Bringin' some barn lights back

RaysnCayne · May 23, 2012

Just wanted to share my salvage barn light treatment on my new garage with y'all.

I've always loved these lights. As a kid in the back of the family wagon, I recall seeing them hanging on well-worn barns as we criss-crossed the heartland. I searched around on ebay but found individual prices on these were a bit too much for my thin wallet. Fortunately, I found these three at a local antique dealer for $75. Still a bit much for me, but they were complete and in decent shape.

I pulled them apart and installed fresh wiring. I just loved how the sockets were designed to be fully serviced with little screws everywhere, no throw-way thinking there! I then gave them a good cleaning but didn't paint them b/c I'm a fan of original patina. I installed the smaller ones inside the eaves over each garage door. It took me no less than 4 tries to get the arm bent for the bigger one! (Hey, it was my first time with a conduit bender.) But it finally came out right and took its proper place over the man door.

The end result is a red/green combo that evokes a bit of Texaco or Sinclair gasolina feel. It looks really cool at night with the "mood lighting" on those bright red doors.

RivennHewn · May 24, 2012

Those look great!

I've got a similar fixture that I'd like to get working. It's got the angled mounting.

I don't have any other parts for it. What size bulb holder did you use? Any chance for a pict or two of the misc hardware pieces you used to make the connections for mounting?

olytdi · May 24, 2012

Very very nice! I did pick-up an old light on ebay that I mounted as my man door fixture. I think they really add class and they're also warmly nastalgic.

RaysnCayne · May 24, 2012

RivennHewn, I'm sure with a bit of resourcefulness at the local home big box store, you could come up with some internals to make those shades into functional lights. Might look into simply seeing if you can put the shades over some basic exterior lights? This is why I wanted complete lights. They designed 'em right the first time and I didn't want the challenge of re-engineering.

As for mounting pics, I don't have any handy. The garage door lights were just screwed into exterior metal receptacle boxes that I mounted on the trusses up above/behind the soffit.

The man door arm mount is a bit trickier. I wanted as much support as I could get. So I threaded the arm into the back of a circular, exterior-grade, metal junction box that's mounted on the inside of the wall. So the arm goes through the sheathing, then through a 2x6 (screwed to the inside of the sheathing) then into the box. That way, the arm has some good support and the cover plate of the box is flush with my interior wall sheathing so I can easily access the box if the need ever arises.

kngkong · May 24, 2012

Nice job! Your garage exterior looks really good with those lamps. Really like the curved mount you made.

Sureshot · May 24, 2012

Those turned out great. I also like the man door with the windows above.

reddog289 · May 24, 2012

Thanks for sharing this. Good Job!

bberger · May 24, 2012

Just picked up a fewmyself.
Would like to hear how you
wired them and what sockets and bulbs you used.

CitadelBlue · May 24, 2012

These are great "new" well made lights

http://www.amazon.com/American-Fluor-YL108-4-Round-Light/dp/B0009J1I12

RaysnCayne .... what kind of bulbs are you using?

BlackheartMotors · May 24, 2012

Great looking lights, they add a nice flair to the outside.

KCarGuy · May 24, 2012

I Love those Lights.
Your Garage looks Great.

rburke65 · May 24, 2012

Really like your red garage doors. Nice job.

Falcon67 · May 24, 2012

Boy, you stole those things. Great job! I want one for my man door.

RaysnCayne · May 24, 2012

Thanks for the positive comments guys. Several of my buds said I was wasting money and time buying "old, junk lights" when I could just go to Lowes and spend half as much on exterior lighting without any restoration time. But when I finally got these up, it was all worth it. Even won some of them over.

I dug deeper into the archives and it turns out I do have a couple relevant pics.

Some close ups of the lights. You'll see I just used those little escutcheons for plumbing (I did go to Lowes after all!) to act as a nice faux mount for the arms. Cheap and effective. Note, I'm just using regular ol' clear light bulbs - nothing fancy or exterior-grade.

I did find a good shot of the box mount for the man door light. The lamp arm screws into the back of the box and uses that little spacer, a 2x6 and the sheathing as support. So it's in there real strong. The little spacer pushes the box out flush with my interior paneling. Perfect for servicing.

And those that have asked, I did nothing fancy or exotic when it came to wiring them up. I simply tore them all apart, unscrewed the enamel sockets, cleaned the corrosion off the copper parts within the sockets, put new 14 gauge wires in and put them back together. They worked like a charm.

Falcon67 · May 25, 2012

I'm thinking about hacking one of these with some pipe and paint

http://www.lowes.com/pd_269908-2121-269908_4294796693+5003698_4294937087_?productId=1240043&Ns=p_product_qty_sales_dollar|1&pl=1¤tURL=%2Fpl_25%2B50_4294796693%2B5003698_4294937087_%3FNs%3Dp_product_qty_sales_dollar|1&facetInfo=$25%20-%20$50

RaysnCayne · May 25, 2012

I saw those at Lowes Chris. Well, no, I didn't see that version, just the smaller, exterior wall sconce versions. They're certainly nice and probably cheaper than $25/each that I paid. But I'm sure those lights are made in China and I wanted something made in the USA.

I realize it's somewhat silly but I wanted lights that had a heritage. Maybe ones that were on one of those old barns I saw in my youth. The Lowes lights are nice, but with a little perseverance, I'm sure you could find/restore some "real" vintage barn lights. It's a small thing, but trust me, it's good for the soul when you bring back a piece of working-class Americana.

930dreamer · May 25, 2012

The lights look great. :thumbup:

Falcon67 · May 25, 2012

>I realize it's somewhat silly but I wanted lights that had a heritage.
Nothing silly at all about that. I've had my eye out for some but haven't seen a single one around here yet.

We used one of the little ones from Lowes as a over sink fixture in the old house. Since the bath was done in bead board with square "farm house" like trim, I thought it was a perfect tweak. You really have to shop around for this stuff - the little China made light we used in the bath was like $25 at Lowes and I've seen the same light in specialty lighting shops/online for $70 or more.

JakeKohl · May 25, 2012

Those lights really do look incredible - nicely done.

gabedad · May 25, 2012

Those are cool. I looked around for a while for those. They were too pricey with the ones i found

I ended up with these. I painted them green to match my roof

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003TQLO4I/?tag=atomicindus08-20

I really like the glass domes around the bulb

eljefino · May 25, 2012

Great choice on the clear bulbs. I can just imagine flies buzzing around them on a lazy summer evening with a ball game on the radio and distant thunder in the background.

RaysnCayne · May 25, 2012

The man door is on a motion sensor and the overhead garage lights are on a switch. So they probably won't be on too much in the evenings if I can help it. If the clear lights do bring in the bugs, you can bet I'll be changing them out for some yellow ones or something real fast. Kind of like summer and winter tires, I'll have summer and winter bulbs.

Falcon67 · May 25, 2012

>If the clear lights do bring in the bugs...

We are under siege from flies, mosquitoes, moths and misc bugs because of the mild winter. I have been sweeping 10~20 dead bugs out of the shop daily - and the shop is closed up all the time. I'll slip inside in the evening and there's 4-5 dead flies on the bench and dead moths on the floor. The only openings are the roof vents.

aar0s · May 26, 2012

my dad found this one for me at a shop for 25 bucks today,

looks very much like the ones you used. Im on the hunt now thanks to your thread.

slip knot · May 27, 2012

Very nice. I like the vintage look. A lot of folks around here have taken up on the vintage look and its hard to find older fixtures for cheap.

andrewsnmorgan · May 27, 2012

Sharp!! Man I am jealous of those doors!

HOTFR8 · May 27, 2012

They look good.

Norcal · May 27, 2012

Just a FYI, those plumbing escutcheons will rust, they have been the bane of my existence when used behind water closets, (toilets), & as they are in a wet location, they will do the same.

Outlander · May 27, 2012

wonderful lighting project...I really like the effect.

5lima30 · May 30, 2012

Very classy looking!

RaysnCayne · May 31, 2012

Those plumbing escutcheons will rust as they are in a wet location.

I know what you mean all too well. Our first house had some rusting issues with these things. But there's almost always a moisture issue every day (steamy showers) in a bathroom - not to mention water flowing right by them. But in this application outside there's much more fresh air and dry spells (though it does rain and get humid in the summer, of course).

I scuffed and sprayed all of my escutcheons liberally with Eastwood's Aluma Blast paint. I left it at that for the ones under the eave b/c I figured they're out of the weather for the most part. The escutcheon, arm and washer/nut on the man door light was then coated with clear coat so as to further combat rust.

I feel between those measures, I should stave off rusting for a good while. But if they do rust, as I said earlier, I like patina. It'll give the garage some street cred.

Kevin54 · May 31, 2012

Those lights look fantastic. Instead of turning them off at night just put them on a dimmer.

As far as the escutcheon rusting, you could have shot it with some clear. You could still do it without tearing it apart. Just pick a calm day and tape around it and give it a couple of coats.

We have a light up on the wifes building that looks like the old smaller lights that had the metal guards around the globe. We had to take the globe out and just leave the bulb as you did. In a couple of nights the globe would be half full of small nightly bugs. Now the bugs just fly around and drop whereas they now become toad food. The toads know where to go and it's not unusual to have two or three at night coming in for dinner

Zeke · Jun 2, 2012

Love the lights and the garage.

laptops4college · Jun 3, 2012

Nice innovation! Hmm.. I'll try this to my garage also. Everything looks like a new one.

klkruser · Jun 5, 2012

I have three very similar ones I am doing (see my thread on my build) how did you bend the goosenecks. I bought (then returned) a hand pipe bender but it was next to im possible to achieve that bend. I bought (then returned) a cheap harbor freight style hydraulic unit...bent like ****, so currently thinking straight arms....

RaysnCayne · Jun 5, 2012

Ahh... you hit on the biggest challenge of this whole deal. Bending that one goosneck was a real bear for sure! I burnt up two $15, 10' sticks of conduit to get my one 4' gooseneck! :willy_nil

I too bought and returned a bender. The problem was the only one Lowes had in stock was 1" and my conduit was 1/2". So I was finding my radius was way too big. Fortunately, an electrician at my church kindly loaned me his 3/4" bender for a weekend and I got the tight radius I was after.

The other problem is that Lowes and HD can't thread this pipe for you unless it's straight for 2' or better. So I had to have it cut to length and threaded on both ends. That made it a real big challenge to get my bends just right!

On the fourth try, I was almost done with the last bend, but I had to position the bender in such a way that it tore off the thin, threaded end. Grrr!

So, make sure you got the right size bender and have it threaded before you go at it. I made a wire mock-up of the arm so I knew just where my bends needed to be placed.

FarmerSid · Jun 6, 2012

Anybody have idea where I could buy a few of these in Canada? I'm in eastern Ontario and none of the box stores has them. A lighting store could get them but at $200 plus! Not gonna happen! I'm looking for fixtures like those in the 4th picture in the original post.

gricegear · Jun 5, 2014

Good info here. I'm getting ready to "rebuild" some for my garage like you did. They are from the Packard Plant in Detroit so I don't want to mess with them too much other than to function properly. I probably have 10 to hang up inside my garage and a couple for outside. Gonna run conduit like yours. Nice thread.

Colin Len · Jun 5, 2014

I know this is an old thread, but love the look and glad I stumbled on it now that it's been bumped from a couple years back. Gives me a great idea for the entry door on my garage.

To add to the list of options for anyone else seeing these... I actually saw similar lamps at Ikea over the weekend. GF was suggesting them for over the dining table in my new house. Obviously they're Ikea, so they might not be cut out for a more industrial situation, but who knows, some Ikea stuff is actually great, and considering they are so cheap you could always hack 'em and do something custom. I mean hell, Jack uses some cake pans as light shades in his 12 Gauge Garage :lol_hitti

Super cheap and multiple colors available:
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80237310/

Similar but bigger:
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80216534/

A different look I thought was neat (and actually saw at a local restaurant recently)
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/70148531/

Bringin' some barn lights back

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