Lighting, Light Fixtures, Ceiling and Exhaust Fans - Ceiling Fixture HELP

First off, I was stupid and did NOT write down the wiring system prior to making the ceiling fixture change, had I done so I'm sure that I would not be having this problem. Yes I made the first mistake of electrical wiring. The second is being so stupid in thinking I knew what I was doing. With that said I am now seeking your help knowing that I am up for ridicule.

I am replacing an existing ceiling light with a new one. (The previous one stopped working.) In the ceiling I have three white, three black, and one ground, however it looks like there are three grounds that are tied together to make one.) Each white and black are housed in a "Sheath?", I think that's what it's called. My new light fixture has two white and two black wires. One black and one white for what I can only assume is for each light bulb. After several blinded attempts at hooking up the light I now have, with the breaker on, my light working. It turns on when I flip the light switch and it turns off when I turn the light switch off. The problem is that on that same circuit I also have another ceiling light in the hall way, lights and outlets in my garage, my garage door, and a refrigerator in the garage all of which do not work now. My new light does work but everything else on the circuit does not. Please advise me as to what I can do to fix the problem.

I currently have it hooked up as such. I have labeled all of my wires by A, B, and C, going in counterclockwise direction. A, being one white and one black in the ceiling, B and C are the same as A. Through trial and error I found out that I think I have a switch loop because in some instances when I turned the breaker back on the light remained on but the light switch to that light did not work nor did anything else work on the circuit. I hooked the light up in another fashion and nothing worked no light, no switch, nothing on the circuit. Thus now I have it so at least the new light fixture in question is working. In all scenarios the ground wire from the ceiling has always been secured under the ground screw on the light fixture mounting bracket. Currently I have my light fixture white wires capped with ceiling white wire C, light fixture black wires capped with ceiling black wire A, and the remaining ceiling wires capped together, A and B white, B and C black. PLEASE ADVISE, and put it in as lame as terms as possible. As you can tell I have done numerous lame things.

I've done much stupidier/crazier things before.

Ok, three cables (black/white/ground togehter in a covering) means that you have a power in, power out, and the switch cable. It sounds like you've already figured out which cable does what.

Try connecting like this:
Connect power in white, power out white, and light fixture whites together.
Connect power in black, power out black, and switch cable white together-mark this one black to show it's being used as a "hot" wire.
Connect light fixture blacks and switch cable black together.
Connect all grounds together, if the box is metal-ground it also, as well as the light fixture (according to the directions that came with it).

Since you said that you've lost some outlets in the garage, check for and reset all the GFCI's in this circuit. Look in the garage, kitchen, bathrooms, outside (front and back), basement and behind any boxes and furniture, etc. The outlets are there, you just need to find and reset them.

Everything should work now. I hope this helped!

THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH. It worked the first time. You have no idea how thankfull I am. I'm an independant female who hates to ask for help. You saved me. I'm installing a ceiling fan next. Any words of advice?

1) Make sure that the electrical box is well supported, so it can hold up up the fan. Ask around in any hardware store, now they have replacement boxes that will install from the bottom without cutting up the cieling. If you're not sure, then I'd suggest replacing the old electrical box with a new fan-rated box.

2) I'd remove the switch's cover and see how things are wired. What you trying to figure out is if power comes in at the switch or at the cieling-like the other fixture was wired. Generally, if there's one cable with a black and white at the switch, then power comes in at the cieling(switch loop). If there's at least 2 cables with two black wires on the switch, then power comes in at the switch. Why do you want to know this? Because if you have a switch loop, then any dimmer or remote that needs a nuetral wire won't work. Also, with power at the switch, it may limit you on how the fan will operate-without running new cables. The switch will usually end up controlling both the light and fan motor.

Your house may be pre-wired for a fan at the light's location, especially in a newer home. This means that you can control the fan with one switch and the light with the other.

It's possible to replace the wall-box with a double-gang box to make room for another switch. You'd also need to replace the old cable between the fan and light box with a 14/3 or 12/3 cable. This has red,white,black and ground wires in it. The fan motor is powered from the black wire, light from the blue, adn white is nuetral for both. This gives you 2 switches, one for the light, one for the motor. (or a dimmer and a switch, dimmer and fan speed control). You don't want to run the fan motor from a normal dimmer! It will eventually damage the motor.

3) Related to the above, how would you like the fan and/or light to operate? What I mean is, what do you want the wall switch to do with the fan? Turn everything ( both fan and light) on/off? Just the light, using pull chains for the motor? Don't care about wall switch-will use a remote control?

4) Buy a quality fan. You will have less trouble with wobble, less noise and longer life. Hunter is pretty good (IMO).

5) That's about it. I hope this helped!