Outdoor Lights – DIY Makeover

Low Cost Makeover

Our outdoor house lights were in need of a replacement or makeover real bad. They looked terrible. The brass on the light fixtures was all wearing off.  I actually thought one of the lights had caught on fire at some point because it was so black looking.

Enter the terrible house lights.  Two of the four. These two were by the garage, and there are two more by the front door.

We went to Home Depot to look for new lights. Hubby picked out some gosh awful ugly ones that were only $30 for two. (No wonder they were so cheap, no one liked them).  Of course the ones I liked were all over $50 a piece. We certainly weren’t in the mood to spend over $200 on the outdoor lights.

So I thought, if I am redoing other items in the house with spray paint, why can’t I redo these lights too? So Dave took them all down for me and I disassemble them.

I first used primer and primed everything.

I gave them 2 coats each.

Dave wanted me to get the spray paint that gave the stone appearance.  Why not?

It was so strange going on. I felt like I was spraying a thick sand on the lights.  This was the first coat.

I painted all the little screws that would show and the backs etc.

Notice this picture?  It was one of the ones in the guessing game post.

The pieces of glass were so dirty.

Each light had five panels of glass.  I used ammonia and water to clean them.

I sprayed on two coats.

Putting these suckers back together was not real easy.  I’m sure there was probably an easier way, but I didn’t know of it. I used two of the triplets to hold and the third to grab the pieces.

Each one was a little easier than the first though.

I then used a Stone Sealer spray that was recommended.

Here is the finished products.

I think it came out great.  I never minded the shape of the light, just the worn off brass finish.

Now to get them hung back up.

I was a little concerned because up close it didn’t really seem to match that great. But from a distance it blends in just fine.

I was really happy how they turned out.  Instead of spending $75 on lights that I thought were really ugly, or spending well over $200 on lights that I liked – we spend about $24  (the primer, paint and sealer were all around $8 each)

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