A very useful light may be provided for the veranda, just outside the
door, illuminating the front steps and path to the sidewalk. This
light may be turned off and on by a switch key inside the door. It is
particularly comforting when some stranger rings the doorbell late at
night and one does not feel overpleased to be called upon to open the
door to an invisible person. Other switch arrangements make it
possible to turn on the upper hall lights from below, or the lower hall
lights from above, and the lights in each room from the hall. When
there are unseemly noises downstairs in the wee sma' hours it is much
more agreeable to gaze over the balustrade into a bright hall than to
go prowling about in the darkness for the bulb or gas jet, with the
chance of grasping a burglar instead. Some burglars are very sensitive
about familiarities on the part of strangers, and it is always better
to permit them to depart in a good humor. The basement lighting, too,
should be regulated from above, and the dark corners should be well
looked after. At best, the basement is a breeder of trouble. If the
light is in the center, and must be turned off at the bulb, the return
to the stairway from the nocturnal visit to the furnace is likely to be
productive of bruised shins and objurgative English; if the light
operates from above, one either forgets to turn it off and leaves it to
burn all night, or becomes uncertain about it just as he is beginning
to doze off, necessitating a scramble downstairs to make sure. Perhaps
it would be well to have a choice of systems.
Some houses have been so wired that one can illuminate every room from
the hall or from the master's bedroom. This necessitates complicated
wiring and will not be found necessary by most of us. Neither will we
desire to spend our hardly won cash in wiring our four-poster bed for
reading lights, or to put lights under the dining table for use in
searching for the lost articles that always by some instinct seek the
darkest spots in the room. If there be a barn or shed on the lot, an
extension carried there will be found convenient and comparatively
inexpensive. In the kitchen and pantries the lights should be
considered in detail so that all the various operations may be served.
Shadowed sinks and ranges and dark pantries are not necessary where
there is electric light.
REGULATED LIGHT
In halls, closets, and bathroom lower-power lamps, or the "hylo," which
may be alternated from one- to sixteen-candle power, will prove an
economy. The "hylo" is also useful in bedrooms where children are put
to sleep, affording sufficient light to daunt the hobgoblins without
discouraging the approach of the sandman. Some persons cannot sleep
without a light; for them, and for the sick room, the low-power light
is eminently preferable to the best of oil lamps.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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