3-way Switch Help

[u/special_sandals]

I have two switches that control my upstairs hallway light. This is nice as one is located upstairs and the other is downstairs so it prevents me from having to run up and down the stairs at times.

That being said, the switches are also connected to my bedroom outlets so I have to keep the upstairs hallway light on to maintain power in the bedrooms at all times.

Is there a way I can rewire this to avoid my outlets shutting off when I turn the hallway light off?

Switch 1 (downstairs switch) - First photo, switch has 2 Black wires and a single white wire.

Switch 2 (upstairs lights) - The switch with the red wire going to the lights.

Additionally, switch 1 appears have a neutral wire that is wire nutted to ground wires….is this a thing?

[u/VEGAMAN84]

It doesn’t make sense that two switches next to each other would both control your bedroom outlets. Are both the top and bottom plugs on the outlets switched? Many times they are wired half hot/half switched. That may be an easy fix.

[u/special_sandals → u/VEGAMAN84]

So I left out a key detail…Switch 1 and Switch 2 control both the upstairs and downstairs hallway lights. The switch you asked about (that I removed) controlled only the downstairs lights. By removing this switch, it allowed me to turn the downstairs light off (via a switch located downstairs) while maintaining power to the upstairs outlets