On 04 Jan 2004, Phil Anderson wrote:

Recently I moved into a century old rowhouse. I discovered
that turning off the ceiling light in the small living room
turned off almost every wall outlet in the room as well.
Someone with an EE degree tried to fix it, but could not.

As God is my witness, this is not being typed with a sarcastic
or malicious tone, but: THAT WAS YOU MISTAKE.

Call an ELECTRICIAN (or "Home Handyman").

He concluded it would require taking out some wall to find
the problem area. I don't really want to do that.

It's very much likely that he was wrong. Absolute worst case
you MIGHT need a new wire fished through the walls. An
electrician knows how to do that without "taking out a wall".

I would like to leave the switch on at all times

You shouldn't have to do that to use your electrical outlets.

and replace
the light fixture (which is cheap and unattractive anyway)
with something I can turn off and on another way. I would
prefer not to have a pull chain hanging in the middle of the
room. What are my choices here?

Unless you're tall enough to reach the new fixture, not many.

How can I turn such a
light off and on remotely and leave the outlets hot? And
where do I look for such products?

Your electrician (or "Home Handyman" who knows electrical)
will find and fix the hack job probably done by some previous
owner, and you won't need to. Before you call them, go to
The Home Depot or Lowe's and buy your new light fixture, pay
no attention to the "need" for an alternative way of turning
it on and off, you won't have to. Have your electrician/home
handyman replace the old one for you while they're fixing the
hacked-up switch/outlets.

--
Baisez-les s'ils ne peuvent pas prendre une plaisanterie
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Tom Pendergast e-mail is for sissies, say it on line