Let There Be Light...In the Driveway

The first task when we moved into the house was to de-gold/brass it. Trust me, this house had enough faux gold to be a Mr. T look-alike. It was both tacky and tarnished, and just plain ugly. Check out the casa page for some pre-us photos and all of it's goldness.

We completed that mission with ease inside the house, but there were two stragglers that remained - the outside lights by the garage. Let me show you how ugly they are.

I don't know why we haven't already replaced those sad lights. Shame on us for being bad home owners and not completing a mission 100%. But, I do need to defend myself for a second - I bought lights to replace the worn-out, grungy gold lights; however, the base was not large enough to cover the hole where the lights are, leaving a space all the way around the base of the new lights, so these were returned. (A small space is visible around the base of the old lights in the photo above.) Anyways, the old lights finally quit working. Not a light bulb-is-burned-out kinda quit. A flat out dead-as-a-door-nail, never-coming-alive-again quit working. And this is a good thing because now we had to replace them, which is exactly what we did.

This was an easy project for me...I just helped the hubby, who is an electrician by trade. He had both lights changed out in 10 minutes. Gotta love a handy hubby!

First I turned off the breaker so there wouldn't be any power going to the light. Then he removed the old lights, which was disgusting! The hole for the wires was filled with dead bugs and wasp nests. Eww!!

After cleaning up the holes, it was time to wire up the new lights. Yup, I just held the light while he did all the work.

And just like the other lights I bought which were too small, so are these. The bases are not large enough and leave a hole around the edge. I don't know about you, but I don't want dead bugs and wasps living behind my lights, so we need to fix the gap. This is done by using a caulk gun and mortar repair in a tube.

 

Here is a new light. Much better. And if you look closely, you can see the wet mortar filling in the holes.

It cost about $30 for the pair of lights, on sale at Lowe's. Also, the lights have a photo cell which enable them to automatically come on when it gets dark and turn off at dusk. This was a very easy upgrade that added some major curb appeal. I think the de-gold mission is 100% complete now!

Any experience changing out light fixtures? Are you on a de-gold mission at your house?