Let there be Light

Since the day I bought my house, there has aways been this funny rattle every time you open or close my front door. The rattle was quickly diagnosed as coming from the light fixture on the exterior wall outside the door. The light fixture had taken years of abuse, been heavily weathered, and painted by the lazy last owner. it also had a tendency to flicker from time to time, which makes the house seem really ghetto.

I decided it was time to replace the fixture, so I went out and bought a new one, which only cost around $30.00 at home depot. While I was there, I also bought a new fixture for the back porch for $15. The back porch was mounted fine, but had stopped working a month ago, and you could get it to work for a little bit by un-mounting it and shaking it. I had verified that the wiring coming from the house was fine, so decided that I would just try replacing the fixture there too.

I got home and replace the back porch fixture very quickly and painlessly. It looked great. When I unmounted the front fixture, it was a different story. It had been poorly installed years ago because the box was too close to some of the trim on the house, and the fixture wouldn't fit over it. So instead of fixing the problem, they mounted it to the siding with a short wood screw. If you've ever played with the sidin on these houses, you know it's like thick cardboard, and that was all that was holding this thing up. (well that and the wiring :-p ) This resulted in a very poor mount, that allowed the fixture to rattle when there was the slightest vibration in the wall. It also allowed for pests to move into the electrical box. I had to remove their nests before I installed the new stuff :-/

To achieve the desired mount, I decided to remove a small section of the trim, using a dremel, so that the fixture would fit on the box correctly. It took a little extra time, but the fixture is mounted very solid, and it no longer rattles when you open and close the door.

If you look at the brown paint, that's where the old fixture was. The new brass that you see is a mount that I'm using with the new fixture. you can see where I cut out a round section of the trim to fit the fixture better.

If you look closely, you can see one old hole where the screw ripped out of the siding, and one newer hole where they repeated the same mistake a second time :)... ERRR

Here is the final result... all I have to do is touch up the paint, which will happen in the fall: