I think I've figured how to get power to my porch lights. What I've done so far is run a piece of 14/2 from the switch that fed one light, and cut off the wire that fed the other light. The idea is that two 3-way switches will control both lights. But recently we decided we wanted a ceiling fan under the porch, ideally with its own light. That means I either need to replace the 14/2 with 14/3 so I can run always-live and switched-live wires outside, or wire things so the fan is only available when the lights are on. Neither is an attractive proposition so I've been thinking about how to get the cable points I need to the lights from somewhere else, and I think I've come up with something that will not only work but might be achievable in the very short term. It involves running lots of 14/3 under the floor of our bedroom, to feed the light in the dining room (and the ceiling fan, once that gets put in). Along the way it will mean we can control the light from all the entrances to the room, which will be a nice benefit. I'll need to drill a hole through the outside wall to run a piece of 14/3 from the new switches to the new porch fan but then can run 14/2 from there to the other lights. It will mean the fan is always live so the chain will activate it, and two 3-way switches will control three lights on the porch. Then I can recover most of the 14/2 I already ran out there and use it somewhere else. It will probably require a little bit of rejigging the wiring I've done between the two 3-way switches but that's trivial compared to the rest of the work.
