Repurposed Carriage Light

Good morning, At the Picket Fence friends! Redheaded Julie here with my “Repurposed Carriage Light”.

Last Summer, my Dad and I took down these rather nautical looking carriage lights from our front porch.

They still worked fine, but they looked really old and dirty. I was going to clean them and put them back up, but I opted for new ones because these were really looking bad. The wires looked worn out too, so they were becoming a fire hazard.

You see…we have a ton of trees which bring a ton of bugs to the exterior of our home. In fact, I spent last night brushing off all of our porch light fixtures. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many bugs and cobwebs. I love the trees, but they can be a nuisance.
I put the old carriage lights down in our basement and forgot about them. Until last month, I decided to bring one out and give it new life.

I knew it would make a cute rustic candle for our back yard.
I may bring it in and hang it in our kitchen because I love it so much.

I only had to do a couple things to turn this baby into a candle. First, I cleaned it off with a wet rag and pulled out the wires. Then, I painted it white with Behr Ultra Paint.

The color is Swiss Coffee. I wanted it to look rustic, so I sanded the edges with sand paper. Lastly, I had to figure out how to get a candle in there where it would get enough oxygen to stay lit. That’s when I tried a ball jar band and lid. Lucky for me, they fit the bottom perfectly. I used clear silicone caulk to glue the band in place. (The band to the lid is in there nice and snug, but the lid cap is removable-for use later.)

When the silicone dried, I put a candle inside on top of the lid and tested it. The candle didn’t stay lit for long, it needed more air. So, we decided to drill holes in the top of the light fixture and in the lid for extra air flow.

Whew! It worked.

We have friends over for bonfires on occasion, so this was perfect for our back yard. While playing around with this “Repurposed Carriage Light”, I came up with a couple more ways to use it. As I mentioned earlier, the lid is removable.

This came in very handily for other ideas I had for this carriage light. I’m sharing those ideas this Friday on redheadcandecorate.com.

Hope to see you there!

By the way, here’s the new carriage lights.

What do you think?

(this was our porch last Halloween-I’m still in Summer mode)