Repainting Exterior Lights

I needed to refinish the house lighting. It was a pretty intimidating project at first but, turns out it was not so bad.

Each light had to be sanded and wiped down. I took apart each piece, taking pictures along the way so I would not forget where each went. I used a sanding block for most pieces, starting off with a coarse grit and finishing with a fine grit, for more difficult places I had to use steel brushes. This was for crevasses and awkward spots, the base of the light post outside, for instance.

Having a habit for getting hurt and making messes with even the smallest projects - even making lunch, I made sure to wear rubber gloves and work on a table covered in layers of cardboard and newspaper. After cleaning and sanding each piece, I painted with an exterior paint. A good note is that I did remove each piece of glass so as to not mess them up.

To finish everything up, I printed out what I wanted to put on our sign and cut it into a stencil. These days you could use a Cricut printer to make a stencil or print stickers. I included a picture of the way painting the sign went. It resulted in the details being less sharp than I wanted, so I went back over them with fine paintbrushes and a toothpick.

It took some effort but, the lights came out fantastic and I'm proud of the work I did.