One of the first things I noticed when I moved into my current house was the overhead lights in the living room. I’d literally never seen that before. I this case, I think it’s related to the fact that my house is ~100 years old (built ~50 years before the nearest hydroelectric dams were built) and probably had oil or gas lighting originally. Then when it was later wired for electricity, there was no existing “prejudice” against putting electric ceiling lights in the living room. I imagine that oil lamps were not something one would install on the ceiling, for obvious reasons, but with this new, “safer” electricity, why not? I don’t know when my house was originally wired – all I can say is that those fixtures look pretty darned old.
Sllight hijack, but I am with you on that. Something I often did coming “home” the first day on a consulting assignment was stop at a convenience store or K-Mart or somesuch and buy some high-wattage bulbs.
Odd. Every house I’ve lived in has had lights on the ceiling except my current one which actually makes it remind me of a hotel.
Another question that I’ve just remembered, why are hotels always so stingy with power outlets and put them in inconvenient locations? I usually have to unplug a lamp just in order to plug in my laptop and it’s almost always tucked away somewhere low and inconvenient. Why can’t they just put a dozen power sockets right on the desk so I can plug all my devices in at once?
Yes of course, but I’m thinking of precast modular slabs that can just be hoisted into position without much additional work.
In any case, the basic ethic of motel design seems to be entirely governed by superfast supercheap construction. Hence, identical repetitive prefabricated parts.
Look at when it was built. More than say 15 years ago, people didn’t carry laptops, cell phones, and what not.
At most they needed an outlet for an electric razor.
When I started traveling on business 15 years ago, not all hotels had coffee makers in the room.
More like refurbished. Most hotels I’ve been at with a good number of outlets have them on the desk, where your laptop would go, not built into walls. They’re just as stingy about wall outlets.
Besides coffee makers, I’ve noticed that in the past few years every hotel room has an ironing board and an iron.
My wife grew up in a house now 130 years old, and it had overhead lights - and cool button light switches also. Plus the old four prong telephone plugs.
I think the reason for no overheads in my house is that there is an addition, and the people who put it in were cheap. They didn’t even wire a telephone jack to the master bedroom, and these people definitely were not cellphone only people.
I chatted with the manager again today, and mentioned this to her. She told me she insists on 100W bulbs in all our rooms – she likes adequate lighting too.
Thanks for that info! This will save me packing a few items if I ever decide to give bondage a try.
It must be a cultural thing (where is Cascadia??). I am English and had never come across rooms without central lighting until I moved to the US and found it is very common here. I had also never come across the electric sockets in the room being controlled by a “light switch” in the wall - it creates an embarrassing situation when you call an electrician for 2 seconds’ work.