After moving our vintage ampersand sign to the back porch, it gave me newfound motivation to get it lit.
It’s oddlooking at this photo, because in person it doesn’t look as off-center.
We have birthday parties coming up. And Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and our Anniversary… so I found myself at Party City where, of all places, I found clear globe lights with a white cord. I’ve been looking for these since buying the sign and now the week I move it, I find these below the Minnie Mouse gloves & vampire teeth.
Best of all for my purposes, the lights have flat bottoms.
And clips to hold onto extra cord.
So I set about opening the light back up and installing this string of lights using heavy duty double-sided foam adhesive mounting tape. Don’t waist your time on the wimpy white stuff. Order the good stuff here or look in the paint department (not the picture hanging department, mind you) of your local big box.
With the cover off, our light looks like this:
I cut little squares of mounting tape and stuck them on the bottom of each light.
Starting near the hold in the back (for a wire to come in), I spaced the lights out as evenly as made sense and mounted them by removing the backing from the tape.
I them cut off the plug and connected it to a 6 ft white extension cord (with it’s female plug cut off) with wire nuts that I ran through the hold in the back of the sign.
And then I added a switch about 10 inches down the cord.
Beautiful!
With the cover replaced, the light is diffused and it looks like one solid light.
And now the light is back in it’s new home outside where it’s giving a warm glow to the porch in the evenings.
This could be done in a board cut any shape with a zig saw and the glob lights left exposed as well. Or maybe around your favorite rectangular sign? I’d love to see your projects if this inspires you.