While the Senate on the second floor has mostly larger spaces than its old offices, many with windows, the House, on the ground floor, is partly underground. Longtime staffers sit in dark, windowless offices. To save energy, rooms have movement sensors, the lights turning off if someone leaves the room. But still-sitting employees have found the lights go off if they are just quiet for a time. "You'll be at your desk and the lights go off. I have to wave my hands around to get the lights back on," said one employee.

Kitchen facilities off the chambers are smaller and not near caucus meeting rooms. Expect a lot of spilled lunches as legislators crowd around to get their meals and move to eating stations, employees say.

Small private bathrooms in both the House and Senate offices are awkwardly located next to secretarial stations. Poorly insulated, "you don't want to do anything in there you don't want an audience outside to hear," one employee said.

Both houses' chambers will be converted to offices once lawmakers move back into the Capitol. Accordingly, there are double glass exit doors on both sides of the Senate president's podium in that small, 29-member chamber. The public can walk up outside stairs to a west-facing balcony and look through the doors at senators debating bills not 10 feet away.

"There will likely have to be some kind of security" outside the doors, said one employee, to keep away protesters or others who may want to disrupt Senate action by chanting slogans and pointing at senators as they sit in their chambers.

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