Sometimes people imagine the bedroom as being a cozy [or romantic] retreat, and if that were all it was, switched lamps would be fine. But most of us do more than that in our bedrooms-- maybe we have a closet there without light, or get dressed in the bedroom if we don't have a separate dressing. We might exercise there, expect the kids to play their rooms, or keep the grownups computer there-- all activities that might need a bit more light than a pair of bedside lights will provide. So I'm doing all my guest rooms [as well as the master suites] with tiffany glass overhead lights. Each is different, and each room will have a theme color so I can more easily direct people to their rooms, or let my cleaning lady know which rooms have been used since her last visit. Finding the right lights at an acceptible price has been one of the more pleasant shopping projects of the build-- much lower stress since I won't be looking at them everyday.

If your house is new construction, you'll have plenty of outlets just to meet code. Other places to consider: 1. At least one on your deck for lights, fan, cooking tools, etc. 2. In multiple places around the house and yard, outlets for electric yard tools (so much quieter, easier, and cleaner than gas ones, even if the cords are a nuisance). 3. Make sure there's one that's easy to reach in the room where you'll be ironing. If you do ironing in a laundry room, the laundry outlets may be hard to get to, and the cords on irons are short. 4. Anywhere you'll need to plug in a vacuum. 5. Wherever anything that needs to be charged (hand vacs, emergency lights, etc.) 6. In the attic, basement, and garage. (My electrician installed an outlet for me in my attic for his own use and didn't charge me, rather than run a long power cord to the 2nd floor. My house was built c. 1870 and is deficient in outlets, although I've added several.) 7. Consider outlets on the walls behind the toilets for heated or bidet seats. 8. Have ceiling lights wired with 3 wires, so you can add ceiling fans later easily if you want (and have separate controls for the lights and fans). 9. Make sure that rooms with multiple entrances are wired for 3-way lights. You may need extra outlets in your home office.

Well, after thinking about the problem for about 3 months in the background, I finally decided to act on it last weekend. The fix was successful. As many of you suggested, indeed, the wire connection inside the hidden junction box had come loose. Luckily, I had taken quite a few pictures of the studs and the electrical wires when I demolished the walls to remodel the room last year, so I was able to locate where the junction box should be behind the wall by making some measurements on the digital pictures. In retrospect I was able to predict the location of the hidden J-Box from the digital photo with an accuracy of ½ inch! IÂll remember to always take pictures during remodels. So I drilled one first hole where I thought the center of the box should have been and voila! I hit the box. Then I kept drilling holes close to each other until I located the perimeter of the box. Drilling the holes was made a little more complicated by the fact that this wall was sheathed with 3/4in plywood from the inside and there was also insulation between the plywood and the J-Box. So I had to drill through both the 5/8" wallboard and the 3/4" plywood. Once the exploratory holes revealed the perimeter of the box, I cut out the exact perimeter with a jigsaw. Once I established access I broke the old hidden box (plastic) installed a new one, redid the wire connections and was able to cover the hole with a blank access plate. Having been careful while drilling the initial exploratory holes, the cutout was small enough that I was able to cover it with a standard size cover plate.

The feed to a switch loop used to be given special dispensation in the code from having to be remarked. In the current code you are (and you should in your work) remark it. As you've shown it (assuming you are using the same devices), your circuit will not work. The switched half of the outlet has no power feeding it ever and neither does the switch and the resultant lights. If you don't want to retained the outlet as switched, you can feed the switch (and the downstream lights) with the hot in the receptacle box (you'll need to replace the receptacle or jumper the "split" connection on it).