Antique Sconces, Modern Electrical

If you love historic sconces but have struggled with their size and how they can work with modern electrical, THIS POST IS FOR YOU.

Okay, so there is this amazing antique store / architectural salvage place in Indianapolis called Architectural Antiques of Indianapolis. This is the place that you go if you want to find 10 matching antique sconces, or a really rare lighting part that you need.

I had some sconces that would work for the studio, but I’m always looking for an excuse to look for more. And, I found these.

They are PERFECT. Look at that paint color on them that matches the walls to PERFECTION. They were a little pricier than I had hoped to spend (TOTALLY worth it for the quality of these pieces), but the owner also gave us a couple of switches, and he and Doug had a conversation about how to hang them.

Because there’s a problem. We’ll get to that in a minute. First, we need to re-wire!

Antique fixtures often have REALLY skinny arms, which makes modern wiring had to get through. We tied that pink strong to the the wire, and sucked the end of the string through the arms with a shop vac.

Yes. Seriously. It works.

Once the wires were through, the rest was a standard re-wire.

Remember how I said there was a problem? I hope you remember, because it was literally 2 pictures ago. Here’s the thing. Antique lighting didn’t have a common, modern day code to follow, and the shapes of fixtures don’t line up with modern electrical boxes. And as we said earlier, the wiring is so much thicker. These fixtures are VERY narrow, especially there the switch is, and we also didn’t quite have enough room to cover the electrical box or hold all the wiring. We brainstormed a LOT of solutions, but the one we settled on fits my philosophy of “make every problem into a feature!” We JUST needed a touch more space. Like, an eighth of an inch.

I grabbed some scrap 3/16″ plywood that we had, and proposed my idea to Doug. We make a platform for the sconces – essentially a backer to “make the wall thicker.” and frame it with leftover trim from the library bookcase.

Did I explain any more than this? Nope. I’m the idea gal. He’s the one that has to figure out the rest. But I knew it would be perfect. If you’re thinking I am crazy, hold on. I promise, this story ends SO WELL.

So – Doug went to working engineering a plan.

He made a template with the plywood, and cut out a hot where the back of the switch needed to lay – that was the biggest offender. The screw at the top is to mount the fixture from the box,

Here’s a closer look.

Then, we needed a little more room for the electrical wire. Doug chiseled out a little more space for it.

Next, a hole was cut for the electrical box. We got the smallest box we could!

Here’s the box, and the board held up to the wall. I used this to trace a line around the board onto the wallpaper.

Look closely – can you see the pencil lines?

Then, I used the pencil lines to match the pattern of the wallpaper. You can also see the outline of the sconce on the board, so we knew it was going to fit! BARELY.

Wallpaper next!

I just used modge podge for this part.

Once the glue was on, I put the wallpaper on, just on the front, since the trim will cover the sides. And gave it a good wipe down / press!

Next, I used a craft knife to cut the paper from the holes. 

The holes from the back were easy, and then the chiseled out part on the front was a little harder – both that and the screw holes I had to feel to find.

With the sconce!

Next up, I’ll show you how it installs and how MAGICAL it turned out!