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.

There are numerous conveniences to be operated by electricity, such as chafing dishes ($13.50), flat irons ($3.75 up), curling-iron heaters ($2.25 up), electric combs for drying hair ($4), heating pads, in lieu of hot-water bags ($5), and many articles for the kitchen.  These are operated from flush receptacles in baseboards or under rugs, or from the ordinary light sockets.