at on the lamp itself. over 50% of the time, one of them is in the wrong setting so the lamp doesn't work.

Just have regular lamps in regular sockets.

If you want to be fancy, get the smart bulbs that you can switch on from your phone or your smart speaker. those are more flexible.

Alternative to lamp circuits is smart sockets with alexa or similar. That way you can use normal lamps and set up routines so you just say "alexa turn lamps on"...far more flexible

We had lightwave sockets and dimmers in our old house.

I love my lights controlled by the wall switch. Yes you have to change the plugs, but that is pretty easy to do. The two lamps are always in the on position and we use those rather than the overheads.

Never knew this was a thing! Thanks!

@StatisticallyChallenged I’ve just had a look at light wave sockets, did you really spend £60 per socket?

Yeah, they're not the cheapest! We only did them in certain rooms but we really wanted some sort of smart lighting and it seemed cheaper in the long run than something like the hue bulbs as once they're fitted you can use anything. In our old living room quite a few of the plugs were behind furniture so being able to operate them remotely was helpful.

We also have a little one who likes to play with switches - on/off/on/off/on/off endlessly - and being able to lock them so they can only be operated from the app was sanity saving. Especially when she went through a phase of doing it with the router plug!