Stop walking across a dark room to turn on the light. Install a 3-way switch and control lights from two locations.

That way, you’ll be sure to reconnect the wires correctly to the new switch. If you can’t kill the electricity, the switch box might be connected to a cable from a different circuit.

I wanted to replace a dingy three-way switch in our dining room with a new one. Now the light switching doesn’t work right. Sleeping on the couch is getting old. Help! – Rich ...

Below, Donnelly tells AD how to wire a light switch with this simple step-by-step process for a single-pole light switch without zapping yourself along the way.

In the diagram on the link they are using a three conductor cable after the first three way switch. Black, Red, and White with a separate ground.

Three-way switches are common at staircases, hallways or large rooms with multiple doorways. Most of the problems with these switches result from a miswired switch.

The simplest setup is to have just two three-way switches control one light. A three-way switch has three screws on it, plus the green grounding screw.

In this how-to, we’ll replace a single-pole switch with a C by GE Start Smart Switch Motion Sensing+Dimmer, but the process isn’t radically different for a multi-way circuit.