What Was I Thinking?

I was walking the units at CityWalk yesterday, and I went into a studio unit on the west side of the building that I hadn’t been in for a couple of weeks. During the time since I had last been in the unit, a lot of work had been completed, including putting the covers on all the electrical outlets.

I started counting the number of outlets, and then taking pictures of the outlets—perhaps the least inspiring example of photojournalism of all time.

There were four outlets above the kitchen counter; five more in the walls of the living room; only one, thankfully, in the bathroom; and then six more in the bedroom area. In all, there were 16 electrical outlets in a 400 sq. ft. studio apartment.

That seemed excessive to me, so I checked a couple of other apartments and they all had a more reasonable number of electrical outlets—or at least what seemed to me more reasonable, maybe a dozen in a unit.

I am sure that I approved everything in the design of the unit, including the number of electrical outlets. When Rob Colburn at WKMC Architects and I were working through the final unit designs we vetted every detail until we were satisfied that we’d done everything we could do to make the unit the best it could be. Perhaps, on paper the number of outlets didn’t look so great. Maybe I suggested to Rob that we needed an outlet here for a television, there for a lamp and a clock radio—and then two more on the opposite side in case the resident decided to put their bed facing the opposite direction.

I don’t remember anymore why we decided to put the number of electrical outlets in the unit that we did. I am sure we had a good unit—or at least a reason that seemed good to us at the time.

At least, for once, the resident should never find himself or herself short on electrical outlets, and should never need an extension cord. I just wish I could remember what I was thinking when I made that decision.