Non shiny light switches anyone?

[santasnothere]

I am looking to replace all my mirror shine chrome light switches - ideally I want some 'soft' matt ones which look classy rather than a job lot from B&Q. I just don't want anything that needs daily wiping/maintenance to keep grubby finger print free!

I've found these www.dowsingandreynolds.com/product-category/light-switches-plug-sockets/ which look amazing, but damn they are expensive.

Has anyone seen or able to recommend any others?

We've got Crabtree ones all through the house that we got from Screwfix. They're satin chrome finish and never need polishing.

Forgot to say, think they were around £15 for the single ones and about £25 for tthe double size so certainly not expensive.

Why not go for white? I think the chrome ones look a bit dated now. I don't think light switches should be a stand out feature.
I'll attach a pic of the old style white ones I bought on eBay. Although may not be your thing...

Oooo they are pretty OP! Love the copper ones particularly...

I was thinking of getting some wooden ones from here (which are a bit cheaper than the ones you posted), but might have to change my mind now!

For the brushed metal ones, get in touch with your local electrical wholesaler.

MK definitely do several ranges - Edge and Albany - are there definitely others.

If you want the matt painted finish then you can buy cheap plain ones and get them epoxy powder coated in the colour your want. Google for a local powder coaters.

I do this kind of thing as part of my job, and it can definitely be done.

Have you had a look at Elesi - cheaper than D&R or Forbes and Lomax, and similar looks. Also TLC Electrical suppliers - horrible website, but good products, and helpful staff if you can get to a branch.

Ideally I'm looking for upmarket white plastic or coated metal rather than chrome/brass etc
Big skies - yes I love TLC - unfortunately they don't have anything I like at the moment

We splashed out on Dowsing & Reynolds for quite a lot of our house, and I do love them but yes the cost makes me wince.

https://socketstore.co.uk has a good range at reasonable prices, and I've also used https://www.soholighting.com which I think is Elesi as referred to above - a good range and nice finishes. Used for our kitchen extension which had quite complicated requirements, the very fussy electrician was impressed with them.

Hamilton Hartland CFX Colours for white plastic or Schneider Ultimate Screwless White Metal?

Also, we had GET Ultimate pearl nickel screwless in the previous house and thought they looked really smart against the off white walls. But GET has since been absorbed by Schneider (who now sell similar (same?) range at a much higher price ) and you're asking about white, so probably this particular detail is not very useful

I'm in a similar position OP. Renovating and extending a 160 yr old cottage and would love some feature (and not fashion) switches, but escalating costs are crippling us. It'll have to be bog standard white plastic for us at this rate.

Those Hamilton Hartland are a good shout - I didn't realise white plastic fittings could be nice! But do they have boxes which need to be recessed into the wall? This is what I have found makes updating the light fittings in our house expensive - I need an electrician to sink the box into the wall, and then (depending on how much of a mess is left) I might need the decorator to fix up the wall. It seems it requires a lot of work to end up with a flat light switch or neat plug socket. Am I missing something and paying unnecessarily for services?

Sorry, OP, didn't mean to derail with my question!

@BigSkies22, are you sockets and switches currently surface mounted? I.e., do they look like white plastic boxes sitting on the surface of the wall, like on the attached photo (random image from the internet)? If so, yes, if you wish to change to something that looks flat, you'd need to bury the housing boxes (and cables if they're surface mounted too) into the wall + make good afterwards. This will be the case with any type of recessed sockets and switches, either plastic or metal. Recessed housing boxes (aka back boxes) are usually sold separately but they're very cheap.
However, if yours are recessed but are just bog standard white plastic which you'd like to upgrade to something sleeker, potentially screwless (where screws are not visible on the surface), it should be possible to simply swap them. Just bear in mind that the low profile of flat and screwless sockets/switches is usually compensated by a slightly bulkier "guts" that sit behind the surface plate and go into the wall, so you may need a deeper, 35mm housing box. The required box depth is usually stated in the product description

Very kind of you to reply, thank you. Yes, we have the surface-mounted, clunky versions in most cases, sadly. I change them as I go around redecorating - just wanted to check that I do need the trades in and hadn't somehow hallucinated that necessity over the last few years. Our electrician is good enough to fit us in between 'proper jobs', but he doesn't half leave evidence of his visit behind him! Hence the need to co-ordinate electrical work and redecoration.

Hamilton have a million combos of switches - inc matt metal (no wiping!)

www.hamilton-litestat.com/

The 'nice' white ones are much more stylish/timeless than the silver.

I came on to recommend Dowsing & Reynolds, even before you’d asked about them. I was originally not going to get them because of the cost, but overall it cost about £100 more than the cheaper alternative to do our whole house, and I love them. Ours are the black toggle switches.

They do need a 35mm backing box, so we had a bit of plaster damage getting them in. We also had some dinner problems which we fixed by buying Philips dimmable LEDs rather than the cheap unbranded ones we’d started with.