Nov
18
You know, I’ve talked about making peace with the various less-than-perfect aspects of our house, but for some reason this weekend was the first time I really noticed this:
Or this:
Or these:
And now I can’t stop twitching.
Comments
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I assume it’s the light switch, what’s the issue?
We have the same issue in our place. The light switches in bedrooms are placed maybe 2.5 feet from the door, which is weird and messes up anything we want to hang. The bathroom light switches are on the outside of the rooms. What were people thinking? And once you notice, there’s no going back.
Hoo boy. I feel your pain.
All of the switches are off-center.
This is good !
Didnt you mention that the former owner had a ton of artwork? So, all of the switches are not in the center so you can sink a nail in the center to hang a centered picture.
Its thoughtful and brilliant.
We built our house & during one walk-through, I noticed the bedroom light switches were behind the doors, which swing inward. Really?
When I redid my living room area in put in 40 lights which were controlled by 25 different switches. My wife still gets confused. :-)
It’s where the studs in the walls are – they have to hang the switch boxes on a stud so a lot of the times they aren’t centered…at least that’s my guess!
“When I redid my living room area in put in 40 lights which were controlled by 25 different switches. My wife still gets confused. :-)”
You did that to play with her mind?
We’ve been living in our house for 10+ years, and there are at least 3 switches I can think of off the top of my head that do not control anything. I would assume that they control an outlet, except that the few times I’ve tested, I haven’t been able to find a controllable outlet. I think that maybe the renovator just had extra 2 switch plates and has left one of the switches unwired.
Two switches could be confusing for her. She’s and HR director and more of a people person than a technical one. The living room originally had one switch that controlled a outlet. That meant you had to have a 300 Watt torch light to see anything in the room. I wanted to light each zone of the room differently is the reason for the number of lights. Confusing my wife was just a added benefit. ;-)
Just chant to yourself – the studs are in the way, the studs are in the way, you can’t cut a stud for a light switch, the studs are in the way.
Maybe after a billion times, it will be ok in your head.
Re: Anonymous at 12:17
I had some wiring done this last summer by a good ole boy. There are now at least two outlets in one room that are not live. But the hourly wage to redo the walls if he had torn into them to remove the old wiring was simply not a good use of my limited funds. Is it ideal? Well, no. But this house is over 100 years old, lots of stuff needs repair, and I may well be the last person to live in it. When I am gone, it will probably sit empty a few years until the critters move in and destroy it and then it will be torn down. Just guessing. Out of necessity, I am becoming quite selective about the use of $$.
Cheap and easy solution. Update the switches to newer ones. They look nicer and probably won’t bother you as much??!! :)
This is one of those issues that makes me grateful that my husband is an electrician. He moves stuff around for me and adds outlets as needed. ;)
Understand completely. The dials for the individual heaters in every room of our house were apparently installed at random. It’s like someone blindfolded themselves, spun in a circle, threw a dart, and wherever it landed, they plopped down the heat control. Often smack in the middle of an otherwise empty wall – where it might make sense to – I don’t know – hang a picture or something.
We have 2 major issues with whoever built our house.
#1 – nearly all the electrical outlets are upside-down. NEARLY all. He couldn’t even make them all match.
#2 – There are no two doorways the same width in our house. Even in rooms where there are 2 doorways. We have a Gambrel Cape (the shape of a converted barn), so it’s basically an open floor-plan with lots of doorways. Seriously – I’ve measured and they are just like snowflakes – no 2 are alike!
See, what makes ME twitchy about it is that the switches and switch plates are beige while your window trim is white. We changed out all of ours from beige to white a couple of years ago, when my husband couldn’t stop harping on that mismatch.
(Wait, not window trim – door trim. Bah, you know what I mean.)
I’m pretty sure the switches are placed where they are because that’s where the studs are. You need a solid spot to staple the wires. Plus they need to run up the studs because otherwise you’d have to poke the wires through the middle of the insulation to place a switch perfectly centered. My guy just finished wiring the barn we’re converting into a painting studio, and that’s why he placed them where he did, anyway. Remembering that helps me be a little less twitchy about where they’re placed. :-)
Totally unrelated to your bizarre light switch issue, I’m loving the frequency of posts lately :)
1. I’m with Courtney.
2. Our switch plates are white to match all the trim but the actual switches are black. And this is all over the main part of the house with pale yellow walls and white chair rail.
Twitch.
Talk about being able to stop twitching — my parents built their house 26 years ago, and in the big open living area in the middle of the house, there’s a cased opening on either end leading to the kitchen on one side and the bedrooms on the other. Anyway, the painters never completely finished painting the trip around one of the openings, leaving about a three inch piece of trim molding that is primed but not painted, and it’s right around eye level (for a roughly 5’10” person). It’s not glaringly obvious, but once you see it you can’t unsee it.
So, a couple of months ago I was over visiting them, and we got to talking about building houses and the things that go wrong that never really get fixed, and my mother says, “And then there’s that damn piece of trim.” And my dad is all, “What?”
HE HAD NEVER SEEN IT. FOR 26 YEARS, he had never seen it. The big armchair where he has sat himself down every evening for the last 26 YEARS is pointed right at it, and he had never seen it.
Ha! I didn’t even notice the light switches till I read the comments. I thought you were taking pictures of the trims not being straight, but I’m sure it’s just the angle of the picture.
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