floor outlet

[mpc]

I'm working on the electrical plan for our new house build. They asked me if we wanted a floor outlet in the family room. Maybe it would be nice? But I have no idea where to put it. Once it's there, it kind of dictates where the furniture will go, no? The room is huge, something like 15x18, or bigger depending on where you draw the measurements to. There will be more than enough natural light during the day. It's hard to tell if the existing light fixtures will be sufficient at night. Maybe they will...

So what do you think? Are we ok skipping the floor outlet? If we add it, how do we figure out where to put it?

[thatgirl2478]

I love the idea of floor outlets, but you're right they have a tendency to make your floor plans less flexible. I think I would prefer to have a lot of wall outlets for table/floor lamps and dim-able recessed light in the ceiling.

[bunnymendelbaum]

Honestly, I'd do them. Especially if the room is big (i.e. the furniture won't be up against the walls).

The room layout probably dictates a few furniture layouts, just try to figure them out and place the outlets according to that. Unused floor outlets are usually covered by a rug anyway.

[boiler717]

We have them. I am not using currently but will be covered by a rug once I finally get one!

[buppy]

We built our house and have two of them. Where else would I plug my laptop in when I work from home? I prefer working on the couch with my feet propped up rather than the office.

[mrs.jacinthe]

We have two of them - both are in need of replacement, so we don't use them - they're actually under our wall-to-wall carpet (and covered, no worries). We will likely get rid of them entirely when we put in hardwoods, because none of our rooms are big enough to require them (unless being used as an office, like they were prior to our purchase when the building was commercial use).

[lavender444]

I wouldn't mind having some. Are you doing wood floors? I bet they can recess them a little and make a secret door/panel with the flooring to hide them when not in use.

[tiffany81]

I wish I had some. I have an awesome table next to the couch and wish I could put a lamp on it. But no plug. And none of my furniture is against walls in that room.

I'd look at the room and try to visualize how you want to place the couches/tables. And put one or two in the area you'd want side tables. Even if you cover them with rugs or furniture and don't use them, at least you'd have the option in the future to use them.

[InBetweenDays]

We have one in our living room and love it. When we did our gut/remodel we already had our furniture placement in mind (since we were using existing furniture) so we just put it where we were planning to put the couch. Our couch kind of floats in the room so it is nice to have lamps on the end/sofa table and not have the cords stretched over to the wall.

[moolarkey]

I wish we had them in our family room. H and I both have our laptops, we have a lamp on the table between the 2 chairs we usually sit in. Often I have my laptop plugged in, sometimes H has some other equipment or gizmo he's fooling around with that needs plugged in. Our FR opens off of the eating area of our kitchen. I have a power cord plugged in to a wall and snaked under H's chair and under the end table so that we can plug everything in. It's really lovely. NOT.

[Deleted]

I wish we had thought to install a few now that we're almost done with our build and it's too late. Our living room is connected to the dining area and kitchen so it would have been nice to have a sofa table behind the sofa and put a lamp on it to give the areas some separation. I also would have put one in the office so the office desk can be in the middle of the space.