[Help] Tried to install a dimmer switch and now my outlets don't work. Please help me figure out what I did wrong.

Before I begin, the power is OFF at the breaker in all of these pictures. It's still off right now. No worries. Also, I'm in America.

I bought a single dimmer switch (TGCL-153PH-WH) to replace one of my lightswitches and thought it would be a simple job that I could handle without any electrical knowledge at all (I've done ceiling fans, so I thought this would be similar or easier). But as it turns out, it's not a simple "put the wires in the same spot as they were on the old switch" sort of job. I even read the instructions, but they're not the best instructions I've ever seen (the most electrical work I've ever done is installing a few of those "5-minute fans" that spell out the instructions for complete retards like me).

I connected the wires to where I thought they should logically go and when I put the power back on, the dimmer switch worked fine, but now all the outlets in the room no longer work. Googling my problem led me to this page, and so it sounds like my problem is that the "feed through hot" is not properly connected. I'm sure that's electrician lingo for something, but it sounds like I broke the circuit that feeds through from the lightswitch to all the outlets.

Here are some pictures of what I'm dealing with.

• There's two black wires and one copper wire (it's painted white further up, but I'm pretty sure it's still ground) coming from the wall
• There's one black wire coming from the light switch plate in the middle
• There's 3 lugs and one green wire coming from the dimmer switch

The way I had it set up before was:

• Copper wire and green wire together in a wire nut
• Two black wires from the wall around the two lugs on the right side of the dimmer switch.
• Black wire from the middle lightswitch around the single lug on the left side of the dimmer switch.

When I turned the power back on, the dimmer switch and the lights it controlled worked fine, but the outlets in the rest of the room don't. Where did I go wrong and how do I fix it?

Also, if you need more pictures, please let me know and I will quickly accomodate.

Submitted July 30, 2015 at 06:19PM by libbykino http://ift.tt/1H64s1Q