"IanJ" wrote
| If the switch near the wall was turned on upon entry to
| the room, could I turn the ceiling lights off from the
| bedside controls?

You can get dimmers that allow multi-point control, usually a central dimmer
pack and then up/down buttons. Maplin used to have a touch dimmer project
that allowed 2 touch pad locations, but seems to no more.

However they have a Velleman kit K8208 (Maplin N82AA) which is a
microcontrolled multi-function dimmer, features include * 13 different
functions eg slow on/off dimmer * operate from several locations, parallel
connection of push buttons * suitabel for resistive and inductive loads,
high-voltage halogen, low-voltage halogen with ferromagnetic transformer *
2.5A / 600W max load. Thirty squids.

You could also look at the cheaper K8007 (Maplin RE02C) which has pushbutton
up/down control - don't know if there's a reason why you couldn't parallel
up their pushbuttons.

Both on page 628 of Maplin catalogue or maplin.co.uk

Owain