Hello Everyone,
I'm the new manager of a 150ish-year-old
theatre in Lindsay Ontario, and we've got some money set aside from a larger grant to renovate our dressing rooms, which (to put it kindly) are pretty shabby. I'm open if anyone has any general suggestions, but particularly I'm wondering about lighting fixtures for the makeup mirrors - are there any products out there that
cover us for
safety concerns (a cage around the
bulb,
etc) as well as being generally useful?
I think the stuff that's in place was put in in the 60s, and I'm not very happy with it.
Thanks very much for your help!
Candace
We did a major overhaul of our makeup tables last summer. Having done some research, we could not locate a desirable pre-made
fixture that we could install. We found one design that had recessed lo-vo lamps in an enclosed 4-6 lamp box, with frosted plastic covers. They were expensive and would have needed modifications to gang together, as well as requiring external switches, and pass-thru wiring to an external
switch. As our existing
system that used globular lamps with min-candelabra bases was a somewhat similar and difficult to maintain design, we decided to go to a more basic design.
We ended up going to an ugly, but effective, cheaper and more durable
system of standard 4" octagon electrical boxes with
porcelain sockets that accept
wire cages. Cages are a US
NEC requirement. Our
system is all surface mounted with 1/2"
conduit to all boxes and the master
switch, which has a 12/3
SJO cable and
plug to a local
outlet. They were relatively easy to install and are easy to maintain as all parts are off-the-shelf electrical parts.
Our carpenters built up all as
portable tables, 22 total for 8 dressing rooms. Some were 3 mirror tables, some 4, with between 14 and 18 lighting fixtures. We did not install electrical outlets, as that would have complicated the design and our dressing rooms already have wall mounted outlets.
We chose cages made by McGill that are open ended, so as to allow
ease of lamp changing. I went with 34watt
incandescent A lamps, as it put out the right amount of light, versus heat, and is a lamp we use in abundance in our
house lighting systems, thus
stock hundreds. It's also a lamp nobody steals, as it's too ****ed dim to use in an apartment. We did a test run this past year with a tables worth of 7w
CFL's, to find out if actors complained about the color, with 2/3 of the lamps getting stolen.
Not pretty, but we had no issues over a season, having to simply replace occasional bulbs.
Steve Bailey
Brooklyn College