DIY Barn Wood Light Fixture

I believe this is the fourth post I've done all about our newly remodeled entry hall and there is still so much to do!  Today its all about the lighting.  Just a note before we get started, as usual when I say "we" in this post, I mostly mean my honey because he's the one who does most of the work.  I'm just his helper!

Since before we moved in and scraped all the popcorn ceilings off, the light fixture in here was literally dangling by the wiring, from the ceiling with no type of covering over the bulb.....not even joking.....yall, that was 6 years ago!

Sorry, I didn't snap a before picture but just imagine an old shiny brass fixture with ceiling spackle all over it just hanging there from its wires.  Yep, that was it! Lovely, huh?

Anywho.....we used blue painters tape to get to the size of fixture we wanted.  After a few attempts, we ended up with a 28" x 14" fixture.

Next we went out to our stash of wood, we have lots.  This wood is special though, its over 100 years old and it came from my honey's family's barn.  Its very rustic and that's how we like it!  Read more about that HERE.  We chose one piece for the base and one for the sides.

This is the mini pendant light set up we bought at Lowe's in French Bronze.  If you click HERE you can see that we totally disassembled it to create our light.  While we were at Lowe's, we also picked out 3 light shades too.  Click HERE to see the details on those.  We got them for 1/2 price. Bargain!

This fixture is basically a very shallow box.  It's just deep enough to allow for the wiring inside.  First we cut the base down to size.  Allowing for the sides, it ended up being 12-1/2" wide by 26-1/4" long.

Next using the smaller piece of wood he made the sides, or the part that would be closest to the ceiling.  This wood is 3/4" thick.  (2) of them are cut at 28" long x 2" tall and (2) of them are cut at 14" long x 2" tall.

We used the chop saw set on the 45 degree angle to form the corners so that they would meet up like a frame for the base.

We used gorilla wood glue along the edges were wood touches wood.  This helps hold everything firm and secure.

We held everything together using our nail gun being careful to stay right on the line where the two wood pieces met.

Next we took it in to see if the box fit in our space.  Of course it did!  We loved it and ,moved on to the next step, wiring the pendants in.

We used a 3/8" drill bit to make three holes for the wire to thread through.  We found the center of the box and made one hole there and then center again between the first hole and the edge for each end hole.

Like I said earlier, we disassembled the pendant light we bought.  These are the little pieces (strain relief connectors, I looked that up for us. lol!) that held the wiring to the metal base originally.  We used more wood glue to lock them in place.

After those fittings had dried and were tight, we threaded the wiring through and cut them to length.  This will be your own preference of course.  Just make sure you leave yourself enough length to work with so you get the look you want.

The next step was documented with a picture, but it was very blurry and I didn't want to use it, sorry about that!  That's what I get for not wearing my glasses.  Grrrrr!
But what we did was use the little clear plastic fitting that originally held the wiring in place on the store bought fixture to make sure the wire would stay in place against the wood on the inside of the box.  It made the wire unable to slip, or in other words, it held on to the wire so it couldn't move around or pull through from the outside..

As for the actual wiring together of the pendants, after stripping the covering off the ends of each wire, join all white wires together and join all black wires together.  I didn't get step by step pictures on this part because my honey does this daily and I couldn't keep up to be honest, but go HERE for an excellent tutorial on all that wiring stuff.  Thanks Suesan!

Here's what it looked like and the lengths of each pendant light when he was finished.  The center is 10" long and the ends are 7" long.

Of course I couldn't snap pictures of the step where we connected the fixture to the ceiling because I was helping hold up this heavy monster up so my honey could wire it up (making sure the power is OFF!) and get it screwed into the ceiling securely.  We used two screws that measured 2 1/2" long to hold the fixture to the ceiling.  Please make sure you're screwing into a stud board or your beautiful creation will come down and that would be awful!

This is what the entry hall looks like in natural light that comes in through the front door.

This is how it looks with the new light fixture turned on.  I picked out three 60 watt LED bulbs in the natural light version.  I love it and can't stop looking at it!

Have you ever made your own light fixture? If so, what kind did you make?

Want to see what else we've done in our Entry Hall Makeover?
Porcelain Wood Look Tile Floor
Builder Grade Door Makeover
DIY Perfect Baseboards

It doesn't have to be done all at once.  It is a slow process in the works! C-ya next time!

I'm Linking to:
These lovely and FUN parties!
Between Naps on the Porch
The Dedicated House  - (I was featured)