Thanks for the feedback. I plan on putting the washing machine on its own 20 amp circuit, the rest of the receptacles (except dryer) on a different 20 amp circuit (and GFI them), the lights will be on the same circuit as the adjoining family room, and the outdoor outlets (I'm adding a second one) will have their own circuit (and be on GFI). It's a little more wire and a $6.00 breaker -- no big deal. Again, thanks for all the help.

The plastic old work box you install has a plastic retainer piece that holds the wire as it enters the box. In most cases that is all that is needed as long as you are running the wire vertically up between the studs to an outlet higher in the wall. Bruce

> The best I can get is when I turn on the light switch the light turns on, > but the outlet is off. And when I turn the light switch off the outlet turns on. It's kind of academic anyway since this won't work, but you might find it interesting to know why not. The receptacle you wired across the switch that seemed to be on when the light was off wasn't really. More like maybe "half-on." When the switch is off, the receptacle is in series with the light. That means that the electricity has to go through the receptacle to get to the light (and vice versa). As a result, the light and anything plugged in divide your house's 120 volts between them. How they divide the voltage depends on which one wants more power. A neon receptacle tester uses only a tiny bit of power, so if you plug one in, it will get all the voltage and leave almost none for the light. Thus you'll think the receptacle is live. But if you plug in an appliance that uses any significant amount of power, say 100 Watts or so, the light will go on (though it may be dim), and the appliance won't get the right voltage. Depending on how much electricity the appliance is trying to use, either the appliance won't work at all, it won't work right, or it might even be damaged. So the bottom line is that you'll have to pull a new cable to the box to feed your receptacle.

The garage GFI requirement is a problem for both refrigerators and freezers -- in fact anything that you need to have powered all the time, but don't check every day. I plug a night light into another receptacle on the same breaker as my garage freezer, one where it catches my eye when I go in the service door. If it goes out, I know to check the freezer. You can also buy power failure alarms -- just search online.