Electrical Wiring – How to Wire Always-On Outlet from Light Fixture

Simply cap off the red wire at the receptacle and the switch, using a twist-on wire connector. Then replace the receptacle with a new one, that doesn't have the tab broken between the ungrounded (hot) terminals. On the new receptacle, connect only the black, white, and ground wires.

Now the receptacle will always be hot, and the switch will be unused. This will allow you to use the switch for your new lights instead. Just connect the black wire going to your lights to the switch, and the white to the other white wires in the box.

To explain a bit:

Both travelers (Red and Black) must be continuous from the first to the second switch. Then from the second switch you would connect the non-traveler (now the switched wire) to each outlet.

If the outlets are along the path of the travelers then that means that each outlet will have 4 wires (+ground): the neutral, the switched wire and the 2 travelers.

Convention for the color codes in the switches are

• red and marked white = traveler.
• black = switched wire
• white = neutral.

current code also requires you to pull the neutral to the second switch (left capped off if not used) as future proofing for when you want to connect a timer or motion sensor.