We have one in the middle of our living room... under the rug which is under the coffee table. You can't even tell it's there. Haven't used it yet, but if we end up putting a chair away from the wall, it will be nice to have a lamp on an end table.

LOL Kate! We are getting ready to frame and my aunt in Florida was visiting over the weekend. She recently built a home was full lots lots of great advice- including using floor outlets so wires do not show.

In their house, they have outlets under the dining room table and in the middle of the living room. She picked her furniture before the room was done so knew exactly where to place the outlet. Having no cord show looks great but I would worry about rugs too and besides I am having such a tough time visualizing rooms much less furniture in rooms- UGH!

Good luck and let us know what you decide. I have been hoping to see pics of your progress- are you going completely crazy yet??

hey crescent50, i was wondering where you were! the guys are finishing up the trim but things are painfully slowwwwwwwwwwwwww over here. i (sort of) know where all the furniture will go (not that we have any yet!) but it's been my experience that i always change things around when i get everything inside.

my biggest question about the floor outlets is the lump under the carpet and having it covered while in use (fire hazard?). i'm wondering if i should try and position them under a sofa or something that won't be moved around that much. i tend to switch out end tables so i'm not loving that idea...

and yes, in fact i am completely out of my mind lately. i thought i could easily import some very gorgeous hammershell tile from the philippines but they are stuck at the port in newark while if try to figure out why exactly i have to pay an additional $2100 to get them out. customs, fish & wildlife, licenses... my head is in fact about to explode. i have nine more days to figure it out and have people on two continents working with me (i hope).

anyway, i just snapped this one from the upstairs of our current house (i can't wait for the knock down!). we need lots of fill and retaining walls, a new well & septic. finally ordered cabinets so they'll be moving inside soon! i hope all goes well for you!

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We have two floor outlets in our living room. Our furniture floats so one is under the couch and one is under where we now have two chairs with a table between them--it's under the table but would work for a love seat or 2nd sofa too. You just need to guess where it would be useful to have them--I wanted them under the furniture. I wish that I had one under the table in our kitchen to plug in nescos, crockpots, etc. when we have large youth groups, etc., over for potlucks. Our outlets have the plug-in part recessed so when you plug in something the whole plug is below floor level and just the cord is above floor level, and I like that set up--you would need that kind of floor outlet if it was going to be under a rug. There are lots of other styles too so really think it through when you are selecting the outlet.

Floor receptacles should have a flush brass cover plate with removable threaded plugs that hide a recessed receptacle face. The receptacle should be protected by an Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter - (AFCI) so there would be little risk of fire even with a carpet over it.

Here is a link that might be useful: floor receptacle

Kate~Your house is looking amazing! Totally jealous of your Nichiha-exactly the color I envisioned. I couldn't seem to find a MA dealer, so we went with Certainteed. I'm satisfied, but I'm still jealous!

I'm sure it's fun to have an "international incident" in the middle of construction. Hope your tiles arrive soon!

I'm thinking about making a billion dollars by patenting cute cordless table lamps for open floor plans. Why are these not sold everywhere? We are moving in to our new build very soon & it looks like I'll be reading by firelight in the family room...AAARGH!

Katie

If you ever plan on hiring an interior designer- now if the time to do it. The downside of a plug in the middle of the floor (without a rug in the area) is high. It reeks of poor planning...but you won't have to worry about that because you are looking at these things now instead of later :)

Don't run electrical cords under carpets in a traffic area. Over time they can break down, short out, and pose a fire hazard.

Sometimes the "floor outlet" in the center of a dining room floor is actually a receptacle for a foot switch used to call the butler. Especially when it only is a single receptacle. Amazing but true. Two-prong receptacle didn't always equal an outlet with house current way back in the olden days.
Casey

well the link posted by macv looks fabulous, i think that showing on the floor if furniture move left it showing is not horrid but rather convinient, a traditional outlet i agree would look horrid, thanks for the post macv

I had that exact outlet macv linked to. I never used it, and it did show. The outlet was supposed to be under a sofa but aesthetically and functionally the sofa needed to be a foot away. There's that planning for you -- the previous owner also didn't put her sofa right over it.

However, set into tile it really wasn't noticeable, even though it was the only thing brass in the whole house. Right smack dab in the middle of a room. I would second the advice to plan placement carefully, but not to worry too much about it showing.

macv: thanks for the link! i'll take a look and show the contractor.
kudzu9: that's exactly my fear. i want it to look great but i don't need a fire hazard. i'm getting a good idea of furniture placement so i can plan ahead.
katieob: thank you, we love the nichiha. the color is really amazing! i hope all goes well with your build. just don't follow my lead; buy your tile from home! ...so frustrating!
sombreuil_mongrel: your comment on the floor outlet actually being a servants' call switch makes sense. the old house we owned that had it was originally built for a silent film movie actress. i suppose she must have been a diva of sorts!

Thanks for posting. Never would have thought about outlet under table, but we use the table all the time for laptops and while our internet is wireless, we still need the power supply from time to time, so it makes for a real obstacle course to maneuver around, and seems as though we are constantly saying... "watch the cord!!"

We need to also figure this out. Does somebody have a picture of a cord plugged into a floor outlet? I always thought they were recessed so that if you put a rug over it, there would not be a bump. Who would want a bump in a rug or an outlet sticking out above the floor? If there is bump, then I guess you have to be super precise with your furniture placement to make sure it is covered by a table or couch. What if though, one day you want to move the furniture around?
Anyway, love the progress pictures of your house. I was wondering when we were going to see more. Any inside pictures?

That's just it... you DON'T run electrical cords under carpet. It's a fire hazard.

If you move the furniture, you just put the screw cap back on the fixture. You can mop over it and such safety, and you won't trip on it.

You can get them with the plug recessed--we have them and I think macv linked to them. If he didn't you will find them at an electrical supply house or probably even home depot. But there are lots of different kinds so you need to look closely at them. Good luck.

i've seen pics all over the place of cords under carpets. at least i assume that's where they are! although i've run across some pics that are simply a mystery, like the one below. granted, it's a movie set (something's gotta give -because we haven't seen too much of THAT one) but still, the lights are ON. sure, you can remove cords with photoshop, but i still have to assume they're running under the furniture ...but from WHERE? ugh. i HATE hollywood.

sorry gobruno, no inside shots yet. no sheet rock, but maybe soon...
here's the pic:

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That's our inspiration home! I wonder if it's the inspiration home for all of those who chose to build shingle style homes.

Hi Kate.... just seeing this now- your house looks BEAUTIFUL! Can't wait to see interior shots and hope that your tile issue is reaching a resolution.

Gotta love theSomething's gotta give house- I hate that it makes you think that hiding the cords is so easy. After reading the other responses, I think that a recessed outlet may be the way to go but will definitely not cover it with a rug- too much a fire hazard- I would panic every time I used it.

Katieob- bring on the cordless table lamps :)!

We have an unfinished basement, and our electrician advised us to "live in the house for a while", decide where we will place the furniture and rugs in the living room, and then he would come back and put in the floor receptacles wherever we wanted them.

The lamps in the picture don't have any visible cords at all. Are they battery run?

I am getting close to moving in to our new house in Colts Neck that we have been building for over a year. We are putting floor outlets in two rooms. In one room the outlet is going underneath our Steinway player piano that needs to be plugged in. That one is easy. We are pretty sure we have finalized the location of the piano. The other room is the family room and I have the same issues that you are expressing. I don't know where the furniture/lamps will be located. Hey, maybe we are around the corner from each other and we can try to help each other figure it out!

i can't imagine the lamps shown are battery operated. pretty simple design, but if you google "battery powered lamps" you'd be completely unimpressed by the array of ugliness. mostly plastic, the best solution for cordless seems to be those half rounds that you stick on your wall and press to operate. -that's a joke, btw.
the reason the lamps in the pics have no cords is because they've been retouched by some overzealous art director -the kind i used to be, that sees an offense and simply does away with it by the click of a mouse. this illustrates exactly why i can never achieve absolute happiness. real life cannot be photoshopped.

The front table lamps look like they are "lit" by an off-camera studio light, although perhaps only partially. Notice the shadows on the floor and the lack of hot spot. Whereas the floor lamp and wall sconce in the background appear to be wired in.

This being a movie set, it's quite possible that the cords are running through holes drilled in the furniture and down to a raised stage floor where there's a mass of wiring underneath. Channeling cable through furniture and wiring stuff to a main lighting board is a heck of a lot cheaper than losing an actress for months, throwing off your shooting schedule and putting investors and an entire crew on hold while a broken leg heals well enough to finish filming.

An overzealous art director with Photoshop *should* have fixed all the shadows on the floor when there's no bright light source in the room coming from right about where that loft is. So I'm guessing it's not retouched, at least not heavily.

This is a very basic suggestion but it is what we did to remedy this problem....
We have a very open great room as well and have one floor outlet. What we did before carpet was in was duck tape where your couch would be, chair, table etc. right on the floor. This helped greatly to visualize walking space, where tables would be, where you would move things if you changed the room around. I just measured the size of my furniture and taped that shape on the sub flooring. It really helped in regards to positioning the floor outlet.
Hope that helps...