I did a swing lamp on one side and a lamp on a table on the other side.

I like sconces beside the bed because that unclutters your nightstands. It would be cool to get them hard-wired in with a dimmer switch you can easily work from the bed. You can then adjust them for reading or romantic mood lighting.

I prefer a swing lamp over a sconce because it's a more practical solution for reading in bed as well as unclutters the nightstand. While they are nicest when hard wired in for a truly professional look, there are wire covers to camoflage the wire if you would rather just hang the lamp and plug them into a regular outlet.

Sky

I prefer wall lamps too. Bedside table space is precious real estate, I don't want to use it for something that could be hung instead. Also, if you go with the lamp that you just hang and plug in, it's more flexible than hard-wired; no electrician needed to install, and if you change your mind later, no electrician/drywall repair needed to remove it.

I think it wouldn't be too hard to have the sconces hardwired. Oceana, that's a great idea regarding the dimmer, I'll keep that in mind.

Now to find the right sconces (or swing lamps). That's the other thing too, reading in bed.

Thanks guys. Hope this thread will be helpful to someone else.

Mari,

If you have an attic and the BR is on the second floor, hardwiring should not be difficult.

I know your tastes are toward the contemporary modern side. Is your BR the same style? If it is, I would be interested in seeing your choices. I will have that mountian to climb next year.

I think oceanna's point about making them easy to reach is probably the most important thing to me. I am short and I like to be able to reach the switch without hauling myself out of my book-reading slouch. I have lamps with pull chains which work perfectly for us on our ridiculously huge bedside tables. (More room for too many books, ya know.) If you don't hardwire, you could use an inline switch on the cord. Not terribly attractive, but form trumps function WRT reading lamps!

IMO lamps only really work if you have big bedside tables where maybe you want to fill in some of that "acreage". ;-) My nightstands' tops are only 12"x14" (had a very small bedroom when they were purchased) and wasting any of that minimal room with lamps is just plain crazy, since it's barely big enough for an alarm clock, book, remote on top of the book and bottle of water. Instead we chose to use some very pretty swing-arm lamps (and the buyers said I could take them with us when they heard they were not replaceable - YAAAAAY!!) which were so very convenient. They were the kind where you could raise them up or down as well as side to side, too, sort of like Pottery Barn's Saratoga Sconce. Inline switches are wonderful and can be added onto any table or wall lamp very easily by anyone who can read simple instructions in case the lamp's original switch is too far to reach easily when you're half asleep. :-) You don't even need to change out the socket or anything. If your lamp is metal you could also make it into a touch lamp with a little converter gadget you can get at Ace Hardware; one kind screws into the socket and another plugs into the wall and the lamp plugs into that. If the lamp's not metal you could use a special touch pad or plug-in slider dimmer, which you could mount to the side of your bedside table - good if the bedside table is very wide. Some of these gadgets even let you turn a regular lamp into a three-way lamp, which is excellent if you need very bright light to read but like lower light for watching TV or just hanging out.

If you fall in love with sconces that require hardwiring but you don't want to hardwire them, any lamp repair place (many lamp shops have a repair department, and call electrical supply companies as well if there are no listings for "lamp repair" in the phone book) can convert them to plug-in for you, with inline switches if you like. We had this done and it only cost about $15 each. Use paintable cord covers like Wiremold from Home Depot to cover up the cord so it doesn't just dangle (something that makes me crazy). Just make sure they're not hanging at a point where you will get glare at your preferred reading/TV-watching position. Same goes for if you were to use pendants over each nightstand, which looks really snazzy too.