Eep. I'm a chicken when it comes to electricity. I'm afraid my advice would be to call an electrician!

Industrial electrician is a job title from my past and this definitely sounds like a job for a pro. In the meantime, your description suggests something systemic so use only what electricity you do have sparingly. Limit yourself to one extension cord if you need to light or power something in the areas without. I hope you have a gas kitchen stove. If it is electric, though, try to use it sparingly.

Also, you may have to eat some pride here, but I will bet the first place your electrician looks is at the light switch and the outlet you installed. I would tell you to look there first, but unless you have an electrical tester, I would not trust anything in your breaker box including the main switch.

The more I think of this, the more I think you may need to take extra precautions.

If you can live without power until you get an electrician, turn off the main breaker. If the breaker box ever feels warm or hot, especially after you turn off the main, you have a full-scale emergency.

Oh dear.

I have successfully replaced a number of light switches and outlets before, and it's not like that's even a complex or difficult job, so I find it so hard to believe they could be the problem. Although, strangely, I was not able to get them working and could not understand why. My assumption upon finding out that there were power issues in other parts of the house was that there was a larger problem triggered when I flipped the main switch.

I'll have to test the other outlet in the room, see if it's working, and check the breaker box to see if it feels hot at all.

Other outlet is working, and the breaker box feels nice and cool.

This is a stumper.

"my bedroom, the front hall, and the living room" - Are these three different circuits, do you know? If the breaker box, especially the main, feel cool, you should be alright. You brave enough to try changing out a breaker? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmWhDaF1cPU

The breaker box is set up (what seems to me) a little oddly. I tested and marked all the switches some time ago. There's no breaker specifically for these areas the bedroom, living room and hallway, though all the other areas do have their own switches - even the basement apartment bedroom.

So I'm not sure what good it would do to change any of the breakers. It's the main switch that operates these areas.

That does sound like an odd arrangement.

Guess I'll have to call in an electrician. Wah. Not an expense I'd budgeted for.

Yeah, it does suck when you need to call in pros, but...boy, electricity is a tough S.O.B. and I the minute my project deviates from standard, I get worried!

Is it possible that there is a sub-main somewhere that was installed at some stage as part of extension/renovation work? If so, it's possible that your work has caused it to trip - that would perfectly explain the symptoms you are getting.

My dad thinks my wiring within the outlet might be the problem. I did rewire the light switch three times so I'm sure it's right, but the outlet I only did once, so it's possible it's not connected properly. I'll work on it some more tonight and see if I can't get the power back.

...and everything's fixed!

There were two problems. One was that the breaker switch for the basement bedroom wouldn't quite switch into the on position - it was a little high. I switched it on and off twice and it wouldn't go. But it had been that way before so I thought it wouldn't be a problem. Tonight when I pressed on it, it snapped into the proper position promptly. And after that, the light switch started working.

But the outlet still didn't work. So I opened it up again, checked everything, and found the white wire could be pushed in a little further. Once I'd turned the power on again, the outlet was working. And when I came upstairs I found that I once again had power in the living room, lower hall, and my room. I'm thinking they might be on the same circuit as the basement bedroom and I just didn't realize that when I was testing and labelling. It would make some sense because they are all at the front of the house.

Anyway, problem solved without anyone getting electrocuted or the house burning down or me having to call in an electrician. Thanks for your advice and concern, all!

Yay!