Rustic DIY wall sconce light Tutorial

Protect your table or wherever you will be working with a plastic cover. Use latex gloves to apply stain and wood sealer.

Keep all your supplies handy.

Since we are using shelf brackets, chances are there’s no hole on the top board or it’s small. So in the case that there isn’t any, mark where the hole should be. I used my wire cage as my reference.

Then use a wood board or cube to use as the base to drill the hole.

If you think the wood might crack if you drill the hole directly, make a pilot hole using a smaller drill bit. when I need to do this, I use a 2mm wood drill bit and then go for the needed size.

Your drill bit size will depend on the size of your wire.

Once you make the holes on both brackets, sand your brackets to make sure there are no splinters and smooth the surface and get it ready to stain.

Try your best to reach those hard spaces and especially on edges you should focus on.

Once you finish sanding, clean each bracket well to remove all the dust.

For this step, I strongly recommend using protective wear like a plastic apron and latex gloves to avoid unpleasant accidents with the stain.

Start staining your brackets. I did 2 coats of walnut wood stain and contrary to what I would normally do I didn’t rub a piece of cloth to remove excess of the stain. Instead, I wanted the wood to absorb all the stain.

I let it dry for about an hour or so, maybe 2, I can’t remember well. But it didn’t stain my hands when I touched it.

Then I applied mate wood sealer. I did this because I’ve experienced that wood stain tends to fade over time so I started adding an additional coat of sealer, to protect my pieces from weathering, sunlight, and humidity.

Let the sealer dry for a couple of hours (or for how long your brand suggests) and it’s time to assemble the sconce light.

Your lamp kit shouldn’t have any plug or switch installed so it fits the hole you made in the shelf bracket.

Install your lampshade on your lamp kit.

The lamp cord kit with wire cage installed for the diy wall sconce light.

If it does have them, then just separate the wire from the switch that goes to the light socket.

Insert the wire end through the bracket hole you made from the bottom up.

Then install the switch back or both switch and power plug if it’s the case like mine.

Follow switch and plug package instructions for installation as each one might be different.

Once this step is done, decide how far from the bracket you want the socket and shade to hang, and wrap the cord around and around as much as you like (or the length allows you).

Mine is a light cage and hangs about an inch away from the bracket.

You’re almost there now!

You might have your own way to install shelf brackets but to make it easy for me to know exactly where to drill the holes on the wall, I used masking tape on the back of the basket and pinched a hole on the masking tape where the holes are.

Using a level, I placed the masking tape on the wall making sure both holes were straight and leveled for the brackets.

My wall is concrete, so I drilled the holes using concrete drill bits. Drill your holes using the right drill bits for your type of wall.

Install the shelf bracket on the wall using a screwdriver or your drill.

Finally, it’s time to install the light bulb (or lightbulb? I never really know which one is).

I used a led vintage light bulb with warm light and low intensity (3.5kW – 35kW of a normal light bulb)

Plug your light and voila!!!!

Enjoy!