Are you building or renovating and wondering which are the best places to put electrical outlets?
We polled over 400 homeowners and discovered where electrical outlets are the most used, and where people wished they had them!
Some of the answers were unexpected, but so ingenious!
Best Places To Put Electrical Outlets In A House
We compiled all the data we received and categorized it all below, room by room. Now you can see at a glance the best places to put electrical outlets (and why!) in your house.
Be sure to check with a licensed electrician before implementing these ideas to make sure they are in accordance with building codes in your specific city/province or state.
Generally speaking, two good guidelines to keep in mind are:
1. Place electrical outlets every 6 ft. throughout the whole house.
2. Use electrical outlets that also contain USB ports, like these.
Best Places To Put Electrical Outlets In The Kitchen
- Walk-In Pantry. This is handy for charging cordless vacuums/Roombas, or hand held dust busters. If you have a counter in your pantry, an outlet for a percolator/crock pot is also handy when you have company and are preparing extra food.
- Kitchen Island. Baking is a breeze if you can plug your mixer into your work surface.
- On top of kitchen cabinets. If you enjoy Christmas lights on top of your cupboards, this will eliminate unsightly cords. This is also a great place for surround sound system speakers, security cameras, and rope LED lighting.
- Every 2 feet above your kitchen counters, so you’ll never wonder where to plug in your guests crock-pots/warming dishes, or your coffee pot, mixer, toaster, etc.
Best Places To Put Electrical Outlets In The Bedroom
- One on each side of the bed for lamps and phone chargers.
- At least one on every wall in a bedroom for lamps, fans, vaporizers, vacuum cleaners, phone chargers, and other digital devices.
- Master Closet.
Best Places To Put Electrical Outlets In The Living Room
- Floor. If you have a Great Room where your end tables are in the middle of the room instead of near a wall, an outlet in the floor is useful for table lamps, or Christmas trees!
- Mantle. Adding Christmas lights to your mantle is so easy if you’ve got an outlet off to the side or above your ledge.
- Behind the TV. We don’t have a TV, but if you plan on mounting one to the wall, you can hide unsightly cords, but placing an outlet directly behind the screen.
Best Places To Put Electrical Outlets In The Bathroom
- Vanity Cabinets and Drawers. Charge and keep your your electric shavers/blow dryers out of sight.
- Near the toilet for a night light, especially if you have young children, or, let’s be honest, to charge your phone while you shower.
Best Places To Put Electrical Outlets In The Garage
- Every 6 feet in a garage.
- Generator Hook-Up in an unobtrusive area
Best Places To Put Electrical Outlets Outside
- At least one electrical outlet on each side of the house for power tools, pressure washers, Christmas lights, vacuum cleaner for cleaning out vehicles.
- Both sides of the front door for Christmas lights.
- Soffit. If you hang Christmas lights, this eliminates dangling cords and extension words that look out of place and are a tripping hazard. This is also a great place to plug in a home security system.
Other Often Forgotten Places to Put Electrical Outlets
- Hallway, for vacuum cleaner.
- Near Stairs Railing if you plan on wrapping the rail with Christmas lights.
- Storage closets, to charge vacuum cleaners.
- Laundry room for your iron, steamer.
- Office, in the space behind your desk. Use multiple outlets if you have multiple monitors, a printer, phone, and other electronic devices.
Chime in!
Where do you have electrical outlets that you absolutely could not live without? And where do you wish you had one?!
We put electric candles in our windows at Christmas. An outlet under each window eliminates the need for extension cords for the candles.
Battery-operated candles is an alternative solution.
I love having them in the pantry and master closet. Having one in the storage closet for charging the hand vac is great too. We also put them inside the built in cabinets flanking the fireplace (with conduit to run the cables from the TV into the cabinet for the DVD, cable
Box, etc) and love having it all out of sight.
We have a u-shaped stairs and I wish there was one on the mid way landing as it would make vacuuming the throw rug that’s on the landing easier. Also good spot for nightlight. Wish we’d done more in the garage. Ensure that any areas you plan on having a lot of devices/appliances working are communicated to your electrician. I blow The breaker that supplies my office on occasion when I send something to print because it’s just a little too much juice being pulled at once.
We often charge our phones by the couch. When we wired the basement we put the plug beside the couch above where the armrest would be. We also put plugs higher in the craft area so my sewing machine can plug into the wall above the table rather than having to climb under the table to plug it in.
We have a sofa table between our couch and the wall. We put an outlet in the table (running a cord to the outlet in the wall) for charging phones/electronics, plugging in lamps, etc.
I love all of these suggestions. Especially every 2’ above counters. With all of these additional outlet locations, any suggestions on breaker layouts? Kitchen, garage, and bathrooms separate I assume. But how many rooms per breaker?
If you have a deck put a few for fans and refrigerator and lights
Also in drawers in bathrooms
Figure out where you will plug in any battery charger-drill and vacuum cleaner on batteries
Out side of the garage for shone lights
Outside Pathways for lights
These are great! Some others are: 3-switch lights for including lights, fan and outlet on a wall; outlets in yard, conduit under the driveway for decorations/yard tools, near where you put your grill to have light or other tools, at counter height in garage for tools on a workbench, higher on walls if you are planning wall shelving so you can have lights on the shelves.