Changing out light switches & outletts.

QuestionEdit

Sounds simple enough to change out the light switches and outlets right? So although I am a female with no skills or training in home improvements I play the Bob Villa role when I have to as it is necessary to maintain a home and I am the only one around to do so. I just had my bathroom floor replaced because it was rotted out and had new carpet installed in my 3 bedrooms. My house is about 940 sq ft and 30 +/- a few years old. There are no ceiling light so the light switch is connected to one outlet in each room. So before the new carpet was installed I painted the 3 bedrooms and the old outlets were pretty ugly and...well, just ugly. Also the trim on the master bedroom door was so close to the light switch half the plate had been cut off to put a cover over the switch. So I ripped of the trim because I can always put up smaller trim. Now comes the fun part...replacing the switch. I bought new switches %26 outlets at home depot and after replacing the switch and finding the new switch was not working I came to the conclusion that I seem to have gotten the wrong voltage for the light switch...ok, I can deal with that later. I then verified I got the correct voltage for the outlets. During the process of switching out the switch I learned that my master bedroom seems to be on the same circuit (or breaker) as my bathroom and my refrigerator. I think that's weird but what do I know. So I put back the old switch and everything returned to normal. So I move on to the 1st outlet in the master bedroom and I switch it out with no problem getting power to both plug-ins of that outlet...but I have lost the power to my bathroom and fridge. So I checked the other outlets in the master bedroom and I have power to the plug-in connected to the light switch but not the other plug-in on that outlet or any of the other outlets in that room. So I talked to an electrician who said pull out the outlet that has power to the switch and no power to the other plug-in and see if anything looks out of place. Well, I see a red wire that just happened to be hot with the breaker off...so it appears that there is another circuit wired into this outlet, right? So Basically what I am saying is I can't afford a real electrician...or even a handyman for that matter. So can you tell me what I need to do to fix this problem? I am not being cheap, I swear...I am just flat out broke.

AnswerEdit

Kylan

    I'm very sorry,i just don't have the time to cover all of these problems perhaps you could send me the most important ones and i worry about a novice getting hurt by something i suggested, if you could break these down and add a little more clarity to them i could do something for you. Try to send them in the order that the problems happened and what you did to each to try to fix it!
                             Thank you!